I've always loved crazy quilts--the rich silks and velvets, the hoarded scraps of special occasions, the irregularity of the pieces and the ways women fit them together to create a pleasing harmony without the rigidity of other pieced quilts. Texture, too, and contrasts gleefully embraced.
I'd begun working with silk because 
nothing in the fabric universe takes color like silk, plus it's got all those wonderful light things it does, depending on the weave and
probably other factors as well. 
Dupioni silk with its slubs and other irregularities, the soft creaminess of raw silk, the amazing play of colors in velvets as they move. And the feel of them all, and their drape, the flow as they move. Yum!
So while gleefully piecing crazy quilt handbags and other things I started collecting squares 
that somehow went together, 
and then got sculptural since that's my inclination.
Gee, creating a blog was not at all on the radar for today. I'm sewing, 
in between having to hit the couch--it's a cool and very damp day here and the fibro is in full spate. So between aches and pains and fatigue, sewing was the only thing I thought was going to get me off the couch. But I had to post pics of my current work-in-progress! It's consuming me, and it's not like anything I else I do or have done, except maybe that it's got elements of everything else I do in it.This began life as fabric for an obi (I think), which I won at an auction. This is one panel, which is quilted onto several other layers. The cranes are trapunto, and there's some beading on the flowers, maybe more to come.
So the left side and top are not at all finished. The existing corner is just sitting in place and may get rethought yet, as I finish the other two sides. You can't see how dimensional the sides are, but they're stuffed and beaded with onyx, with the bead stitching compressing the tubes into irregularity and the semblance of braiding? Rope? They're about an
inch and a half thick when they're attached. Then there are the stuffed silk and Venise lace borders, in an olive green and a coppery orange with the lace overlaying them. They're about half as thick as the tubular frame parts.
The corners are crocheted wire with more onyx and some great freshwater pearls. The one that's showing has then been set in two concentric beds of pleated/gathered silk.
This is very baroque, not at all my usual style, and puzzling because of it. But the formality of the Japanese fabric seems to demand it; it's not at all what I thought I was doing with this piece when I started it. Odd, the way that works.
More from Diane aka ExcessRUs as I finish this bit of insanity!
