If this quilt could mount a verbal protest, several times since 2015 it would have complained ” Why don’t you ever take me along to be photographed, too?” But I found this one was not on the record anywhere, and took it along for photography when I had other things done recently:
Artist friend Kathy Loomis of KY, USA, suggested I should call this “Slide Show”!!! Love it , and at least this work has a name, which it’s successor doesn’t yet!
Centre fabric squares fused to squares of nylon-backed Mylar, and diagonal strips also fused.
Question – why did it take so long to photograph and record in my comprehensive illustrated catalogue? Answer – simply because I made it for a particular spot in our house, the baño social a.k.a. powder room, downstairs loo etc., and put it up immediately. I’ve frequently looked at it, and seeing this image of it reminds me it really is something interesting that I’m proud of. Somehow in the following years I never thought to take it down to take it down for photography, until I replaced it recently with a newer quilt, which has also not yet been professionally photographed! So I’ll put it in with the next couple of works I have photographed in a few months’ time. Until then, here’s my own inadequate photography of that newest work – I just could not get the colours of the quilt AND the wall colour to both be right at the same time 😉 but the true colour of the wall is a pale sandy white colour called “Porcelain”, which is pretty apt!!!
Working title “neon stitched fused organza squares”
Further to my One Teacher Can be So Influential post a couple of weeks ago, I’ve continued experimenting and made a couple of pieces inspired by ideas in that recent Stitch Club workshop.
Last time I was up in the USA, I bought some heavy duty plastic sheeting of the type that new pillows are contained in, or that some people and libraries use to cover books. I had been intending to experiment with ‘sheer’ ideas, but had done little with the 3m x 1.5m stuff except learn that it is impossible to sew with on my domestic machine, at least. Jessica Grady’s Stitch Club workshop included ideas for encasing snippets of fabric and threads in recycled plastic particularly bubble wrap – and ironing it to melt/bond the sheets together using baking parchment or Teflon. I have a large sheet of Teflon, and the clear smooth plastic beckoned to me as something that in some ways could be regarded as an unwoven fabric. My wonderful domestic Bernina doesn’t sew it well, though, so it’s only useful for hand sewing. And, of course, like stitching on paper, if you need to unpick something it leaves holes, which can be re-used, of course, and I haven’t found that to be a problem.
First is a smallish piece, as yet untitled, featuring appliqued ‘blocks’ of gold lame triangles and threads trapped in plastic, hand stitched in gold and the hand quilting’s in thick and fine gold threads. The 40cm size is to meet a particular call for entry.
Untitled – another smallish square piece, 40cm.sq.
In progress, on 1m sq. of light grey sateen, ~6cm” blocks containing triangles of silk organza and neon threads – which are difficult to get right for colour, but you get the idea. The fine stitching line is a placement guide only and will shortly be removed once quilting is far enough advanced to get rid of it.
Finally this one, using only woven fabric. pieces overlapping and hand stitched down. I decided to use this technique in the 12″ mini quilt I always make for the SAQA Benefit Auction in September. Using vibrant blues and greens against a black background, and neon green thread, this turned out to be very satisfying, and I’m thinking something bigger. It’s also untitled – naming these pieces might prove the hardest part 🙂 as the techniques themselves are not difficult.
Pictured before the binding went onto this 12″ mini quilt, a fine black binding has since been added at the stitched boundary line. I’ll post a better photo closer to the SAQA Benefit Auction in September.
Finally, two samples from the last week – first, triangles and squares of Mylar (cut up sachets that contain my fav. tea bags) I drink 3-5 cups of tea most days, so I have a good supply, and until Jessica’s workshop had been saving all the tea bag envelopes for a kindergarten teacher who’s a friend of one of my friends, also Alison. But my friend Alison was away for 3+months, during which time they accumulated wonderfully, but also we had Jessica’s workshop, so I’ve retained the lot for the moment. As usual for me, I’m thinking of something ‘big’.
I’ve always loved the glitter of gold and the preciousness of this metal associated with glamour, prestige, and wealth. While I was still in early primary/grade school, Mum transformed a plain, black, very fine wool knit top with 3/4 sleeves and scooped neck, into a very glamourous evening top by outlining diamond shapes around the neckline with gold sequins, and then filling in those in the shapes with tiny gold-coppery seed beads. It was stunningly elegant, and she wore it at night for many years. My geologist husband has spent much of his professional life searching for and finding economic gold bearing mineral deposits. Our wedding rings and some special jewellery pieces are gold, and some of my favourite shoes down the years have been gold:
Immediately after we married, we moved to the Eastern Goldfields of West Australia, to the southern end of the mining city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, where gold has been mined continuously since it was first discovered there in 1893. It was so rich it quickly became known as The Golden Mile and attracted people from around the world. Since the late 1980s that rich zone just east of the cities has been mined in a vast open pit project ~3.5km x ~600m depth. Where we used to live and various historic mines that operated for many decades on that mineral rich zone operated have all been swallowed up in this vast hole, the Kalgoorlie Super Pit. But up until that project began, people used to go out after a good rain to fossick for gold in amongst the mine dumps very close to town, and for those with sharp eyesight and patience, finger-nail sized flakes and nuggets the size of a matchhead and smaller could be found glinting on the still damp soil. It’s true that once you get your eye in and see a matchhead sized piece of gold shining against that background, it’s as bright and obvious as a lighthouse beacon. That’s pretty exciting, and then it’s easy to understand how people get ‘gold fever’.
