Return of the Fringe

Last year I began creating stitching samples for a client, and without meaning for it to happen, they turned into their own on-going series I've always called "Fringe".

Some of these little pieces became my "favorite one ever!" for a while, and I've allowed the series to carry me along to wherever it has wanted to go.

It's motored right into this year, and resulted in another piece created for a quilting challenge over at 3 Creative Studios.

This week, I finished a couple more of these fun little critters. One got a permanent home on this stretched artists' canvas.

The canvas, one I've been tinkering with for several years, is 12" x 12" and contains countless layers of paint, cheesecloth, paper and even a few stitched remnants of other quilts (click the photo for a hi-res view). The canvas is embellished with paper buttons and paper beads.

 

The quilt started life as white cotton. It was layered with batting and a muslin backing and then tight pleats were sewn across the front of the sandwich with more lengths of cotton. The pleats are snipped open and the whole thing was then hand-dyed, over-dyed, and finally laundered many times to develop the shaggy fringe that is the cornerstone design element of this series. The quilt, which itself only measures about 6" x 7", was stitched to the canvas with transparent thread.

A second Fringe piece out of the dye baths this week is this little thing.

It was constructed in the same manner as the others but has only been through its first dye bath. I love the way the fringe has tangled all of the colors together and now lays across the piece, but the palette is not as sophisticated as I'd like it to be, so it will likely undergo another dyeing or painting session. Then I will listen as it tells me whether it wants to be beaded and mounted, like the others, or if it has other ideas for its future.

In other areas of the studio this week, I dyed, and then overdyed and then overdyed again this simple cotton sarong for a vacation we're taking to the Bahamas next month.

I was going for tropical colors and mostly achieved that, but it's just a little wrap to tie around my waist as I go from my room to the pool and back, so I'm not going to fuss with it any more.

This week also saw me practicing again with my new Thermofax screens on old painted papers.

It's so much fun that I find it difficult to put the painting supplies away when it's time to move on to something else!

Finally, this cotton art cloth piece is now hanging on the design wall while I decide what more it needs.

It measures 45" x 45" and started as off-white cotton Primatex. It was treated with some breakdown printing and then screen printing.

I have four screens charged with dyes waiting for a DSP session next week. Until then, hope your weekend is as chilled as mine will be!

Happy creating!