From Shred to Slice

I temporarily abandoned my thread shredding adventure with Saw Tooth Star to work on a slice quilt that is due, gasp, next week. One of the art groups I am a part of, Quartz, is taking a Wayne Thiebaud painting (with permission) and a group of 4 of us is each doing a slice (section) of the quilt.This is the photo I am working from. I am working in an entirely different manner than any other piece I’ve done. I am going to “pillowcase” it instead of doing the traditional binding. There will be no border or binding, just a knife edge. Since it will be part of a 4 piece hanging, any binding would disrupt the flow of the piece as a whole. I blocked off the other portions of the photo so that I could visualize my slice.Donna Brennan, one of the Quartz members, created a cartoon for each of us so that there would be consistency. I used freezer paper to trace the individual elements and used them as templates for my work.My work in process photo shows the basic elements have been roughed out on my background, leaving lots of time for thread painting. The large trees at the bottom have already been worked, but still need a lot of refinement. I used some hand dyed raw silk and silk charmeuse from my stash for the green and yellow elements at the top. See, this is why we have a stash-you never know when you might need that one odd fabric!

I am doing some intense thread painting so I had to use a sturdy stabilizer to keep it from buckling. As a result, I am doing almost all of my work on 3 layers: front, batting and stabilizer. Once the piece is almost completed, I will “pillowcase” a backing on it and do some very light quilting along the major elements only, just enough to hold the layers together.This is the back. I have purposefully tightened my bobbin tension so that there is no possibility of any bobbin thread showing on top. When doing such intense thread painting, I am moving my fabric aggressively and using all kinds of different thread types and weights. By tightening my bobbin tension, I can just slap different threads in and out and not re-tension each time. Easy peasy.

The deliberately tight bobbin tension results in an ugly back. Keep in mind, this will all be covered by the pillowcase backing. Normally I would be aghast at such horrific tension-see all those top threads popping through to the bottom?

What a delightful diversion from all the metallic thread shredding I was doing on Saw Tooth Star!

For my slice, the primary focus is the dark tree at the bottom of the slice. This is where I began my work. I started out thinking I would create this piece with my needle felting machine and then attach it to the top of the quilt. I wanted to be able to easily bring in all the colors in the painting and this seemed like a logical choice. I got to this point with my felting and ick-it looked like what was left in the shower drain after Uncle Earl left!

I had some black polyester batting so I chose that as my base instead, worked it out on a scrap piece of fabric and loved it. The batting with thread painting has great texture and a deep lushness to it. I still need to finesse the thread work in it, but it’s a great start.The only way to put my detail in is to use thread, so I am digging into my ridiculous thread stash to accommodate my needs for this piece. Think this is enough thread?? Random Thought: As I was working today, I noticed my container with a myriad of scissors and thought, dang, there’s a lot of money in there! I estimate that there is at least $300 worth of notions in this photo, probably more. I counted (cause I am A Counter of Things) 18 pairs of scissors, which did not include the 3 that were in action at the time and hence not in the holder. And seriously, every single pair serves a specific purpose and I wouldn’t want to go without one of them. And there are more that I wish I had….Scissor Lust!