Kirigami #1-Finished

Last week I blogged about a new experimental quilt I was working on using the laser cutter and today I'm here to follow-up with the final piece.

I decided to mount it on a piece of wood, both so that the white wall wouldn't show through and to give it some structural stability.  I mentioned in the last post that even with fabric stiffener the fabric loops were floppy, so mounting it on wood (with little finishing nails) really helped.  Of course I have no pictures of the second half of in progress stuff, and not even very many details, so blogger fail.  And of course now the quilt is at my mother's since she will have to take it to Santa Fe if it gets into the show.

It's definitely very abstract, and my mom and I brainstormed for a title for quite a while.  It makes me think of baskets, and fantasy world shields, and star wars hair, but none of those things seemed like they'd make good titles.  Finally I decided to just go with Kirigami #1 since I expect I'll make a few more in this vein as we go forward!

Kirigami #1, c. 2020 Shannon Conley, 36 x 18, photo Mike Cox

The edge is finished with a couched yarn.

New Quilt-Kirigami

This April our small group of mixed media and fiber artists is having another show at the New Mexico State Capitol, so I've been working on new dimensional and sculptural pieces for it.  This piece is one of the ones for that show.

I was inspired by the Japanese art of Kirigami, the art of paper folding and cutting.  There is some really fascinating geometry as well as interesting shapes you can make and I wanted to see if I could do anything with a quilt!

I started by painting this pink silky fabric for the front and green fabric for the back (of course I didn't have any pictures of it painted), and then free motion quilted the whole thing.  I took the unfinished quilt to the laser cutter down in Norman at the maker space, and cut out a kirigami pattern.  Of course (my trial and tribulation), fabric is pretty floppy so it didn't hold its shape like I wanted!

the laser cutter at work.

 Floppy!!

Even with fabric stiffener (which helped), it needed a pin on each loop to hold the shape.  I've also realized over time, that while I like things with cutouts, I don't always want the back wall shining through.  Sometimes that's ok, but not always.  For example here the white wall (even if it wasn't stained) wouldn't really go with the piece.  Check back on Monday to see the final piece and how I resolved the flopping issue!