Circle ' Round
This is my first "crinkle quilt" mounted on acrylic. I love that the piece isn't flattened out, the shadows, and how it appears to float off the wall.
"Circle 'Round" - 24"x24" - 2006I came up with the presentation as a result of a comment made by a friend who was holding this piece that was still in the process of being quilted while I was showing her some of my framed "crinkle quilts". She asked, "Why aren't I seeing what I feel in my hands?" Her reference was to the soft and flexible cloth she was holding as apposed to the hard and stiff pieces in the frames.
This got me thinking and wondering how else I could mount these pieces to better present the qualtities of cloth. Somewhere in my thinking was the tradition of "tied" quilts. This led to the thought of tying my quilts to a surface. My solution was to drill evenly spaced "buttonholes" into the acrylic. The quilted piece is tied onto the surface with 6-ply strands of floss. The knots show on the back, while on the front there just appears to be another stitch.
This got me thinking and wondering how else I could mount these pieces to better present the qualtities of cloth. Somewhere in my thinking was the tradition of "tied" quilts. This led to the thought of tying my quilts to a surface. My solution was to drill evenly spaced "buttonholes" into the acrylic. The quilted piece is tied onto the surface with 6-ply strands of floss. The knots show on the back, while on the front there just appears to be another stitch.
I had to come up with a different way to handle those thread ends that frame my "crinkle quilts". I didn't want to loose that aura of color around the piece. However, I couldn't figure out a way to control those threads. Dots of glue on the acrylic just made a mess. On the day that I was really struggling with what to do with all those long floppy threads I had been describing Dottie Moore's short spiky hair (along with her other amazing attributes) to a friend. It suddenly occured to me that look was my solution. Dottie surely had to use a product to get her short hair to stand up, so I used gel medium on my threads for the same purpose. (Dottie got a kick out of this story).
The piece before mounting on acrylic, adding paint, and controlling the thread ends."Circle'Round" was purchased and is hanging in Holland, Michigan.
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Fabric Bird Sculpture Pattern
3 comments:
I love the texture of these! Mounting them on pexiglass is a wonderful way to show off the back as well! I notice that everyone always wants to get a peek at the back of the works. And thanks for the tip about free motion quilting. Sandpaper sounds like a good idea, I will try that.
Hairgel--who'da thunk! Great idea! :}
In response to "arlee", I don't use a HAIR gel product. Dottie Moore's use of hair gel on her short "do" led me to think of using the gel medium that is used by painters who use acrylics. This clear gel stiffens the thread ends so they extend outward from the quilt.
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