Thursday, April 14, 2011

Silk Wallhangings

Gift to Chai Pani
Gift for Awesome Neighbor
I started these little wall hangings last fall and I am ta-da FINALLY finished with them! I added them to my Phd Challenge so that I knew I could force myself to get them done. I stared out talking about them here and what a pain the silk was to work with. I will definitely chalk this up as a learning experience. I feel like I learn something from every project. Sometimes it is something small like 'trim the ears off of your half square triangles'. Other times it is 'don't do this again no matter how much she pays you!'. This time it was 'if you are going to use silk, do something to keep it from fraying'. I did make it all the way through both of these with out stabilizer or super glue but I think that both of those things may come into play when I find something to do with the scraps.

So I plan to take the one I made for the restaurant in there as soon as I can get a excuse chance to head down there for lunch. I hope the empty spot is still on the wall. Anyone up for a lunch date? ;)


I other one I made for my way cool neighbor. She is an amazing artist so I thought she would like something crazy bright and I hope it does her house justice what with all her own great stuff hanging about. Plus since her roommate got some love last year, I didn't want her to feel left out. ;)  I added a hanger to hers and am somewhat disappointed with it. I had these grandiose ideas of about 10,000 seed beads forming a hanger that attached to the hanging sleeve. It started messing around with some wire and what not. Then I started thinking 'this think is already kinda nuts, maybe less is more'. So I opted to make a hanger with just some fine weight yarn and a few bead to accent it. Since I didn't want it to hang too low or have the hanger be the focal point, this is what I came up with. Like I said, boring but functional.

Here are some shots of the quilting and colors.

K is for 'Kate'
 

9 comments:

Cheryll said...

The silk hanging is absolutely gorgeous... and I'm sure it will look wonderful wherever you hang it! You should be very proud of yourself! :)

Elizabeth said...

Those are super gorgeous! I love the look of the silk. And I sketched out your quilting from the top and bottom pinwheels to maybe use in my pinwheel quilt. I was going to do just to straight-line quilting 1/4" away from the seams, but that is boring. Plus my skills have improved a tiny bit. So now, I'm looking for pretty ways to quilt them. Loved that design. It sort of reminded me of tulips.

xo -El

GerryART said...

OMG, Angie, this is wonderful.
It's a jewel.
Elizabeth's comment about her straight-line quilting applies to the majority of mine also. But like E. I hope to change that situation.
Seeing your work is an inspiration.
hugs
Gerry

n8rlvr said...

"A" is for awesome. You are so incredibly talented!

Teresa F. said...

The hanging is absolutely stunning...I've never worked with silk but it seems like it's difficult. you must be really talented. Congrats.

Teresa F. said...

The hanging is absolutely stunning...I've never worked with silk but it seems like it's difficult. you must be really talented. Congrats.

Michele said...

Wow! Amazing quilting!

Myra said...

Your silk wall-quilts turned out really nice Angie! The quilting on them looks lovely! 8-)

Jackie Williams said...

You have a beautiful talent, I always wanted to be able to do something like this. Brings back my African-American heritage.Jackie Williams http://jackiejwilliams.com