Tuesday, January 13, 2009

More quilting on Joseph's coat












One of the Pharao's dreams were the cows. I surrounded it by fanatic quilting. Fusing saves time, I put it into quilting. Also the wheat spikes are surrounded by straw-like structures. The calligraphy is a little pathetic, it says: "Time will not undo guilt. Expiation can never end unless the guilt is forgiven. Only victims and their heirs can forgive. Guilt is not inherited, but responsibility continues the ties between the heirs of the criminals and the heirs of the victims." (schuld wird nicht durch zeit gesühnt, nur vergebung hebt sie auf. vergebung wird nur gewährt durch den, der die tat erlitt - oder seine erben. nicht schuld erben die nachfahren der schuldigen, aber doch verantwortung. so bleiben sie gebunden bis zur vergebung)
This criticizes a specific German point of view because too many people in our country like to say: "There has to be an end to remembering at last -- forgiven and forgotten..." But they don't have the moral high ground to say so.

I added a fused and appliquéed image. The lion attacks a man. The field behind them will be filled red. This looks much better than the painted parts, I'll go on with this technique in the future. Although it takes quite some work. I found the lion on an Egyptian stone carving and added a human shape like I thought it might fit, from my own imagination, made a drawing on paper, perforated the lines and used a little powder bag with blue pigment to copy the lines onto the cloth, made the drawing complete with a fine brush pen, ironed Wonder Under onto the cloth, cut the silhouette -- yes, I cut the paper, Melody, sorry! -- and fused it on. Then I fixed the outline with small stitches. -- I demonstrated the method on white cloth, but initially carried it out on the orange material.

9 comments:

Kay Koeper Sorensen said...

I am really enjoying the work you are doing on Joseph's coat.
What makes it so interesting is that you explain what you are doing and the stories behind what you are doing.
K

Eva said...

I learnt/stole this from Jude Hill

Paula Hewitt said...

i like the quilting around the cow - it doesnt look fused - the quilting makes it 'sink' into the background. I also like your quotation about guilt. I am unable to comment - not being German - but I often think about this topic and how difficult it is to reconcile. and Australians, too, have their own issues like this about saying sorry and moving on.

Eva said...

I don't like this cow patch, maybe I'll sew it over. But not until the whole thing is done.

Art4Sol said...

I like the cow and the seed-like stitching. Don't discard it yet...see how it works in as you progress.
Thanks for sharing the perforating and powder bag technique. Not being a quilter I'm not familiar with some of these secrets.

ArtSparker said...

What an interesting post, one thing the person in power does by deciding when the victims ought to forgive is perpetuate his/her original dominance (that thought is an heir of your thought). The embroidery is lovely.

Many of us are learning from Jude Hill.

Eva said...

Darlene, I learnt this technique when I was helping to paint an altar for a Tibetan buddhist temple in Germany. The lama showed me how to do this. Certainly, also quilters will know.

jude said...

is that fusing stuff stiff at all? i love this project.

Eva said...

The fused parts are a little stiffer than those without, but the layer is so thin that it is flexible enough. The parts painted with acrylics are a lot harder.