One nice sunny morning in 1985, probably, and certainly pre-mobile phone days, Mike dropped me off for a few hours’ fossicking out on an open area between the slime dumps, planning to return to collect me around mid day. After an hour so so, some people arrived nearby and began shooting at something – rabbits? tin cans? That flat barren landscape had suddenly become a shooting range! and I wasn’t sure whether to stand up and wave my arms to make myself obvious (a warning or a better target?) or curl into what might look like a rock from a distance. As I’m here to tell this tale, either I did the rock thing or lay down flat with my fingers crossed; and after what seemed like several anxious hours (but was probably only half an hour) they moved off and all was quiet again. Somewhere in storage we have a matchbox containing litle flakes and tiny nuggets we’ve both found.
So, you see, I have a thing about gold, and periodically feel a call to work with black and metallic gold together. I recently finished this small square piece to meet a particular call for entry:
Untitled, 2022, 40cm.sq.
but it’s only the latest in a series of black and gold works, including these:
Light gold hand applique on black, work in progress, completed 2021. ~190cm x 90cm
Timetracks 1, 2006 100cm x 109cm (gold leather on black.)
Timetracks 1, 2006, close detail – hand stitched.
Timetracks 15, 2009. 225cm x 125cm. Mixed media.
Timetracks 15m, close detail: black cotton, gold lame, nylon organza, burned.
I’m hoping to finish this mosaic-pavement kind of construction referred to in the previous post on Jessica Hardy’s Stitch club workshop – only about 25 more little pieces to be sewn on ! and then a border or edge – and I’ve now decided on what to do.
In addition though, in the last 10 days I’ve been following more ideas that emerged after Jessica’s workshop, but because of a maddening domain problem, haven’t been able to access my blog, until today when at last all is well.
I’m currently spending a few minutes, or half and hour most days in another of those daily creativity exercise thingies with SAQA, similar to but shorter than last year’s 100 days one. This runs Jan 20th – Mar 20th. I haven’t had a particular theme this time, just showing a little of whatever I’ve been doing, including experimenting with some ideas from that workshop, like the ones pictured below. They’re made using fabric or Mylar, snippets of these things and threads, sandwiched between layers of plastic which are then ironed to capture the bits and pieces.
Among the earliest results with this technique, are threads plus a square of Mylar (L) and fabric (R) sandwiched between layers, which were ironed over between Teflon sheets. The Mylar one buckled and lost it’s sheen with the heat, but a later sample in which I ironed around the edges only, preserved the beautiful mirror like surface. Their simplicity is satisfying.
The next two images are based on the traditional patchwork blockA Square in A Square, surrounded by snippets of fabric and threads:
Gold lame, frayed threads and tiny snippets, ~6cm.sq.
Fabric squares in the background (L) and foreground (R) Is there a ‘right’ side? Each unit ~5-6cm
Using one of my favourite repeat units/blocks, I did this orange neon fabric square in a square with orange threads in the background. It’s ~6.5cm sq.
Following on from a terrific workshop I’ve been doing in The Stitch Club with Jessica Grady, I used one of the ideas I picked up in that to use for my offering for the annual SAQA Benefit Auction quilt, which I normally make in this quiet early part of the new year. Of course, until the pandemic burns out things will continue to be a bit quiet, but anyway I’m striking while the iron’s hot.
Jessica’s workshop was on making our own embellishments, which she lumps together in her umbrella term ‘sequins’, though they don’t necessarily glitter – we made them from bits of rubbish really – discarded packaging materials, plastic, printed material, different fabric scraps particularly lace, and bits of party glitter fabric, buttons, thin sheet metals and in my case, mylar tea bag sachets, and capturing ‘things, snippets, bits and pieces’ between heated layers of bubble wrap, all quite fascinating and had us all checking the contents of our recycling bins with fresh eyes. Though for the most part I have not needed to buy any materials for these Stitch Club workshops, it was nice to have a good variety of useful stuff I could gather in just a few minutes’ rummaging in my sewing room and stash.
One of the other students did a lovely kind of mosaic-pavement layout from pieces of glossy finished fine card, and hand sewed all the pieces down in a kind of pavement, a mosaic, of hand applique using bright embroidery threads. It struck me this would be an interesting thing to try with fabric scraps and snippets from my copious scrap bags – so I did a little sample to capture that idea, and then a few days later set about seriously using it. It is fairly time consuming – so far in about 7-8 hours’ stitching I’ve covered perhaps 40% of the surface area by stitching on each piece with straight stitches, finishing with a french knot in the centre before tying off at the back, using the neon green thread of which I still have copious quantities. The border or edge treatment is still challenging me…
Essentially this is quilting by applique, and leads to this very interesting back!! It’s clear though that whether I use a thin batting or not, there will need to be a piece of fabric on the back of the quilt with some minimal quilting of some kind holding the front and back layers together.
These lines are of both stitches and snipped off ends – it’s a gorgeous pattern.
