February 14, 2011

365: Day 28 Dead Parrot Pirate Treasure for your Pleasure

Post for Friday, February 11th

Now that the fabric is all washed I am all set to start cutting out pieces for the Dead Parrot Pirate. One of the things I most enjoy about the process are the last minute changes that result in a better design. Change is beautiful.

I do tend to delay these kinds of projects because of the set up time and then there is clean up. Here is a picture of what it looks like in process. My kitchen becomes craft central and all surfaces are covered in tools, materials, some snacks and sketches. This is just the table, you should see the counter. Yikes.

My goal for today is to cut out all the pieces and assemble them onto the background for the art quilt. First I trace parts of the drawing onto a sheet of Steam-A-Seam 2--its semi transparent. Marvelous stuff! Basically it's double sided tacky stuff that you use to arrange quilt pieces. JoAnn's sells it in bulk or in a 5 pack. Once the arrangement is to my liking, I steam it with the iron to make a permanent bond.

On the quilt you might notice some grayish fabric. That is cheese cloth that I dyed with black, brown and blue to get a well worn looking fragment of a garment. The camera flash makes it look far more transparent and lighter than it really is. The green fabric at the bottom is the first border. (that ugly blue stuff to the left and right is my ironing board).

I am pleased with the final arrangement of pieces and fabric choices. Everything is tacked down and ready for embellishing tomorrow.Arrrr he be a fine looking pirate.

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