Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Sara's Strength

I loved the word Strength. I decided to dedicate my work this month to the massive effort I've been making on strengthening my body. I also am keeping in mind my self-challenge of trying a different technique to execute my concept each time in order to try out the many tools I've been collecting over the years.  This time I used a fabric collage technique I learned from Susan Carlson.  I took a picture of a set of dumbbells on my mat table in my home exercise room (a room I need to visit more often - not sure why it seems easier to drive to the gym :) ). I printed the picture out and traced the dumbbell outlines and light contours with a black marker on tracing paper. I brought it to the copy shop and had it enlarged it 120%. I then traced the enlargement onto muslin. I pinned the muslin on top of paper on a foam core board and sat down in front of it with a pile of brown fabric scraps and Aileene's Tacky glue. I cut and placed pieces of fabric on the muslin, trimming the fabric to my outlines as I went and filling in gaps where needed. When I was done I cut out my dumbbell image and tested it on different fabric backgrounds. I chose a piece of cotton from a sample given to me by my friend who runs a Fine Linen store - it has a flowery pattern woven into it and has lustrous texture. I tacked the image to my background fabric with the tacky glue and covered it with black tulle before quilting it with batting and backing. I quilted the image with a black thin thread from Wonderfil. The background was quilted with a  similar thread that matched the background. I chose a leaf motif for the background to coordinate with the flowery design on the background. I used wavy lines below the image in homage to the table the dumbells sat on.

9 comments:

  1. Great collaged depiction of the dumbells! Woman can be strong and feminine and you've portrayed that with the heavy, bulky dumbells and the lovely, delicate background and quilting. Striking!

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  2. Ah, Sara, we all need to make New Year's resolutions to pay better attention to strengthening our bodies! Your quilt is very timely for this month and very "strong," design-wise! Simple, striking, effective!

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  3. Great graphic quality to your image, and as always brilliant execution. Good luck with the body building!!!! ;)

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  4. Good for you to be trying to get stronger. It is so important. I have always wanted to try Sue Carlson's technique. Maybe this will inspire me to try.

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  5. Nedra said it so clearly! I will think of this to inspire. I started my workout today. I also used Sue Carlson's technique. Lovely work.

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  6. I love the simplicity of your dumbbell imagery…lots of work went into depicting them, but they just shout "strong". Your quilt makes me smile!

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  7. As everyone said the dumbells look great and you did a wonderful job depicting them. However - it set off my "guilty of not doing enough exercise bells!"
    Thanks for the reminder. :)

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  8. HI Sara ! What a great quilt ! And I love your narrative about the different techniques, tools, and materials you used to accomplish your work.

    I agree with your comments about Susan Carlson ... Her book "Free-Style Quilts" is among my favorites, and I've used her techniques in several of my quilts.

    Great job !

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  9. Sara, I think this is my favorite of all your quilts. One reason may be that I, too, am trying to strengthen my aging body! I have been wanting to try Susan Carlson's technique, and now you have inspired me! Also love the feminine background fabric! Great job!!!

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