Monday, March 19, 2012

Tangled Textiles Reveal- Balance

Yesterday was the reveal for the Tangled Textiles group- our theme this time was Balance, and I had fun with this one.  But do wander over to the TT blog to see the wonderful creations the group came up with!

I had so much fun with the freeform piecing (from Rayna Gillman's second  book) this winter that I decided to use it in this challenge.  I immediately went to the meaning of balance in art, and wondered if I could create a work that left the viewer with the sense of being unbalanced while being balanced from a compositional perspective.


You'll have to let me know if I succeeded.

Can you tell I'm tired of looking at brown and gray?  It felt so good to be working with these wild spring colors!

The piecing was fun, and once I'd figured out how to get the size I wanted, came together pretty quickly.  To go with my relatively straight piecing lines, I decided to quilt it in circles.  So I sprang for a gadget for my Bernina that lets me sew circles easily.


See that pin thing sticking up?  It slides- that determines the size of the circle.  Then you take your fabric and do this--


That is a piece of rubber over the pin, to keep clumsy folks like me from stabbing their hands.  The fabric spins around the pin, and voila, circles!


Overall, I am very happy with this piece- it makes me happy to look at it.  I hope it does you proud, Rayna!

If I haven't been posting much when I usually do (weekends), it is because I have actually been working in the studio, mostly dyeing like crazy.  I have done cotton, rayon, and silk scarves, and am now starting to add another layer with paint stiks.  So I will have plenty of pictures of those in a few days.

1 comment:

Renate said...

Hey that's a neat gadget! I have to get something like that for my Pfaff. I have an older Bernina too but I'm not sure if that will fit. What fun! BTW I think you achieved your goal of compositional balance.