Whiplash Week 6 - Entry - A Pile of Scrap

us-map-closeup
Originally uploaded by jixichick.

This week's Whiplash contest was "Colour". I created a little ditty I call "A Pile of Scrap". I really, really really want to win this week - I've been coveting the Denyse Schmidt book especially! I started by noticing that is impossible for me to throw my fabric scraps away - no matter how tiny. If I can still pick it up, then it goes in the scrap bag. I have ended up with an indecent amount of little nothing pieces of fabrics - little shreds, tiny snips and other seemingly useless bits. I remembered seeing a quilting technique on Simply Quilts where an artist used little tiny fabric bits to "paint" her quilt. She sandwiched the "painting" between netting and her backing and then painted with thread to quilt it in place. So I started pulling out my tiny scraps and finding a few larger scraps to sacrifice for the cause. I rolled through the scraps with my rotary blade - slicing, dicing and mincing the fabric into a nice little heap of colorful confetti. It sort of reminded me of watching a cooking show where herbs and vegetables are being minced up to make a colorful salad. Next, I had to decide what to "make" with this medium. I started playing around with the little pile and noticed it looked a little like the (continental) U.S. AHA! Using a map I printed out, I arranged the pile into roughly the shape of the U.S. on top of a piece of netting. I placed a second piece over the arrangement and then basted it on the sewing machine. Then I pinned the map on top of the netting and stitched around the edges. To "quilt" it, I simply sewed over the boundaries of each state. Then I peeled back the paper, trimmed around the edges and admired my creation. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I think I'll frame it and hang it in my son's room. More photos of the project are at my Flickr site.