Rising Waters

Rising Waters, my first use of quilting tiles.

This work took so many hours and so much love. It was experimental and inventive and kickstarted me on my journey toward sewing ceramics onto canvas.

There are layers of embroidery, stitching, beading, fabrics. Swatches of eco fabric samples from suppliers stack vertically, creating an architecture with the quilting tiles. They are reminiscent of buildings, man made structure, and the hand-dyed, indigo silk rises up between the columns.

In process... some of the early layers and ideas:

Paisley shapes of silk kimono thread through organic cotton are layered under natural silk organza and sashiko stitches.

The fabrics are allowed to own their respective characters. Frayed, stiff, transparent or silky, I wanted each to not try to conform with my expectations, but I worked with the tone and texture and let them work well with each other. There were so many spots that I wanted to keep revealed. I would fall in love with an intersection of fabrics and embroideries and keep that exposed between the tiles or overlapping upper layers of fabrics.

It is hard to see in these pictures, but there are hundreds of tiny reddish-brown seed beads rising vertically between tiles and fabrics.

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