Monday, January 30, 2012

Artery


Ok, what do a cholla skeleton and face cleaning pads have in common?
 AND, how did they end up in a quilt called Artery?

so, I paint a
 piece of fabric and start laying out the painted face pads on it.
Which is where the cholla skeleton comes in, it has the kind of repetitive organic pattern that I love.
I was annoyed with the kids for leaving wet gloppy cleaning pads in the shower until I looked at them closely- ooh, they have little scrubby dots on them!  that pop out when they are painted, even better...

after all the little green scrubbies were attached with their purple felt centers, I quilted them to their background using a piece of felt for the backing.

 after the quilting, I cut the whole thing out and turned the edges under.

 here it is laid out onto a piece of polyester that will be used for the experimental background.
 I trace around the edges so I know where to paint.
 here's the painting using my fav dye-na-flow
so then I take the painted poly and layer it on top of red cotton batik
 and then quilt the whole thing.



and now for the fun part- I melted part of the poly away with the heat gun to reveal the red batik underneath....use cotton thread for the quilting!



so now I can sew the central branch shape to the background.  hooray for invisible thread!
voila!

4 comments:

  1. I *love* the cholla skeletons......I always pick some up when I'm walking in the open space and bring it back, trying to figure out what to do with it. I wonder if its inked up, can you print from it?

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  2. Fabulous depth in your piece Betty!

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