Saturday's Progress...

After securing all the necessities for a successful quilting session (the new iron Sal bought me for Christmas, some magazines for reference AND, my favorite moose cup filled with chai tea), I began working on the appliqueing process of the iris flowers. All the flowers have been cut out, freezer paper removed, wonderunder attached to the back. Next, each and every flower is ironed down in place -- being extremely careful to place the each item along the edge "exactly" where they are on the original painting, so that when my "slice" is attached to the neighboring slice (on the left) the flowers, stamen, leaves and stems match up. I check and re-check placement as I'm working. Now - I am getting ready to lay in some white acrylic paint and some Tsukineko dark blue and black ink to highlight and outline. I use my really crappy brushes when I'm doing dry brush technique.

These cheap brushes (made in China) have long wooden handles and feel like they are made out of straw. I love them for dry brushing as the bristles stay separate and work really well for this technique.

Now comes the really fun part. I have selected several hues of blue, yellow and gold threads -- all types - rayon, cotton and silk. I use different types of thread because the way the light plays off of the different fibers (silk, cotton, rayon) adds to the texture of the piece.

LEARNING CURVE ITEM #1: I remember as a kid growing up in Ohio that every spring, our little white house was surrounded with tulips and gigantic iris. My mom loved tulips, iris and hiacynth. I remember those iris being all different shades of purple - from the lightest to the darkest, so, it naturally made sense that when I first began selecting fabrics, paints and threads for this project, I immediately went for the dark violets and purples. I went with what my "brain" told me an iris looked like rather than what Van Gogh's image of the iris was. Alas, I bought all the wrong colors. Worse yet -- I didn't even realize the colors were way off until after I had the first batch of flowers totally cut out. What I love about doing these slice quilts is that they take me far out of my comfort zone. I have to really stretch my abilities and sometimes that means doing and re-doing the same thing over and over again until I get it right. It also means that I really have to "see" things, and not just "look" at them -- and I think I'm slowly acquiring that skill. How cool is that!!!