I had a Focus meeting this week. I have belonged to this art quilting group for a very long time but have missed so many meetings for the past year. This was the first time in months that I was able to attend. I will have photos of the meeting later. Diana Pickens is a member of Focus and an accomplished quilter. I took my
Sunburst quilt that I blogged about last week and she gave me so options that might help the warping that this piece is experiencing. The first think I have to do is de-stitch, this is becoming a favorite non-word for me recently, the center of the sunflower. I have decided that I am so frustrated with this piece that I have to put it away for a while. I have several road trips coming up and plan to take it with me to de-stitch during the ride.
I have become rather infatuated recently with the method called confetti. I have only seen photos of quilts done in this technique but have no idea how to proceed. Here we go again.
I have a photograph that I took years ago in AL of a caterpillar that was used on the back-flap of the SC magazine
Sandlapper. I have always loved this photograph and wanted to create a piece of fiber art using this image.
I recently finished a piece titled
The Stripper. It was in response to
challenge from my
HiFiber art group.
The final version.
After I finished this piece I sent a copy to my son who is an Entomologist and he informed me that the caterpillar in this photo was not a Monarch but a Spice Swallowtail. So to pretend that I knew what I was doing I changed the caterpillar to the correct likeness. Shown above.
I still wanted to create a piece using this caterpillar so I am beginning a new piece using the confetti technique. I used my rotary cutter to cut lots and lots of little pieces, confetti, and placed them into plastic bags. I then posterized my color image so that I would see blobs of color and give me an idea of where to place the confetti.
I really didn't know where to start, I had Googled the technique but had not found anything that I though would be helpful. Soooooo, I just plunged right in. I had a wonderful piece of green variegated green batik that went from light to dark. I placed it on my work table and began applying pieces of color to the general area of color in the photograph. So far I'm happy.
I'm still happy in fact I'm loving this. It''s been too long since I've been creating.
But, all of a sudden I begin to wonder how am I going to get this piece from the table to the sewing machine? There is no glue, no fuse, nothing to hold it down. I do know that I should place tulle over the finished image and pin but that will never be enough.
I called my friend, Ann and asked if she had any books on this technique. She had
Confetti Naturescpes by Noriko Endo. It is a beautiful book, as is her work, but it doesn't really help me with my dilemma. Here I go again.
Noriko places her confetti on batting which would hold the fabric a little but I want to use the green batik. I have thought of spraying with 505 and that would help a little. Any suggestions out there?
This post is linked to
www.ninamariesayre.blogspot.com
Take a look at Cindy Walter's snippet technique. She uses fusible. Of course you would have to fuse and recut your small pieces, but you could eliminate the tulle.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tricia, I already have a lot of the fabric cut into tiny pieces. It would also be hard to make sure the pieces were all fuse side down.
DeleteSprinkle Bo-Nash powder in sections of color and fuse that way. It won't eliminate the need for the tulle, but it should hold things together long enough to sew. Another option would be to cover with water-soluble stabilizer,spritz it until it melted enough to hold things down and then sew. Soaking the piece afterwards would then remove the stabilizer...and if you used tulle on that, nothing un-sewn would float away!
ReplyDeleteKathy thanks for this suggestion, I have never used Bo-Nash and do not have access to any at the moment. I will check it out at the GA Quilt show next month. I think this mightbe a good solution for me. I'm really psyched out about this
DeleteI would add a layer of solvy (or similar product) on top of the snippets and stitch all the snippets in place using freemotion stitching. You can either use a clear nylon thread or match the thread to the background. Dissolve the solvy once you're pretty sure the majority of the snippets have been caught. More stitching can be done later.
ReplyDeleteJudy, thanks for this suggestion. I think that the tulle will do the same thing ans I like the subtle changes that the tulle makes. I'll let everyone know what I decide to use and how it works.
DeleteDuuuuh - oh yes, I see your problem ! I guess I would try to get away with the tulle on top, which would mean endless pinning. Maybe you could try to use some 505 on top of the snippets, than the tulle, than pins - maybe that would work? Keep us posted, please ;-))
ReplyDeleteI thought about 505 but felt that it would blow the little bits all over the place. I think I have the solution. Will post later this week.
ReplyDelete