"Above Eden" - How it all began...

"Above Eden"

Like most fiber artists I am an ardent "collector" of scraps, remnants and anything that might someday make its way into a new work.  Nothing with potential ever finds its way to the circular file.  Thus, "Above Eden" had its beginning long before a stitch was sewn.  Here's how it all started...

1.

Left over hand dyed and hand painted strips of fabric from another work.

 

2.

Two small silk screens used in previous works

3.

Pattern for gold foil bird image copied from original silk screen image

4.

Gold foiled bird image fused to fabric and tree image screened onto fabric

5.

Quilting begins with the tree image and some sky background (note red apple of shiny, red puff paint)

It might be worth noting here that the sky background for the bird and tree was created from hand dyed fabric with over printed stamped images from a craft foam stamp that I made a long time ago.

6.

Bird machine appliqued with continuation of sky background quilting

7.

Quilting the sashings

8.

Small elements created as accent elements

9.

Gel medium painted onto sides of small quilted elements to prevent fraying

10.

Small quilted element top stitched onto quilt

11.

 

 

Fabric altered to create cohesive binding

Yet another note...Since all the original sashing strips had used up that fabric, I was in a dilemma over what fabric to use for the binding.  My stash was not yielding any color that worked, but I did find a blue-blue that did not clash.  The problem was that it drabbed down the entire quilt so I set about altering it by first discharging some of the color with a Clorox bleach pen gel, neutralizing it so the bleach would not eat holes in the fabric.  Once the fabric had dried, I overpainted it with swish-swashes of Setacolor white fabric paint.

12.

Altered fabric ready to cut for binding

13.

Binding on right side of quilt

Binding on back side of quilt

14.

(Back of quilt)

And there you have it...

"Above Eden"--How it all began and how it ended :-)