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Rituals, #2: Strength and Calm
Fairly early in the fusing process for Strength and Calm
We left off with Strength and Calm at the stage above. Then I added more, a lot more, of the background. I was on such a roll that in fact I forgot to take photos until I got to here:
Background almost all fused up, and not yet trimmed--you can see to the left some of the sketches pinned to the wall. You can also see a sliver of light blue added to the standing leg of the smaller figure to help that leg not visually merge into the figure behind.
Next step was to decide what to do with the other four figures. By this point I was certain I did not want to get complicated. It would be an outline shape of some sort. I thought solid fabric, like a batik or hand-dyed, would mooosh into the background too much, and simply outline quilting might not stand out enough, and I didn’t want to paint. So I took out some of my sheer fabrics. These are the cheap-o prom dress synthetic sheers you can find at places like JoAnn Fabrics, which go on sale right after prom season (making it a good time to stock up).
Test-driving various sheers to see how they would look on the background. I ended up selecting two blues and two peach/pink tones.
A while back I developed a way to work with pre-fused sheer fabrics using my stencil cutting hot-tool and an old storm window.
First, I place the inked-outline drawing on the table, with the storm window on top. Then I place the pre-fused sheer fabric on top of the window. On this one, I have begun "cutting" with the heat tool by drawing the top along the right side of her legs.
The exact length of time depends on the heat of the stencil cutting tool and the fabric. If you go too slow, you get a blobby, black nubby icky edge with pock marks. If you go too fast, you don’t cut-and-sear/seal the edges and have to go back over it, risking the icky edge with pock marks. And it takes a bit of breath holding and lip-biting and twisting of the mouth to get the cuts done just right. And wine after.
More cutting done. As you cut/melt the synthetic fabric, the MistyFuse on the back sticks slightly to the glass, making it easier to cut the remaining edges. And notice that red circle at the top of the photo...that's my bolt of MistyFuseUV. Thank you to Iris Karp of MistyFuse.... LOVE it!
Done...with a scrap overlapping at her heel.
Next, I fused these sheer figures to the quilt and stitched them in place with 40-wt polyester thread. Really liked the simplicity and not my usual quilt-every-inch style.
After I got it partly quilted, I decided I wanted to fuse the sheer down a bit better and melt the MistyFuse to invisibility. However, I had just entered the studio and turned on the iron and forgot to turn it DOWN to synthetic instead of cotton. Ooooops. Melting happened.
See where I melted the sheer by just grazing a set-to-cotton iron over it? Grumble.
And a bit of swearing at my own stupidity happened—see I know I need to turn the heat down and go slowly carefully when fusing sheer synthetics. I wondered if the mess-up was too visible or if I could leave it and asked some friends. Some said not visible really, leave it. But I knew I needed to fix it. So I carefully (with a HUGE holding of breath) took the heat-tool to the quilt (!!!!!) and “cut” the section of lower-body/hip out, cut a new piece of synthetic–thank heavens I had enough!–fused that onto the excised section and re-stitched. Fortunately, I did well enough it doesn’t show.
Fixed. And if I kept my mouth shut you wouldn't know. I hope!
Thereby proving my saying that the difference between a beginner and an expert is that the expert either doesn’t make the mistakes because they’ve made them in the past OR they’ve learned how to FIX the mistake so that you can’t see it. Unless you blog about it for the whole world to see. Ahem. Last post in this series will (finally) show the finished quilt!
March 11th, 2012 at 8:05 am
I won’t tell anybody!
March 11th, 2012 at 9:01 am
This is just amazing. I love how your mind works. I would never have thought of the sheer figures but it so works, especially for yoga.
March 11th, 2012 at 10:11 am
They say confession is good for the soul. Guess yours is in pretty good shape!
March 11th, 2012 at 11:30 am
And the difference between a beginner and an expert is that the expert feels comfortable enough about their art to talk about the mistakes and how they reconciled them. (Not not fix, as some mistakes don’t get fixed, but incorporated into the art.) You are definitely an expert on all levels!
March 18th, 2012 at 1:59 am
Now I’m going for the wine… I was reading through this and so enjoying the description of your technique and your insights and exacting standard and then BAM! Oh my heart skipped a beat when I read and saw what happened! But then I kept reading–a little faster….and well now I’m off for that glass of wine. I don’t usually have a nightcap but there’s always a first time!