Nellie"s Needles

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Quilted Sky

There's been lots of thinking, studying, and digging through scraps to come up with a sky for "The Lake".























The larger pieces are laid first.  My thinking is to have less clouds in the foreground.



Details are added with bits of dryer lint from laundering wool blankets, wool roving, and pulled apart scraps of batting.

All of these layers look raw and require a bit of faith as well as knowledge about what most likely will happen in later stages of work.  This is the part about creating that is frustrating AND exciting.

Before I trap all that "stuff" under tulle netting it gets checked out in relationship to the other parts of the BIG picture.

There were more clouds than I had in mind so some got removed before I trapped them in place with tulle netting and machine quilting.












This stage looks "finished", but there are more steps to go before it is.  Now to get all the panels in that top row of the installation composed to this point before we leave for the summer cottage on the lake.

9 comments:

Susan Elliott said...

I'm completely impressed with the magnitude of this piece...love the dryer lint and puffs of clouds too..I'm sending you all the best to get it done in your timeframe. I had no idea that you head North for the Summer...how cool is that! Would love to see pictures...of course, they're probably on back posts of your blog I just need to dig a bit...which I will do once I finish my project. Enjoy the lake and the journey!

Carmen said...

It's amazing!!!

Joyce said...

I am impressed at how this work evolves...do you have a huge stash in both locations or do you tote it along with you?

Corryna said...

This is amazing. I can see real clouds. Your work gets more and more realistic.

Rian said...

Wow. What a cool process. Do you keep your dryer lint sorted by color???

Nellie's Needles said...

Joyce, there are bags of scraps at the cottage, too. However, I will be taking the ones that I've sorted out for the beach and water here in Knoxville with me. Otherwise, I have complete supplies and tools in "Studio North". The less we have to haul between Tennessee and Michigan, the better.

Rian, I rarely keep my dryer lint. I've found that most is so fine it sifts through the netting. This particular lint was from a friend who had washed all the wool blankets at her cottage. Since the colors were separated for the process, the lint came out in sheets of separate colors. They looked so cool she saved them for my work.

Heather said...

It is fascinating to see how your sky is put together - such a variety of fabrics. It's already looking good Nellie, and will look marvellous when it's finished.

Anonymous said...

Fabulous Nellie! You AMAZE me!!

Unknown said...

I knew I was going to enjoy the journey of this piece! Lovely! Can't be time for you to be on the road again, but then the snow-birds that wintered here in the desert are leaving in droves; the roads are beginning to empty and the complex I live in is starting to feel like a ghost town.