Fiber Moments~~or~~Yes, This Will Be A Church Hanging!

I worked in the studio yesterday until a thunderstorm from Monsoon Land blew through--and I do mean THROUGH! The water was coming through the ceiling, so I know what I will be doing on Saturday....crawling the roof with latex caulk.

But I digress.

As usual.

Below you see on the left the inside of a cleaned snack chip bag, on the right, the same bag after heat was applied and in the center, a piece with the first coat of acrylic color. That is what has been such a stinker about drying! Since the base is completely non-absorbent, it is taking forever to get these to dry. (the roof leak probably is not helping either.....grrrrrr....)

The pieces below are all different cuts or bags, and almost all of them have four coats of different colors, so that when I go to make the creek section on the hanging, I have this wonderful variety of *water texture* to put in atop painted areas and other fabrics, and lots of light reflection. I have also ordered some oddly shaped and colored pearls, which will be sewn into the creek bed as glowing, wet pebbles. Then the leaves I have whined incessantly about will be all along the edge of the creek, and maybe if it feels right/looks right/works right, I might *float* a leaf or two. I don't know. That's just me thinking out loud. (hear the grrrrrrrinding???)

The next thing I tackled was getting some small burn samples of the two felts I have purchased. I am still debating which to place on top as they melt under the heat gun completely differently and even the melt pattern is different. The pic below is strictly felt--colors reversed so I can think which is best for a bark texture.

Then I added one layer of felt over a selection of fabrics, did some stitching, and applied the heat gun to burn away parts of the felt. This is pretty light weight, and there is some merit to it for highlighted areas of bark, but there was a lot of curl as the felt shrunk, sooooo......

I moved to sample two, with the brown and black felt stacked over the woven fabric, and a piece of black felt on the back. This was quite substantial---in fact, I was not sure I could free-motion it through the machine, but it did okay.

On the far right, you can see just the stitching, then as you move left on the image, there are areas where the heat was applied for shorter and longer amounts of time. This is one of those things I wish I could  get a really good shot of for the *feel*. It is extremely textural.....which I like. I spent some time online researching walnut tree bark and found sufficient images that I should be able to get a decent stitch pattern in my head for the tree bark sections.

Sorry about this last photo but black thread on black felt does not show up AT ALL...

This is the back of the above fiber package, with some of the felt burned out, which allows the whole to lay a bit flatter. There is still a lot of *feel* to it but not the wobbles like the first piece. The other benefit of using the felt layer on the back is it makes excellent shaded area for the tree bark.

Now I am just waiting on the canvas to arrive (it was on back order--of course!) , the pearls, the fabric paint and I should be ready to get this puppy really in gear!

Of course, I have to get the roof fixed first, because the wall I work on is the one that had water running down it.

I just love multi-tasking.....don't you???  >:-[

LOL!!!

Now go get creative and make something wonderful! Or just have a wonderful day!

Pax....