Friday, March 28, 2008

Reuse, Recycle, Redo


This challenge was right up my alley! It took 5 minutes to grab the piece of rusty metal that's been sitting on my sewing table, dig up the rock from the depths of a drawer, find the orange onion bag, cut up a tyvek mailing bag, and find the quilt sandwhich that I never used for the previous challenge. It took more time to paint the quilt top bright blue, from a bottle of acrylic paint left over from a commission, then paint the tyvek with copper paint (brand new-whoops). The medallion on top of the rusty metal came off my last tiara, the metal rings came from the junk covering my husband's woodworking bench, and the gold "stars" had held pieces of chocolate candy that I got at Christmas. Who says chocolate isn't a good thing! The last item, the nail, I picked up from the slush on the road on my walk today and added it in when I got home.

I had used apiece of rusty metal on my 2007 Journal Quilt and vaguely remember spraying it with something like polyurethane. Everything on the quilt is stitched down with Nimo thread-and there was no way I could figure out how to recycle or reuse some thread! If I was really keeping this quilt, I would adhere things more securely but for just taking a photo, I did it quick and dirty. I did not finish the edges either.

I find the challenge in using embellishments like this is to not just dump them on the quilt but to arrange them in a design that is interesting, not overdone, and connected.

Thanks for the challenge Wendy!

Nancy Schlegel in cold, snowy Albany NY-how about our next challenge being about spring!

5 comments:

  1. I too am drawn to odd bits and pieces of metal. I have not yet challenged myself to attaching them to cloth though. I plan to Google a tutorial as this looks fun!
    Penny Irwin

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  2. Nancy, a great effect with the rusted metal!
    Great way to recycle too .

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  3. Interesting use of a variety of objects that would not normally go together.
    Kathy

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  4. Interesting objects.... thank you for 'daring' to use the metal like this.... an encouragement for those of us who would like to but.......
    Carole

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  5. Nancy, like you said, the challenge is to not just throw embellishments on a piece, but to make some sense of it. I love the repeating element of the coppery metal tones. I wonder if you could do a landscape with similar objects.... I keep seeing the nail as a tree trunk with candy wrapper leaves! Good job.

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