Sunday 29 September 2013

BLOG 168


ASIDE: My mother seems to be making yet another of her miraculous recoveries, so much so that we are calling her Doris Mandela!! Although she is not out of hospital yet, she is determined to get back home and is working on her mobility with the hospital staff. I feel as if she is taking four steps away from us but only three back each time she has these medical emergencies. That said, I greatly admire her tenacity and I am banking on the inherited genes!

During these fraught few weeks, I have immersed myself in colour and fabric as a way of coping. As usual with my own work, I have a vague idea of how I am going to start but I have no idea where it will lead me and how it will end. I just let the fabrics talk to me.


I prepare my fabrics, preferring the close weave of multi-coloured Batiks and Bali’s, with a fusible backing (Bondaweb is my preference) and use them like a paint palette. My work area consists of a flat ironing surface covered with the release paper removed from the fusible web. I cut random strips of fused fabrics using a rotary cutter and a pinked blade.

                              Work area


I prepare squares from the fused fabric, where the strips are placed on the diagonal and over-lapped slightly so that they stick to each other when ironed.  On the design wall, which is essential for this process, I over-lap and fuse these squares together to create larger squares. The square on the design wall below measures 18” with a 6” squares missing from the centre. (ASIDE: The first square I made like this was put forward as one of the ideas for our group quilt project but it was rejected. It seems too good an idea to drop so I am developing it myself.)

                           Design wall


The concept is to create a wash of colour going across the whole quilt, so that the colours of one square and one block seep into the colours of another. I liken the process to doing a jigsaw, where you have to find the right strip of fabric for the right place. The process isn’t easy and it requires a lot of prepared fabric strips for ease of creativity.


                   More blocks
 

Before I fuse a fabric, I pin it onto the design wall and audition it for colour and tone. Taking a photograph helps to distance you from your work so that you can view the blocks as a whole and therefore make better colour choices.

                     Blocks and fabric


The preparation goes hand in hand with ironing. Once I have selected my palette of fabric, I stick them, RS up, onto the glue side of the fusible web, over-lapping them slightly so that no fusible gets onto the iron.

                            Fusible web

                           Completed sheet

 I spend a lot of time ironing on the paper side to make sure that the fusible is transferred onto the fabric. I pay particular attention to the edges of the paper.

                      Iron to the edge


Allow the fabrics to cool and only then start to remove the release paper from the fabric. This paper makes an excellent surface for sticking over-lapping shapes, so remove it carefully so you can re-use it. I slide my hand between the layers initially and work across from edge to edge.

                         Ease with your hand
 

I then pull the paper from the fabric, taking care that it doesn’t rip.

 
                             Pull apart

 The paper and fabric separate easily and remain as two complete units.

                  Paper and fused fabric


Once free from its paper, the individual fabric pieces can be easily separated.

                      Separate the pieces


On the WS of the fabric you will be able to see where the fabrics over-lapped and where there is no fusible.

                          Edge of fusible


Use a pinked blade and cut away the fabric which is not fused.

 
               Cut to the edge of the fusible

 Use the cutter to cut each strip into random lines. The cutter is easy to control as it is a wide blade.

(ASIDE: You will take chunks out of a ruler if you try to use this cutter against the edge.)

                         Cut into strips

 

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