Experimental cabbages

Another project on the long list of things I'm supposed to be doing for a group exhibition in November is an embroidery based on a visit to Merriments Gardens.  Unfortunately on the day we visited in July, we had only just made it past the ornamental cabbages when it started to bucket with rain:

And with only photos of cabbages for inspiration, the other limiting factor in this challenge is that is has to be "abstract". 

Oh, it will be abstract all right.

I'd been toying with the idea of stitching on a sandwich of papers and water soluble fabric, then giving it all a jolly good scrub in the sink and seeing what's left.  I thought I would start with a small experimental piece of stitching just to try it out, but ended up stitching my cabbages:

I did it all quite quickly, then soaked and squidged it and put it on a tray with some watered down purple Brusho, and left it to dry on a piece of plastic*:

Hmmm.  I wasn't too sure at this stage but I couldn't wait for it to dry naturally, so I went at it with a hairdryer.

This is the end result just sitting on top of a piece of coloured card for now.

If I put a little more thought into it, I might do each leaf separately. 

And if I don't get round to doing any more, I reckon I'm quite pleased with it anyway.

* thick black horticultural plastic, cut into A3 pieces - jolly useful stuff