Journal Quilt – S is for Sort, Stress and Settle
Journal Quilt – S is for Sort, Stress and Settle, Fibre Art, Recycled Layers – Faux Chenille 12×12″ © 2012 Diane Duncan
The technique I chose for this month’s journal quilt can be found in the book Layered Textures: New Surfaces with heat tools, machine and hand stitch by Kim Thittichai. I think I will be dipping back into this book again for techniques to try. Faux Chenille is one of the Recycled Layers ideas that I was drawn to while browsing the pages. I’m also working on a series featuring recycled… materials but more on that to come later!
Inspiration
Early in July, the movers arrived with our ‘stuff’. That’s why I chose the letter ‘S’ to represent my world this month – S represents Sorting, Stress and the process of Settling. By this time we had, more or less, already made the condo livable, but in order to make the most of a winter in one place, we needed to make the space ‘ours’ (my words – Don’s still trying to come to grips with becoming ‘land based’ this winter). When I was at the storage locker – that experience is a story in itself – I had to make choices in the dark! The 2 pm scheduled arrival of the movers became 7:30 pm and as we have more in storage than can be used in the condo not everything was to be transported!
Fortunately it turns out, my sister and brother-in-law were in Calgary and arrived to help unpack boxes the day the movers made their delivery. Most of the boxes were unpacked! But some things still had to find homes – and some things, it turns out, had to try several homes over the subsequent months, before they found their more permanent location. We spent the month bouncing between the RV and the condo, visiting with family while they were in Alberta, and continuing with Don’s ongoing medical appointments.
Technique
This was a fun project! Using a piece of heavy sew-in interfacing as a base, I added layers of newsprint randomly painted with acrylics and some other media, with layers of polyester organza. The author uses the newprint that she covers her work place with. I grabbed some paints and other media (which I didn’t feel didn’t provide enough color).
The newprint and organza layers were cut with a chenille cutter, but not the interfacing, to create the chenille. My blades probably dull from the paper! The instructions in the book suggest ‘at least’ eight layers, and I used eleven. My thought is that it would have ‘opened’ better with fewer layers. It took the tip of a letter opener and a bit of time to get it to open to this extent! Cutting the ‘S’ was challenging but doable, and was an experiment in non-straight lines. Gentler curves would have been easier to work with.
To finish the back I glued felt for a more finished look.