Another Japanese Piece

Once again, on Pinterest.  That place gets me into the best trouble!  LOL.

I saw some photos of a piece that had been made of tea bags.  I have been collecting tea bags for a while now.  Not like years, but maybe months.  Off and on because Frank randomly tosses the ones I have drying on the countertop in an act of pure subversiveness. 

So I have been thinking of how I can use them.  I am not that great of an artist that I can draw on them and make it beautiful like some I see on Pinterest. 

So I headed my thoughts down another alleyway.

I fused them onto some Economy Cloth (note to self:  get plenty more Economy Cloth).

Darn, it looked Asian!  I have that Japanese challenge thing going on in my Fiber Group.  So I took it there!

I printed out the Japanese characters meaning black tea.  I traced it with a Prisma Pen using my new lightbox.  I lost the last one in the flood.  I  love my lightbox so I replaced it when i had a quilt room to put it in.

And added back some tags and string.  The Japanese philosophy is Simplicity so I kept it simple.  Of course, you can make it larger by clicking on it, as always.

Now I need to figure out how to hang it.  I am thinking about taking a piece of wood, creating a beaded line to the top of the piece and having it hang on the wood.  If you can understand what I am saying..... of course I can no longer find the pinterest picture.

Just imagine it.

Mt Fuji

The challenge in my Fiber Exploration Group is Japanese.  Anything Japanese.

Mt Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains.  Fuji is Japan's tallest mountain at 12,389 feet and is an active volcano.

Fuji has been a source of inspiration for poets and artists for centuries because of its symmetrical slopes and for  months of the year, its breathtaking snow capped peak. 

Since Mt Fuji is a well recognized symbol of Japan, and the task was to do something Japanese, it was crying for me to interpret a famous Mt. Fuji painting.

Called Fuji Mountains in Clear Weather, this is a wood block print by Hokusai done  in 1831.  It is part of the 36 Views of Mt. Fuji series.








 This is the streaks of snow still in the crevasses of the lava cone.  













To get this effect I used a bleach pen and drew the lines on the orange fabric. 









The back of the cone shape already has the fusible interfacing adhered to it.  I wasn't sure how that would work.  I let the bleach sit for a while, then took the paper off and rinsed the bleach out in the bathroom sink.

It looks pretty good. 

 I got the green slopes attached to the top of the cone.  Actually it is just sitting here right now. 

During the flood, I lost my teflon pressing sheet and have not replace it yet.  Of course, now I need one and don't have it.

The blue background is part of a long piece I wrapped on a pipe and wrapped with twine.  I let it sit in a shallow pan of blue dye.  Procion.












I finished the piece by free motion quilting on my new machine.  Not without a learning curve.  I found it has a Japanese alphabet so I embroidered some random characters on that white strip.  Not without its own learning curve.  I actually embroidered it with the paper on top, so what you see are the backs of the lettering.  Like I said, learning curve.

It is laid on a black felt back.  That is the natural edge of the original dyed piece. 

It was a bit of artistic license.  I liked it, so it stayed!