On one of the email lists of art quilters to which I subscribe, a current topic is various ways one can/might get a print from a spiders’ web, to use in/on an art quilt.

Having a real thing about spiders – yes I know, it’s called arachnophobia and I have it in spades – I can’t imagine anything more creepy than handling an actual web in any way at all to get a ‘print’ directly from it.

For me there are two options – either trace a really beautiful photograph of a web or many webs – make your own photographic study even – or study one/several and draw one freehand. Then, if you want this on fabric there are plenty of ways to get the essence down on fabric. Sparkle can be added with very fine beads, or metallic thread… and so on. To make my point I announced to the list I’d immediately go and do a few experiments, would give myself no more than threee hours, and despite the results, good bad or indifferent, would post pics and comments up on my blog. Well, it’s been an hour and a quarter or so as I write this, the results are up, below, and I think I have made my point to my satisfaction. And that point is, in the ongoing search to overcome technical challenges, add a Gee Whizz factor, many art quilters often skip over a more obvious, easier method through which to express themselves….IMHO, anyway.

On cream nylon organza, photgraphed against plain white paper

A this web was drawn freehand with very fine black permanent marker pen.

B this web, on the rhs, was drawn freehand with a silver gel tip pen. The right hand portion was gone over a second time, but even the darker version is very washed out.

Both versions provide a very ephemeral look…. 

On dark green plain fabric, the silver gel tip pen comes up well.
Drawn freehand, mostly single dots, but the section uppermost, ie between 12 and 1-30, has been gone over with some dots being re-dabbed. 

Silver gel tip pen on leather – white would also do it. A combination of dots and short dashes here .

Working from a tracing of a particularly beautiful photograph and therefore taking more time, but using nothing more sophisticated than tracing paper and the gel tip pen, I think the effects could be incredible and well worth the extra effort. 

A wandering running stitch with a french knot every now and then. Once the edges were turned in with running stitch, the rest of the design was less fiddly. I just love the knot texture. However, although I am not going to unpick what I have done, I now know that for the next one, I will join each thread with a large knot on the outside, and threads hanging, or maybe not, and all that will become part of the texture.

Why? well I don’t really like how the ends, which I have very carefully joined and darned in, jolly well show through the fine silk fabric, anyway.