Fiber mosaic

In between running back and forth from the house to studio beneath the thundering sky, pouring rain, and avoiding falling hail, I added a lot of little fiber pieces to my quilt mosaic.  Here you can see that the lines on the paper are clearly visible through the woven interfacing I used as backing and stabilizer.

I was almost afraid to start on this project, sure I would make a mistake, and then I remembered what I used to tell my students when I taught them how to use polymer clay -- "THERE ARE NO MISTAKES!"  So I took myself out of frozen-in-fear mode, kept reminding myself of my own advice, and plunged ahead.  Below is what I accomplished yesterday.  I will be making some changes, but I'm okay with it so far.  Actually, it's much better than I expected, and I am thrilled!  It's the first time I've tried anything like a fiber mosaic.

My goal today was to finish the background.  When I stepped back, I didn't like some of what I had applied, and was pleased to find it wasn't too difficult to pull individual pieces off the interfacing.  I do not have before and after pictures.

I still had some energy left at the end of applying the background, so I started on Mom, napping on the ground.

I'm thinking that instead of giving her dark socks, maybe I should just extend the pant legs down to the shoes.  Her shirt turned out a little stripey, but who's to know I didn't plan it that way?  I think I will also take out the bunch of grass above her arm, and make her arm color lighter.

All that's left is Dad and the chair -- and then, I think, thread painting to add detail and hold down the pieces.  I've never done thread painting either.  All this experimentation almost hurts!

A side note:  While industriously chopping little bits of fuse-backed fabric, I ran over the tip of my finger with the rotary cutter.  A gush of blood ran from my finger while I looked stupidly at the little disk of skin sitting on my cutting mat.  Have you ever tried to apply a bandaid to wound where the blood is coming so fast the bandaid won't stick?  It's a tough job, and on top of that, I was trying to stick the cut off piece back on my finger.  I needed another hand to help me, but eventually got it done, after one round when, on closely looking at the whorls on the cut-off tip, realized I needed to rotate it.

About ten years ago I cut off the tip of my finger (these types of incidents happen when you are constantly thinking of what comes NEXT instead of being focused on what you're doing NOW) -- I forget the context, but it wasn't quilting -- stuck the bit of skin back on, put on a really neat bandaid I had just purchased, and three days later when I took the bandaid off, the skin was fully attached back on my finger!  Those bandaids were so miraculous every time I used them that I went to get some more just last week.  They apparently are not sold any more.  Too bad.  They were so good - but very expensive.