the shelf project - Pantone piecework

Fabric is beautiful stuff and I love playing with it. The dense saturation of color in fabric is one of the things I love about it. I love to layer colored shapes to make new images. However, when fabric is cut, the edges ravel and begin to fall apart. The cut shape loses its clean edge. The essence of appliqué is to turn that cut edge under and stitch it down while still maintaining the desired shape. In turning that cut edge, though, tight curves and angles become quite challenging. 

Challenge is an interesting word. It can have both a positive and a negative spin. It means, simply that stuff is difficult. But difficulty makes one work harder and achieve more. It’s difficult to make tight curves and angles work in appliquéd fabric pieces.  Sometimes, the challenge isn't really worth it. Better to turn to a different medium entirely.

In comes paper. Paper can be made with the same dense saturation of color as fabric, but it has very different qualities. The stiffness of paper and the ability to maintain a clean cut edge were two material qualities I wanted to play with.

I found some paint chips at the hardware store. There was a big section of Pantone color chips at this particular store the day I was helping myself. I would have loved to bring home one or two of each color, but I think they might get suspicious I wasn't going to buy any paint. I kept it to a dozen.

I've been looking at images of cut paper designs. (I love you, Pinterest!) I played with an off-set target design while breaking up the image into 12 sections.  It's not earth shattering, but it was good practice cutting the paper mask. I'll play with this technique some more. It's fun to see the design appear with blade in hand.