My Appliqué Sampler is Finished.

I'm being a little unorthodox with this project - the folder called for me to collect lots of different scraps of fabric and make a collection of them - I've discussed the new additions to that collection recently in other posts. It rather implied that I should use them to make a collage in appliqué, finding out about the different textures, weaves, and sheens of the fabrics I'd collected whilst constructing a rudimentary shape or picture. I've chosen instead to stick quite rigidly to one kind of fabric, and to exploit the technique of appliqué itself to make an interesting project. What I've got here is a crow, made up of many layers of appliquéd felt. Each layer slightly overlaps the last, and using a fairly thick felt (say 2-3mm), it's possible to build up a 3D shape by trimming or growing the outline of the shape by a few millimetres each layer. Here's a picture of some new feet I've made (a friend saw the crow and wanted one, so I've promised to make another).  

As you can see, the feet (only the feet, legs, and part of the lower body have a wire core) are built around twisted wire. I cut out the rough shape of the feet four times, and pierced a hole in two of them, sliding them down the 'legs' and covering the wire ends. I then attached thread to the top half of the foot and sewed the lower layer of felt to the underside. I then wound the thread from the needle around the toes of the feet until they were securely fastened. I bought the thread back to the beginning and tied it off. To make the legs, I cut lots of small felt disks, and punctured them with a stiletto awl, sometimes widening them with a yarn needle. I then slid those disks down the wire, and made enough (their size increasing in blocks of five or six disks) to build up a fairly sturdy stack. But I realise I haven't talked about my inspiration for this technique. A little while ago, I was stuck for something to draw, and, realising that many of the Renaissance artists I admired drew from natural subjects, especially from 'game birds' and other such unlucky creatures, I bought some animal skulls from eBay. At the same time, I saw that it was possible to buy preserved birds' legs. Accordingly, I bought some of these too. Here's a picture of those legs.

As you can see, they're a rather grizzly prospect, and look unexpectedly vicious. For my crow, I chose not to add to the rather difficult task of making the spindly toes by trying to add shiny satin claws, as I was sure there would soon become a problem with fraying, and as the bird would often 'sit' on it's feet, wrapping wire with embroidery floss wasn't hard-wearing enough. It was a simple enough project to put together, the only problem being that, when cutting out similar shapes repetitively, my right-handedness gave a slight tilt to the bird, which became more pronounced as each layer was added, until the discrepancy became quite noticeable. However, it's still a nice object, with a sweet face, and I'm pleased with it. Having no previous experience of appliqué, it's certainly sped up my hand sewing nicely, and provided a good starting point for creating all kinds of objects that can be built up in layers. Next, for my records, a little gallery of my favourite features.

Here's another angle on the face of the bird. Here you get a better idea of how many layers are included in the head and neck sections.

Another angle on it 'sitting'.

This angle shows off the layers in the body best.

Here's a shot showing the twist in the body, and the direction of the 'feathers'.

The ends of the wings.

Layers in the top of the head.

Slight twist in the beak.

Those legs attached.
I'm pleased with the result of this project, and with the way I looked at the technique for the ideas, thinking 3-dimensionally. This project began as something of an experiment, and I'm only sorry that I don't accordingly have any preparatory sketches. I didn't really think it would work on a full-size creature, and thought it might be an interesting idea for a log post. I hope that my odd approach to the set exercise is acceptable.