This quilt challenge is right up my alley! The theme is "It's Not Easy Being Green". 25% of the front of the quilt has to be recycled or re-purposed fibers.
OK, here's why I think this is right up my alley: (1) My favorite color is green. (2) I love hiking and have been taking pictures of moss and mossy logs for years, which is pretty easy to find in the Pacific Northwest. (3) I've been collecting fibers from all kinds of sources that are recycled or re-purposed. (Logical step #4) I just knew right away that I wanted to do a mossy log. (I've been wanting a mossy log in my garden too, but am not likely to get one.)
Here are a couple of my pictures I used as inspiration and my sketches.
I gathered up some materials shown here.
I hand dyed and painted a lot of used color catchers that I've been saving for "that perfect project".
After they were dried, I cut out pieces of the brown for the bark and fused them down.
Then I cut out pieces of the green for the "moss" and added them to the background. They were just laid down, not fused.
Then I piled on some thread, buffalo tail hair, shredded pom-poms, wool roving, felted wool from the inside of my knitted slippers, yarn, and thread leftovers from a long-arm quilting friend. This was all covered with brown tulle and sewn down to hold it in place. Here was the progress at that point.
I'm not that happy with how dark it got after stitching down the brown tulle. Hmm. Back to the drawing board. However, I have exceeded the 25% recycle requirement for sure! I'd say it is close to 100% so far. Now to make it look more like a mossy log and not rows of lettuce.
What an awesome start! How cool to use all those recycled supplies!--Terry
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