Labor of Love

This is the personal piece I've been talking about ~ another tangka to hang in my home.

The poster ad was in Shambhala Sun magazine early in 2010 and I digitized it knowing I wanted to quilt it at some point.  Another perfect confluence of elements happened recently with these wonderful botanically dyed fabrics I've been producing.

The image was printed on raw silk.  The two fabrics that the image is sitting atop are silks from two recycled articles of clothing, which I eco printed with oak leaves.  The background fabrics are pieces of the same old linen tablecloth.

I've got some really old silk floss in the mix, in the French knots that surround the image of His Holiness, in addition to rayon and metallic sewing threads.  The entire piece is hand stitched and hand quilted.

 I especially like the "boro" quality of this piece ~ old, worn out, like tattered rags.  The cloth that the tablecloth was made of looks and feels handwoven.  It pulls apart fairly easily, the threads themselves have a handspun quality.

After completing the piece I fused a raw edged piece of flannel to the back to give it a little bit of body.

And now it's hanging in the south room of my studio.