I'm quite late this month with my Journal Quilt. For new readers of this blog (welcome!!) I will just explain that I'm following the Sketchbook Challenge blog where every month a new theme is set for work in your sketchbook. Sometimes I do actually work in a sketchbook but sometimes, as this month, I just think a lot and then dive straight into fabric. I also use the pieces I produce for the challenge as my Journal Quilt for another challenge, this time one issued by the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild here in the U.K. For their Journal Quilts (one a month) the size has to be 10 x 10" and additionally our next 4 JQs must feature buttons somewhere.
The theme this month was Unfurling. A very fashionable word in art circles these days (there is even a book by this title written by Misty Mawn). I thought long and hard about what this meant to me and finally came to the conclusion that in the last few years I have really started to spread (i.e. unfurl) my artistic wings and fly in all kinds of directions. From just making textile art, I've ventured into mixed media, collage, beading, painting on both paper and fabric etc. etc. You name it, I've probably given it a go some time or other.
I used those painted fabrics both for the background as well as for the binding of the JQ. I used a portrait of myself at a much earlier stage of my life (I think I was 16 at the time) and dressed myself up as shown above, with an Indian fabric skirt (to which I added lots of hand embroidery), silk bodice, boots (from Alphastamps) and wings which were a gift from someone (thank you, whoever you are). These became part of my drawer of precious possessions,to be used for special occasions only. This was it! I spray painted them in colours to match the rest of my outfit. I used charms to hang from my chatelaine. They are all from Artchix Studio and read from left to right: wish, dream, imagine, inspire, create, laugh. The text (which I'm using on all my JQs this year as a challenge I set myself) was printed out on silk fabric which I then hand painted to match. The letters were beaded using size 11 seed beads. Finally I beaded along the edges of the binding too, this time with orange seed beads. This method has become a bit of a signature for most of my Journal Quilts as well as some of my larger work.
1 comment:
Frieda, I just got to read this and I am so taken by it. It is beautiful, personal, shows your signature style plus how you have grown and even changed a little in your textile work by encompassing new things into it over the years. The whole piece just makes me smile. I feel blessed to have been alongside you, so to speak across the water, for much of this unfurling and to have shared so much with you. It has been a pleasure and an inspiration and I always warmly anticipate what you will come up with next! LOVE THIS!!! xoxoxox
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