More Ice and Snow in the Studio

In the previous post, I mentioned that I thought I needed to cut down the amount of shine in the upper right middle area. I picked out some of the mylar with a pin, and added a bit more on the lower edge of that area. I then added some more silver quilting, and lots more beading. I may have gone overboard with beads, but I was going for the look of a snowstorm, where you see some of the flakes close-up, and as far as you can see, there are snowflakes, and when it is really cold everything shimmers.

This is a closeup of the lower right corner.  When seeing this in person, the sunprints of the stars, and patterning from the salt looks like more snowflakes, giving it more depth as you look at it, that is somewhat lost in the photos.

Somehow, while doing more to this piece, I decided to make another one.

I began by playing with dryer sheets this time. I had painted a bunch of them with pearlescent and sparkle paints.  I then cut out more snowflakes from the dryer sheets. I didn't add Wonder Under to them first, like I did with the organza for the first one.

I had 2 different types of dryer sheets. They each shredded differently, with one leaving a very hairy look.

This photo shows the white ice fabric that I cut up. These scissors from Fiskars are super for detail cutting. They are very sharp, and easy on the hands for detail cutting. I also used the same blue fabric I used in the first piece.

This photo shows how I laid the shredded dryer sheet along the edge of the blue fabric, on top of the batting and backing. It also shows a couple of the snowflakes I cut from the dryer sheets. When placing these, I found that when I ironed over things with a pressing sheet, the dryer sheets sort of stuck in place on the blue fabric.

Some of the dryer sheet ripped with out enough shredding for the look I wanted. It had too straight an edge, so I needed to do some additional shredding.

I did this by by teasing some of the fibers out, using a pin, until I had more fluffy, feathery fibers showing.

This photo shows the piece after I added cut ice fabric over the shredded dryer sheets. This gives more depth to the ice formation I was trying to show. The ice fabric was backed with Wonder Under, but the dryer sheets were held on just from ironing over them. I had to be real careful I didn't lose anything before stitching it all down with the quilting.

The snowflake closeup photo shows the stitching with the silver metallic thread I used for the quilting. I did the same swirl and snowflake quilting I did on the first piece, adding little snowflakes and more glitz.

This photo shows the finished quilt. I quilted around the edges of the ice fabric, and quilted a fern-like pattern over the frayed dryer sheet, letting the stitching overlap into the blue fabric like the fingers of icy frost on a window. I bound the edges with a white wool yarn with some iridescent fibers in it. I couched the yarn on with the silver thread used for the quilting. I decided to leave this one without beading. It is 11"x14" in size.