A group of internet artists from all over the place who have decided to give each other a challenge every few weeks, on a theme chosen by each in turn. We have different ideas and styles, but share a love of textiles, and want to have some fun.


Friday 23 September 2011

Murder Mystery

I'm not quite sure whether this is sticking to the theme, but it started with a shadow so I reckon it's my interpretation of it!


I started with this photo of the shadow of clothes on my washing line. I altered it to make it suitable for a thermofax screen and printed it. I ended up printing it quite a few times on different fabrics!

For the one I actually used for this challenge, I stuck to the theme of washing by using an old cotton nightie as the top and a piece of my husband's discarded Guernsey jumper (machine felted well) as the backing. I haven't hand quilted for ages and thought I'd start by tracing the outline of the design and hand quilting this outline in red thread before I printed it. I then printed the black shadow print to slightly offset the quilting line.

Didn't know what to do next. I decided to make another screen just of the jumper with sleeves but enlarged and printed this in red.




Looking at this, I thought it was becoming like a murder mystery! The red one looks like a body reaching up to the ghostly shapes on the line! Or is that a product of my overactive imagination?!

Anyway, I decided to carry on hand quilting. I outlined all the printed shapes and then decided to quilt round the red 'body' in concentric echoes of the shape, a bit like the background lines in The Scream by Munch. And added a washing line.

I'm not sure how much extra quilting to do or whether I shall leave it quite minimalist and spare with just some blanket stitch round the edge.

Here are the other pieces I printed in case this turns into a series!

This one uses the same fabrics as the first but I machine quilted it prior to printing rather than hand quilting:


And this one is just a large piece of the nightie fabric:





4 comments:

Sandra Wyman said...

Love the account of your process - and the way you've so effectively combined unusual materials. A really original piece

You have a THERMOFAX? Wow!

Sue Krekorian said...

Not only does it fit the theme, it's a really interesting and lively interpretation of it. Terrific work, Liz!

Anonymous said...

The reflections of the washing on the grass are amazing, and your interpretation is beautiful; lively and interesting - I especially like your hand quilting!

Esther Aliu said...

That's probably the most interesting thing anyone's ever done with an image of clothes drying on the line! Looks great!