Thursday, February 12, 2009

Cracked Ice


I love ice. Well not to walk on or to drive on obviously but, when we were a little younger Jan and I used to go ice skating - yes we did have lessons. As usual she was better than me!! Sigh!

Well anyway, I love the look of ice on water. From a distance it looks so smooth and pristine.
Get closer and you can see the cracks in it. If you are really lucky it will have cracked, refrozen, cracked and refrozen again. Look into it and you can see lots of layers and notice that it isn't all white and perfect.

I wanted to try to translate that into textile for my Nature Series.
I gathered together all the fabrics that had an icy colour and look to them. Some were opaque and some sheer, others were sparkly.
I cut them into rough triangular shapes and stitched them down on to an icy blue background. I added fused and un-fused Angelina fibres for an extra sparkle. I used lots of layers.

I used a piece of white organza with little sequins on it as an overlay and stitched random straight lines with a silver thread. Like the ice, from the side or a distance the piece looks smooth but look into it and you can see all the layers.

I made ATC's from some of the fabric and two of them will be going for trades with Terri and Emmy. I hope they like ice!


Just before I go I thought I would tell you that I have posted a little of what I have been working on for Mesoamerica on Textiles for Two blog.

8 comments:

Doreen K. said...

Love your ice pieces. You really captured the look of ice. They are beautiful.

Carol said...

If you haven't got homes for the the others I would love to swap one. I like the look of them but I think by the sounds of the work involved they are going to look even better in real life.

Papoosue said...

Come on over and collect an Award :-) Susan xx

Linda D. said...

These are absolutely gorgeous. I love the look of ice too, you have captured it brilliantly.

Michele/TextileTraveler said...

These are beautiful Alis!

JannArt said...

Ali,

Love your ice pieces. Your comments about the ice skating brought back so many memories - good times!

On a Whimsey said...

These look beautiful, as always!!

Our Hands For Hope said...

I love the concept and I love the finished product. It really has subtle and interesting textures.
Terisa