Milkweed No. 2 is headed to Australia
Thursday, February 4th, 2016I’m delighted to share that my most recent art quilt, Milkweed No. 2, has been selected to be in Brenda Gael Smith’s current exhibit, A Matter of Time, and is en route to Australia! Brenda is giving us all sneak peeks at the artworks in her blogpost series called “Just a Moment” here.
Apparently I mostly forgot to take in progress photos (!!!) while I was making Milkweed No. 2, so I will share one or two in progress shots from the making off Milkweed No. 1 (which I have not yet shared in public…stay tuned for that in a few weeks) in this and in a second post about my process.
As usual, I began with an idea (more like an obsession with milkweed pods) and dyeing fabric. I had plenty of batiks and some of my own hand-dyes but needed more for the sky. I decided to dye some cotton duck for the backing, as well.
I use the cotton duck as a stabilizer. It helps reduce shrinkage and the artwork hangs beautifully, although it isn’t as easy to handle under the needle as a lightweight fabric. It is worth the trade-off! I wrote an article about my process for Machine Quilting Unlimited and blogged about that here.
Next, using Mistyfuse (by far the softest hand, easiest to use, never “ages out”) adhesive / fusible web, I prepare my fabrics for collaging. My video workshop (here on my site and available as a download here from Interweave) shows this part of the process, plus a lot more. Anyway, I use my “stash” of fused pieces, but always end up adding more bits for a given piece.
Next, I start the fusing process. In this shot, I’m working on the sky for Milkweed No. 1 (larger, landscape orientation), but I used exactly the same process on this piece.
I then did a bit of surface design including stenciling and screen-printing using thermofax screens (details in my next post). Finally, I quilted my piece. Aren’t the colors just glorious? And yes, bright purple works in a seed pod!
I’ll be back in a few days with more on the processes using paint! Remember, visit A Matter of Time here and the “Just a Moment” previews blogposts about the various artists and artworks here.