Deep Sea Ballet in Fiber - Scene One

Several years ago I started a 40+" x 40"+ whole cloth quilt that was a lot of fun creating.  Somehow other projects including shows and exhibits intervened and it was set aside and became one of those UFO's (unfinished objects) that I promised to get back to one day.

This has been the week to set about finishing the work.  Because it may be in a very large exhibit for the entire month of August, 2015, I am only going to show elements of it until the exhibit is past.

I first designed and hand cut a freezer paper stencil of two kelp images. each with two branches and then painted the images onto the commercial background fabric with fabric paint.

You may be able to see that I inserted cording between the top and the batting and then stitched on either side of the cording.  This is just one small area of the quilt.

At the time I was originally working on this, I was also exploring needle punching with a battery operated needle punch machine that I purchased from Keeling's Krafts and created three fairly large needle punch fish onto the quilt top.  This was done before the quilt top was added to batting and a backing.  Here is one of the fish images.

To add another type of kelp flora, I cut strips of an old stretchy type garment and then slashed it up and down the strip length.  This element rises from what will be the sea floor.  It is only stitched along the middle of the strip from top to bottom.  The edges are left free to create a feeling of movement.

I'm actually becoming quite excited about the way that this work is developing and it's all I can do to hold back sharing the entire piece. The next post will show another element though.

Should you happen to be in the Orange County area in California during the month of August, you might enjoy visiting the Mission Viejo Library where this work will be exhibited and where each of us in the Beyond the Edge Fiber Artists group will have a full 11'x8' of wall space for our works.  There are 10 of us in the group so it promises to be a spectacular exhibit.

I'll be BAAAAAAAAACK...

Always remember, never fear to experiment.  

Sometimes wonderful things happen.

© Linda Friedman 2015.  All rights reserved