Alien Tech

Our Dirty Dozen show is this October at a local quilt shop, and in preparation for it I have created a stand-alone book as part of a group challenge to make a book of some sort with fiber.  I love working with metal, and wanted my focus to be using the metal in different ways, so I created this book.   I used different metal techniques, including weaving strips of metal, crimping the metal, and using metallic mesh.

On this panel I painted a washer with bronze Lumiere, and added a metallic button in the center.  I used French knots throughout the piece in black and white crewel thread.  The background fabric is a piece of fabric made using wash-away stabilizer and bits of different fabrics.

Here I used some paper beads on the sides and a bone bead in the middle

On the panel above I weaved strips of metal and added small beads at the junctures.  The lightweight metal is easy to stitch through on the machine, using a sharp needle.  

On this last panel I have used a bone bead and some of the metallic mesh.  The rods holding the book up are just skewers cut to size, painted with Lumiere paint and topped with wide-hole beads painted black.  When I finished the piece, it reminded me of circuit boards, and my husband said it looked more like Alien Tech, so the name of the piece was born!