Cut and Collage

Carrying on from my Sue Benner class post, our third piece was a Cut and Collage.  After all that fusing and cutting, each of us had a number of small left over fused fabrics that we could free hand cut into small squares, rectangles, and strips.  Using parchment paper as a base, we arranged these cut leftovers into a collage that was pleasing and balanced.  Applied an iron and presto, the pieces all stuck together as one and were now ready to apply to a background fabric.  I created several.  Here are two of them. 

I think these two, along with several others, will be used to create a wearable item; maybe a vest or a bag…hmm will have to think about that.  I did another piece in some different colours and liked the look of it on a hand dyed background my friend graciously gave to me.  This one is going to hang on the wall just as soon as I get it quilted.

Our final goal was to create a landscape piece from strips of fabric.  We had been asked to bring along pictures for inspiration.  I brought along this postcard.

and had to proportionally enlarge it.  Hmm… I was running out of leftovers so the piece could not be too much larger.  I decided to try for something just a bit bigger.  Here is how it looks right now.  

Still needs some work on it, (like the palm trees) but that shouldn't take long.  Another piece for the quilting pile.  Now I just have to finish the piece I was working on in my second session at Asilomar.

Rectangles and Curves

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had taken a workshop with Sue Benner at Asilomar during the Empty Spools Seminars.  That was back in February.  If you ever get a chance, take a class from Sue.  She made the class exciting, inspirational and had a lot of information to pass along.

During the four and a half days with Sue we created four small pieces relating to a specific design setting.  As with any workshop we were to bring along fabric, but we were told not to limit ourselves to just cotton.  So I brought along, black velvet, jacquard, hand painted cotton, upholstery fabric and some silk.  The hand painted cotton was some of the fabrics that I posted about here.  The jacquard was also fabric that I had painted and stamped.  Here’s a shot of it.

Our goal for the session was to create four small wall hangings.  Each would be an example of a particular design style; rectilinear, curvilinear, cut and collage, and landscape.

After selecting our fabric pieces, we fused the back of each with Wonder Under, cut each of the fabrics into rectangles, and cut the rectangles into frames.  Whew!!! That was a lot of cutting and all done without a ruler.  Yup!  That’s right.  Freehand cut frames!! We did some shuffling, fused the frames and rectangles together and the piece was ready to sandwich.  Using Sue’s technique for sandwiching (sorry I promised not to post about that) my piece is now ready for quilting.  Here is what it looks like so far.  Any suggestions for quilting?

Our second piece was a curvilinear piece.  Oh no!  Not curves!!!  As it turned out, these again were created by fusing a selection of fabrics, cutting freehand and fusing to a background.  The object here was to create a piece in such a way as at create the perception of a background, mid-ground and foreground, with curved pieces.  This was a tough one.  Here is my result. 

I think I need to try this again.  I’m not sure I have created the depth perception that Sue was trying to get us to do.  Any thoughts?  I will post in a day or two about the remaining two pieces that we tackled.

Tumbling with Artistic Licence

It's taken me some time to come up with an idea for the Tangled Textiles challenge theme "Artistic License".  From the time it was announced by Judy, several events have intervened and now I'm late.  I've been away (more about that in another post).  Oh well, best get on with it.

I had attended another session at Asilomar this year and took a class with Sue Benner.  Her class was a study in rectilinear, curvilinear, and cut and collage design.  It was while working on my rectilinear design that my idea came to me for Artistic License.  My rectilinear piece had blocks that looked like they were tumbling.

The way my mind works, one thing lead to another and before I knew it, other block settings were brought to mind, in particular Tumbling Blocks.  I viewed many settings of this particular quilt block and even noticed that the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky has a contest entitled "New Quilts From An Old Favorite".  Tumbling Block had been chosen for the 2002 contest.

Artistic License gives me the freedom to take something, change it, and still have it be recognizable.  How to portray Tumbling Blocks differently and still make sense.  At the same time use what I learned in Sue Benner's class and change it.

First I made a staircase using rail fence blocks with this fabric.

 

Next I chose a variety of fabrics like jacquard, gold lame and fabric I had painted.  I cut these into squares and frames, fused them together

 and fused them onto the background.  

Although I had placed some of the blocks to appear as though they were tipping off of the edge of the stairs, it still needed something more.  Quilting would do the trick and perhaps a few smaller squares to look as though they were tumbling out of their "parent".

 So after some initial tweeking (read that as reverse stitching) here is the resulting piece.

Taking artistic license a bit further, I've called it Blocks Tumbling...go figure... Oh well for what it's worth, there it is.  Go on over to Tangled Textiles blog and see what the others did.