La Serenissima

For the first time in ages I really couldn't think what to blog about. Due to our horrible weather I've spend the past few days very productively in the studio, which is good! But as all my projects are still in progress I can't show them yet. Then I remembered that I had promised to show the two pieces of art I had hanging in the Travelling On exhibition of the Thistle Quilters and although I had shown the Thread Tangle one I had so far omitted the other one so here it is: La Serenissima, a name whereby the city of Venice is also known. I made it specially for the exhibition so I was inspired by the travelling theme. This is without doubt my favourite destination!

The hanging is very mixed media but with some of the traditional elements of a quilt. It's layered with a wadding inside but for the rest it's very different. Painting, splashing, stencilling and stamping was used to make the background fabrics merge into each other. The images and inchies are from a Venice themed fabric-paper collage, all from the same one, made specially for this quilt. Then of course there is lots of beading, all using size 11 seed beads.  The title was produced with fonts on my computer and printed onto voile and then sewn on. I love the turquoise colour that in the end, after all the paint processes, proved to be the dominant one that appeared. The quilt sparkles not just with the beads but also due to spraying with a variety of sparkly paints and mica, but sadly that effect is mostly lost on the pictures. It's back home now but will no doubt be back on its travels to other exhibitions before long.

Lenna's comment (see below) reminded me that I had forgotten to mention the size of this piece so here it is: La Serenissima is 18.3/4" wide x 42.3/4" wide!