Mixed Media Session 2: The Audition & Improvisation

So the very first thing we need to do as we begin this journey of making this quilted assemblage is to determine the size of our background or the piece that's gonna be quilted and use just a substrate to hold everything else. I like to work small, but I also wanna work in a way that can allow me to use some of my bigger chunky pieces. So this piece, I think, is about 11 by 14. And I think that's a nice size to start with. You could go to like 12 by 16 or so, but I wouldn't work much larger than that when I first began. I also have some scraps of rusted fabric that I'll likely use on this piece. And then I have these pieces ripped instead of cut. Now, this happens to be an old linen shirt that I tore apart. I thought it was a perfect chambray color, kind of a vintage-y feel. And because it's linen, when it rips, it does this nice fray. I probably wouldn't use a batik or something like that on this, because it's not gonna fray as well but you could even start with some sort of muslin, if you wanted to, but pretty much any solid colored fabric or slightly mottled fabric would be a good background. Silks work really well. Chambrays, those sorts of things all work really nicely too. What you do want to do is once you've decided on the size of the front of your piece, is you want to make your backing a little bit longer, and a little bit wider. I go with an inch so that I have about a half inch hanging around on each side here. That way, when I go to stitch this down in the end, I'm gonna have that wonderful fray. And I like that fray. You could make them the same size if you want to, and you won't have as much overlapping your edges, but I always go a little bit bigger. Then I don't have to be quite so precise. Again, I have two layers that are gonna be in between these two pieces of fabric. One is a layer of cotton batting, relatively thin, but you could go thicker and then a layer of TemTex. Now, if I knew I was gonna be making this bigger and putting really heavy things on, then I would use two layers of TemTex. TemTex, again, you can buy that at most fabric stores these days. It's an industrial stabilizer, and it's gonna give us a really strong substrate to lay all of these things on. Now, the batting and the TemTex are cut two inches smaller than everything else or the backing and they're sitting kind of in the middle with the excess equal all the way around. The top goes down on there so that I've got excess all the way around. And I can kind of feel that excess where it comes off the end of that batting and TemTex. And I'm gonna go ahead and pin this on where the batting and TemTex end, and kind of seal the top fabric with the bottom fabric. I'm not gonna put any pins inside because that's going to really warp and distort that TemTex, and I don't want that to happen. So these pins are just kind of holding it together temporarily while I do some auditioning and then will be held using the pins too when I go to do my quilting. So now I need to understand, you know, what it is. I really hope I get to work with. And I have here all the things that I'm hoping to use or possibly use, but I need to start with building some sort of focal point and or start with my hanging apparatus. Now this is something I really think I wanna use for this piece. And I have to understand what it's doing. This is the most dimensional part of it. It's very round and thick here, where everything else is flat. So were I to use it this way, nothing would really lay flat for me but if I use it this way, then this is up here and it will lay flat. So if I use it, I'm probably going to use it in this direction and I can sew it on and then I can use this or here, one of these areas to put my nail to hang it from. So I think that is a possibility. I'm not sure if I'm absolutely going to use it, but I'm gonna keep it there for the time. What I really like also are these three door knockers or door handles or whatever, drawer knockers or whatever they are. There's a lion and a flower and a like a fleur de lis. And I was thinking they might be cool on here. I know that I can take the screw out, force a hole through my quilted piece, insert that and put the screw through the back and have a very sturdy attachment. And they all work that same way. I could put a piece of fabric behind there first, and use those door knockers as a focal point. And that might be kind of cool as a way of starting the story, but I could also use those door knockers as a hanging apparatus. So I could put them up here across the top, probably that one in the middle, 'cause it's the biggest. And then I could use them to hang from. I'd have to probably put a chain or something on there but that might be a really cool hanging apparatus too. And then I'm telling a different story. There's no right or wrong way. There's just a way of bringing things together. But I need to kind of know what's gonna go on here so that I understand what kind of quilting I wanna put on here. So I'm gonna go back to this as my hanging and I wanna be able to put it right where my TemTex or Peltex, my substrate, is down there so that I know it's going to be sturdy. So then that gives me an idea of how much room I have. And I'm pretty sure that I want to use this fabric here because I like its weave. And I'll probably put it on this side because this is more on this side. And I wanna balance that off a bit. So I'm just gonna play with the idea that going there and if it goes there, then I still might use these but I'm not sure. I have this clock piece too. And this is part of the works of it. I pulled it out of this half and so that is the same as this. It's got a side that lays flat here. I could take this pin out, and it would lay flat on that side too. But I don't know that I want it flat on the front side. I like that dimensionality, but this is really cool, because it could be sewn on in all sorts of ways. And it's got some great sense of movement and I could curve it, and I could do all sorts of fun things with it. So that might be something that I wanna build my focal point on instead. I'm not sure. But I also like these, and those are those pieces of tin ceiling. And I think they're very cool and they have the two sides, one side that's kind of the natural, and one side that's got paint and stuff all over. This one's got paint on the natural side or could be flaked off. So I think these are cool too. And because they have that hole in the center I could always do, you know, something else on top of them if I wanted to, but I also like the keys and