A Work in Progress

The idea of using diluted glue to stiffen and add body to drapy fabric appeals to me as I do a lot of landscape art quilts and am exploring less traditional methods of achieving dimensional qualities in my art. 

Here's my dried, glue-treated muslin.  This is about a yard and a half, all nice and crunchy!

Rosalita photographing her treated fabric (please disregard the studio chaos!).

After chopping off a hunk of the muslin, I laid it out to contemplate just what I wanted to do with it.  At the right are my strips of white tissue paper and a container of the diluted PVA glue.

The existing wrinkles were suggesting tree trunks, and I decided to follow that idea to see where it would lead.  Additional wrinkles were called for, so the fabric was re-wet with the glue solution and scrunched up some more.

In this next step I'm applying tissue strips to add more body to the piece as well as more texture.  These I glued randomly, adding wrinkly texture as I went.

Detail of the first layers of cheesecloth.

Here I've added some funky strings and yarns in groups.  I wanted these to emphasize the trunk/wrinkles as well as for the wonderful textures they impart.  Some of the groups I twisted and others were laid flat.  Even though these were glued to the surface, I added machine stitching to hold them in place as the glue didn't appear to adhere them well enough.  It was a bit difficult to sew with the ridges, so I took off the sewing foot and slowly guided by hand.

 

More on this piece to come!