Sunday, July 03, 2016

Infant, a miniature Grave Rubbing Art Quilt

 (Above:  Infant, a miniature Grave Rubbing Art Quilt. 11 1/4" x 11 1/2". Crayon grave rubbing on silk appliqued onto an embroidered vintage handkerchief with buttons and clear beads. Self-guided, free-motion machine embroidery and dense hand stitching.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

When teaching a workshop, I feel it is important that my demonstrations are also examples of how I work in my studio.  So, instead of creating a "sample", I strive to create pieces that I intend to finish and include in my inventory.  This small piece was designed in early May during my "Second Life" workshop at the Georgia Agriculture Museum.  (Click here for a blog post on that workshop!)  I actually designed a couple of pieces at that time.  They've come in handy for the hours I spent riding in our van for my art installations and for in front of my laptop streaming Mad Men on Netflix during my art residency in Minnesota. 

 (Above:  Infant, detail.)

The tiny grave rubbing fit so sweetly on this embroidered vintage handkerchief even though I knew the fabric was quite light-weight.  As expected, my free-motion machine embroidery was confined to the middle ... shrinking that area and leaving the edges rather floppy.  Thus, I knew it would need miles of running stitch to flatten out the whole.  Unexpectedly, the area around the dove motif puckered up because it wasn't stitched at all.  That's when I attached hundreds of seed beads.  This was an effect I thought I wanted for another project.  Funny, that project didn't need an "encrustation of beads" at all.

 (Above:  Edinburgh, an altered Victorian photo album featuring images I took in the ancient cemeteries ... as shown in May during my art residency in Minnesota.)

In Minnesota I envisioned one of my cemetery images surrounded by hundreds of clear beads ... to fill the indentation in this Victorian photo album. Once home, I selected the image ...

(Above:  Edinburgh, now finished.)

... made it the right size ... and ordered it from Spoonflower.  When I got it, I realized that it didn't need beads at all.  I quilted the black edges instead.  The angel motif puckered up, was filled with batting, and the piece was inserted into the Victorian album. I cut a mat board to cover the edges and glued the cover back onto the album.  Finished!

 (Above:  Infant, detail of edge.)

So ... I beaded one project instead of another.  Amazingly, they both got finished on the same day.

(Above:  Infant, reverse.)

The reverse was made from other vintage household linens.

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