I could hang a key from each one, dangle it, that might be really fun. And that might be really fun and have a cohesive story if I then went back to my little doors as my top piece because the keys relate to that. There's just so many options. I also have this propeller, which might make a really cool top piece here and it could be stitched on, and I could put hanging apparatus around it here that you can hang from. And I think that would be cool. I love the color with the rest of this. Then I also have these great little vintage calipers and I have three of them. So I think three would work interestingly on a piece. So that's another story that could be told. And it would allow me to use this piece in there too. So another option, there's so many options. So I have to make a decision. And generally speaking, I go with what I think is going to stitch well. What I think is going to work well with each other and where people are gonna look at it and go, what is that? What was she thinking? What was she doing? So I'm gonna go with this caliper idea first and probably stick with it. But first I'm going to get this to a size that I want it to be. And what I think is that I really wanna highlight that rusty area there. So I'm going to clip it and rip it about right here. And I'm gonna do it in a rectangle because my background's a rectangle and I'm gonna fray it. And this is just a piece of rough muslin. And what I did to get that rust was I got it wet with a mixture of equal parts vinegar and water. I got the fabric wet and then threw a handful of rusty nails in there and wrapped it up and let it rust. Then I washed it with baking soda. And that stops the action of that rust and stabilizes the fabric. So I'm gonna play with the positioning of this first and decide where it's gonna give me some nice balance here. When we think about doing any type of design, we wanna look at the rule of thirds and we divide our design area, which is this blue, in thirds vertically, and then in thirds horizontally. And we want our focal point, or if we're gonna have a main focal point, to be on those axes of thirds, which is where I now have this rectangle here. So if I do that rectangle there and I take my first caliper and position it someplace that I like and then put my second caliper on there also in a position that I like. Now this one's great. It's flush with the surface. I know I can stitch it on and it's gonna be nice. This one, this is flush. This corner down here's gonna work but this may not work. I don't know yet. I'll see if it works better in the opposite direction. We're gonna have the same problem that way. But now this is flat too, along with this one being flat. And I think I like that better. So now I can stitch down here, here, here, and all of this and this is the only thing sticking up and I think that works. So I'll position that. And then my last one, which I want to interact with this in some way. I think I like that there. Okay, so this is the beginning of my composition. This is very, very pointy. So I'm gonna try to figure out something to do with that. So we don't have that pointy issue. Which could just be wrapping it or having it bumped into something else. And now I'm gonna look for a secondary design element that I can put with this that is gonna add some interest and have it be more complex. And complexity is one of the things that we look for in a design. Now these are rusty bits of chain, I think maybe just a bicycle chain. And at first I thought they might be a good addition, but when I bring them over here they don't have much different of a feel than the calipers do 'cause they're long and linear. So they're probably not the answer. What I do have is something round and round could very well be the answer. So round and orderly might be more of what I need. Yeah, I like that a lot. So here, adding that round there breaks up and adds a new shape. We had the long linear pieces here, long linear there, the two rectangles of the fabric, and then adding this round. I like that too. So then I say, you know, is that enough? Is this a complex enough story? Is enough for me? The answer for me is no. So now I'm gonna go back to the idea of what can I do to augment what's already there on the surface. And my first thought is to maybe grab these nails here and do something that's based on one or more of these circles and nope, that crowds this. So that's not gonna work. I'm going to come to this, which is also linear, but it's smaller and see if by chance it can work. And if so, how? Because generally speaking you want at least three elements on the surface of a quilt or a piece of artwork. This looks too much like an eyelash to me. So I don't like that, but I also know that I can probably bend this to a different shape and then I can see if that shape works better for me. And I already think that that shape is much better. And I like the interaction that I'm creating here. They feel more a part of something. I'm thinking I like that quite a bit. So at this point, we're ready to decide on quilting and we want the quilting to very simply support everything that's on the surface, which mostly means we're not gonna do anything too decorative. However, we have two planes, this background blue and this plane here before I'm sure of the quilting, I'm gonna think about adding a little bit more of this fabric, possibly in this area. I'm gonna check that out in just a second. But when I think about the quilting here, I know that I'm gonna put something different here than I put here. We have three rounds here. So whatever I put here probably won't be curvy. We only have the one round out here. So whatever I put there probably will be curvy and I want it to be simple. So I think in here, I'll probably put a grid, a little slightly wavy grid and that's it. Pretty close together. And out here, I'll probably just stipple. I don't want anything to be too difficult. I want it to be simple, but first I wanna think about adding maybe another piece of fabric up there. This is another bit of rusty fabric. And I think it has some various colors, some lighter areas, some darker areas. And I just wanna see how well that shows up on there. And I think that would work. But you never know until you try. I'm gonna repeat the idea of a rectangle. And I'll set it in there. Oh yeah. So I like that much better, bringing that color in there and I'm gonna have that circle go a little bit on the blue too. So it gets some attention, same with that V and this move over just a bit and down just a bit. Okay, I'm pleased. All right, we're ready to quilt.