Working Through the Book

Over at my livejournal, there is a community working on a year long self art retreat. The current project/challenge is to pick a book you already own and work through in within a month. I didn't think I'd have time, given everything else going on, but I happened upon Maggie Grey's Raising the Surface, and the stuff fits in with what I'm already doing and I want to play. So here are the first results:


First you create a background by fusing Angelina fibers or wool roving or silk top to a base fabric. I used a piece of felt from JoAnn's and tried to sandwich some silk top under some silk organza. Organza doesn't seem to melt the way the "chiffon" described in the book does, so I was left to try painting on fusible interfacing and ironing that on. It covered too completely, so I tried using the heat gun on it. I think I need a bigger heat gun. So then I used some fusible powder and wool top, then added some mica flakes for texture. The foreground is some Angelina like fibers my MIL gave me when she moved, and in lieu of mica, I used sequins. Parchment paper is a must for all steps.

And in the next section, she talks about raising the surface. And one technique is to fill tubular ribbons with stuff. She suggested making your own tubes if you didn't have ribbon, and as I have two spools of tulle left over from Dita, that's exactly what I did. I chose to stuff it with another shade of wool top I got from The Thread Studio, and tied at regular intervals. I want to felt it next and see what happens (the tubing is not attached to the background and may not be a part of this piece at all).

More to come, but first I gotta do what I gotta do :)