A few months ago, I took a workshop from Laura Cater-Woods called Off the Wall and Onto the Page. The idea is to create a set of panels that can sit on a tabletop, rather than hang on the wall.
Even though my creation is still hanging on the wall, I had a great time making it. Each panel is about 6” x 8” and is made of 2 layers of fast2fuse. I started by ironing a piece of hand-painted fabric to each panel, and then started to play with the different materials I had brought to the workshop: Silk rods** that I had unrolled and painted, dyed soy-silk roving, assorted beads, and embroidery floss. I also used Bonash (a powdered fusible product) and foil that Laura had brought.
** Silk rods are created when the silk is unwound from the cocoons—in the process, the silk goes over a metal rod, and silk builds up around it. The silk tube is cut off and sold, usually in packages. I think I got mine from Treenway Silks.
I didn’t have a plan in mind, I just placed things, played around with the placement, and decided whether or not I liked what was happening.
To finish off the pieces, I used some silk that was left over from my Silk Shibori quilt. I ironed fusible web to the fabric, cut it with a wavy blade in my rotary cutter, and wrapped and fused it on for binding. With a quick topstitching, I was done.
Almost done, that is. I don’t know about you, but I’m horrible at coming up with names for my work, and can’t think of what to name this. Any suggestions?
Silk rods and soy-silk roving stitched on with embroidery floss, embroidery stitch decoration, and beads
Fused, topstitched binding, you can also see the foil adhered with Bonash in the upper left corner
When my friend, Loralee Windsor, was helping me out while I was recuperating from an easy foot surgery a short while ago, she spent some time at my bookshelf and then made off with one of my Super Simple Quilts series books. She brought it back the following weekend, having made three lap- or wall-size quilts—one of each of the three designs featured in Super Simple Quilts #2 with Alex Anderson & Liz Aneloski!
