Wednesday, August 7, 2013

WIP: Replacement for Identity

In the aftermath of the wretchedness that was the thumbprint quilt last week, I decided to put that whole idea on the back burner.  I did get some helpful suggestions including painting it and/or leaving it as is and pretending it was a werewolf scratch (which made me giggle).  My favorite was my dad's comment- he said it was like the old bad joke, what's black and white and red all over?  Answer: a newspaper (or in this case over 100 black and white books).

While I let that simmer though, I started working on another quilt for the black+white+one color challenge.  I decided to move away from pink and use gold as my color instead.  I found a small drawing in my sketchbook based on a Greek element in "Styles of Ornament" by Spelz.  As an aside: for anyone who doesn't know about it, this book is filled with wonderful design elements from over three thousand years of art and architecture. There are lots of used copies for pretty cheap on Amazon, my grandfather had a copy from his days doing stage design and my mom has it now.  So many of the designs are great for quilty inspiration.

Anyway, I elaborated my sketch, got something I liked and made it into a full size paper pattern. I pulled out all my gold silky/brocade apparel fabrics and backed them with fusible on which I'd traced the shape of the peice.  After cutting each piece out (with scissors) I sealed all of the edges with my woodburning tool so they're smooth and not ravelly.

After assembling everything, I decided I'd do some faux trapunto so I put a layer of batting (no backing) and quilted around the gold motif with water soluble thread.  Currently I'm working on putting some quilting on the gold sections (just on the first layer of batting) prior to trimming the excess batting off and layering for regular quilting.





I'm already so much more excited about this than the thumb print project, even if it doesn't turn out perfect, at least I'm enjoying the process!

Linking up with Lee and Nina-Marie as always.

7 comments:

  1. Gorgeous! The fabrics and quilting really do give the effect of beaten gold ornamentation.

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  2. Wow, beautiful and intricate. That is really cool.

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  3. Lovely fabrics. Lovely quilting. Gorgeous!

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  4. Very nice! I like how you put the background as black and white - both sides give a different "feel"

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