Melanie - Bridges
I had a piece of hand dyed fabric with some of the green/blue color in it and decided to use it as the background. I cut the paper straps with a pinking bladed rotary cutter, then cut some black fabric with it to create shadows. I left the gold seals on the strap edges. The result looked sort of like floating architecture to me so I named it "Bridges."
I decided to play with some of my unusual and upholstery fabrics. I spent some time cutting up lots of fabric and composing on my kitchen counter. In the end I created a raw edge landscape composed free form as I went using a glue stick to hold it all in place. The shape of the piece just flowed as I pieced and I like the irregular way it turned out. The green strapping appears in 2 of the layers. I placed the gold seal in the sky. The sky fabric is a piece of hand dyed indigo I made a while back
Cather - Untitled
I pieced in the green strapping along with some other odd pieces I had saved. There is some paisley, batik and velvet in here and even some pieces of a woman's pants I cut off to shorten. Some of the fabric is stamped with glittery ink using a feather stamp I carved. I couched embroidery floss in with the quilting.
I cut out Chinese symbols from my green paper. The symbols mean "Dream." I used some hand dyed fabric for the base, then added threads, fabric snippets and scraps to create a background with lots of energy. I placed pale green tulle over the entire piece to hold it all together and give another layer of interest.
I cut pieces of the paper strips, placed on white fabric and sprayed them with water. After a while, the color leached out on to the fabric and "dyed" it in interesting patterns. There is no piecing, the patterning is created entirely from the ink in the paper. The heart motif was created with a product called Ver Day paint & patina. It is a metallic paint that develops a patina when sprayed with the companion liquid. It comes in copper, bronze and other metals. The keys and tiny nuts were found objects.
This piece is not quilted fiber art. It is a collage behind glass. I asked my son to write whatever came into his head on the green paper strips given to us. He wrote some interesting things about talking to God. That inspired me to add other iconic religious images. As my friends know, I am fascinated by religious icons in art.
