Fibermania

QAWM: Day 8

Like the fortune in one of those eight-balls where the words float to the surface, I began to remember that I had more fabric out in the potting shed, hidden away in Rubbermaid bins. So I bundled up, slogged out there and discovered a huge stash of really really old historic, folkloric, ancient, vintage, antique printed fabrics. Lots of wonderful stripes, dots, and florally stuff. I recall there is another box in the garage that has more, like stuff from Japan and New Zealand which has been stored untouched for YEARS.
It never gets used because it is out of sight and thus out of mind. I am going to change that. I feel that I need a shelf in my studio full of fabric, so I can pull out what I need without having to search through the out buildings storage, boots, coat and hat first. And then I won't have to walk around stacks of bins on my studio floor. You don't want to see this mess, trust me.
I think a trip to IKEA is in order. I want something like this:

Doesn't this make your mouth water? It is in the shop in Paducah, Helene Davis Hand Dyes. Mine wouldn't be nearly this neat.

Enough dreaming. Back to the work at hand.

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I mentioned that I was looking at Nancy Crow's early work, in her first big book.

Here's a wip that I have always loved. Interlacings II which is on pages 127-132.

Is anybody working this hard these days? (Don't answer, I know they are.) This sort of work is much easier to do if you fuse it, but at the moment I am piecing things and struggling to make seams line up and stuff. Some sort of penance, I feel, but then I like what is happening on the wall.

Friday's five big blocks came down and I chose one to cut up, as the background for a great big cross, ala Nancy. The red stripe is what set me on the fabric search initially. Who wants to piece all those red and black stripes? Also, I found that purple and black stripe which is like 25 years old. In perfectly preserved condition, mind you.

This first arrangement needed light so I added a bright stripe of yellow, almost always the solution. And tilted the camera to see this on point.

It is actually still straight as I work on it.

 I got off to bad start with the center cross shape. I sewed all those thin strip pieces together with no thread in the bobbin, which meant of course that they weren't sewn at all. Curses.
The border I am considering is leftover Marimekko fabric, saving me from sewing gradations, which is what Nancy did to achieve a similar illusion.
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