This week'sproduction

Last Thursday the November Fast Friday Fabric Challenge was issued, and we had a week to post our interpretation on theFast Friday blog. I decided to give it a try. With my recent medical problems, I haven't really managed to do a lot of this type of work and my deteriorating skill level certainly showed up while working on this.  Basically, the challenge was to create a piece using the various cultural beliefs about butterflies.  ( fastfridayquilts.blogspot.com )  There were several references, all of them discussing various myths and legends

One of the myths was about one of the gods putting all of the colours in the world in a bag, shaking it up and when it was opened, out came the butterflies.  Pretty straight forward.  Let's give it a try.

Well, that's not very exciting.  What else can we find.  One of the references was a serious article on the role of butterflies in the beliefs of pre-Columbian central Americans.  Stylized motifs, representing butterflies have been found on armour, in carvings and even stamped into pottery.  There was a picture of a statue with one of these motifs created in bas-relief on the breast plate of his armour.  Would it be possible to re-create the motif using a stamp, as they had done with the pottery?  I started to get excited.  I could make a stamp out of craft foam, and try this out. Stamp done.  Made up a stamping surface and carefully measured out fabric and marked the areas for placing the stamp.  I used Seta-color out of the bottle and carefully applied the paint to the stamp and then stamped three motifs.  Although the test stamp went well there were a couple of blobs on the final stamping.  Oh Darn!  So, I learned that one layer of craft foam is not enough for a good result.  I should have used two.  But is it too bad to use?  No, not really.

The next morning I heat set the paint and got out some colours to fill in.  I attached the fabric to a frame to keep it above the surface below,which would have messed up the paint.  But I didn't have the right size frame and had to move the fabric on the frame after each motif was painted.  Well, I got excited and hurried and moved them too soon, and some of the paint smeared.  Blobs and smears?  Time to start over.

Here is what we have at this point.

This technique doesn't seem to be working.  Is there any other technique that might be better.  Stained glass!  And this would give me the chance to try out my little bias strip maker I bought.!  I haven't done stained glass in 25 years, but ever the optimist.   I chose to paint the coloured sections rather than try to applique them. I very carefully marked them out with the lightest pencil.  When the paint was dry the pencillines stood out like beacons under the yellow paint. Oh Darn!  But when I checked the back there was no evidence of the pencil , although the actual colour was somewhat lighter.  Okay let's use the back/. Then, first fused, then machine stitched the bias strips.  Here is the result, first in process and then finished.

 In my opinion, all of the spontaneity, and character is gone.  I have lost the firm edges of the stone in the original picture.  It's now Thursday,and this should be posted by Saturday, although we had been given some leeway because of American Thanksgiving..  

At this point I am becoming attached to these little critters!!.    How bad is version #2--really??  It's the one I like most, despite the blobs and smears.  Okay, let's go with that.  It is now echo quilted, as I believe that anything fancier would take away form the motifs, and bound.  But,boy! Does my echo quilting ever need practice!!  Regardless, I think I am well pleased with the result.  I have certainly learned where my skills need work, and I have this little motif that I hope to use in some other project.