april theme: branching out - out on a limb

Marlis Egger | Journal Quilt | 8" x 8"
hand dyed fabric
textile paint
hand quilted

Hi everyone, Marlis here.

Can you believe another month is nearly over???

When the new theme was announced I thought oops … what shall I do with THIS?? Branching Out – Out on a Limb. I was glad that Jane Davis told us something about her theme:

Branching Out: expanding skills, sprouting new ideas, discovering unknown territory

Out on a Limb: (flip side of branching out) taking risks, facing fear of failure, getting into discomfort zone, facing Inner Critic, taking the plunge with courage.

If this wasn’t a perfect theme for me right now …??? (I’m in a transition period of my life)

When I am painting (printing, stenciling etc.), I often avoid getting into discomfort zone because once I love what I did, I don’t want to ruin or spoil my cloth (or even my paper…). So I stop – instead of building up layers.

In my sketchbook I decided to start with the very next page - turquoise with some white circles (resists). The first layer was stamping with a cork, the second stamping with an empty spool of thread, the third stamping with a self made eraser stamp, the fourth some bold brush strokes and last but not least three of my beloved ;-) curved, black crosses.

I took exactly the same steps to creat the journal quilt, starting with a piece of hand dyed turquoise fabric.

Sketchbook page, front

Sketchbook page, opened up

Posted in: Branching Out...,Marlis Egger