Work In Progress: Menship & Friendship Part III

Ok, this post I will try to keep short as I have to run off to the studio to do more work!
Last time we left this project, I had finished digitizing and printing and was getting pretty excited about the results!  Next step was no where near as fun, but just as necessary: ironing.  See, these prints on fabric are only set once they've been ironed (kinda like the crease in your pants when you were a little kid and your mom INSISTED you have a crease).  Otherwise the minute they get wet (ie washed) the ink runs and you're left with fabric that looks like a rough watercolour painting (maybe an idea to explore later, but not right now).

 So, I set up an impromtu ironing board at home (put a towel over my coffee table) and spent my afternoon ironing fabrics.

In case you're wondering, the Chicago BlackHawks cap is most definitely NOT mine!

(side note: I realized after bringing my piece to school during the April 1st snowstorm, that I didn't iron it enough.  Words got melty where the snowflakes landed.  Apparently I need to iron 3-5 minutes for every section as big as my iron plate, so I think I have a few more hours ironing ahead of me!)

My next step was to get some sampling done.  Ahh the dirty S word: sampling.  Sampling is essentially testing out your ideas without committing yet to doing it on your finished work.  Sampling is essential because guaranteed, nothing EVER winds up working out the way I saw in my head.  Tedious sometimes, yes, but I embrace sampling: doing lots of it only makes my work stronger, I then have the confidence to work on my finsihed piece, plus I have documentation of the process, AND always wind up discovering something new that I may not use now, but will in the future.

For this work, I'm doing an overlay of quilt blocks that will have cut-outs where you can read small pieces of the letters.  I want the letters to still be semi-private and secretive.

I'm a person who needs to see things, and squint at them in order to decide what I like.  So, another good chunk of my day was spent cutting out some tester fabric in different size (6", 5", 4.5", 4", 3.5", 3") and laying them on my fabric to see what I like.  I think I'm going with 4 or 4.5 inches, but realized I wanted a fabric with more translucency.  I tried silk, but it was too "rah-sha-sha" for this quilt about a country adolescence.  So, back to the drawing board.

What did I decide to go with? Well, be prepared for more sampling exploration next time!

Also - I laid out my quilt base for the first time and decided I wanted it bigger, so more printing.