Ups and downs

Last week I finished a FFFC project more or less on time. However, while I was nearing the end, Christchurch was hit with a huge earthquake and 400 or so aftershocks. It was such a trauma, both to live through the quake, and then to have a week of life disrupted, demolition, amazement at the damage, and loss for some. Though I had enforced time off work, since all schools were closed in the area, it was hard to focus on art and gardening or anything else I would normally revel in. Now I need to work through some of my emotions in a quake quilt.

But the FFFC project was a good one. As always, I found that something that caught my imagination, and had its own momentum for execution, meant a successful outcome.
The parameters were metal and optimistic colours. I went to my mixed media drawer, toyed with copper knitted wire, stainless steel mesh and foils. The copper wire was in a tube, which suggested fish scales to me. I am not that excited by fish, and idea of a mermaid came to me. I researched online drawings, and cobbled together sections from 4 of them, giving a mermaid sitting on a rock, admiring herself in a mirror.

I had several sea fabrics, one of which seemed ideal - some movement but not stormy. I worked through the value issues, where the fabric that I really wanted to use for the tail was too close to the rock background. In the end, it seemed fine to use a terracotta, since mermaids are mythical and we can portray them how we like! The long hair meant I could get away with only showing one hand, and a token Barbie face put on with textile markers. I made the mirror out of a kind of angelina fused on both sides with black misty fuse. I used a floral print that I've always wanted to use but has sat in the stash for 10 years. Fussy cut and layered, it made a good border, giving the illusion of a tropical island. The sky was a fossil fern in a warm yellow.



Near the end I added the copper wire, The tube was too dense in the narrow area, so I cut in half, which left a few sharp ends that need bending before using a metallic thread for a buttonhole couching.

I put on a false back, did a minimum of re-quilting and put on some beads for a necklace and to catch down the copper wire.

To finish - binding? facing? no, satin stitch with a couching of banana fibre.

It's really not my thing - fantasy and cuteness! But I love the composition.