Question for Judy

[zed]

I was looking at your gallery, and on some of your collage pieces, the fabrics are very neat and close together, I was wondering how you do this, they look like when two pieces are joined together on the back, like a seam. Or are the edges folded under?
Also, it looks like on some of your others, the fabric is cut and collaged, how do you stop it fraying?

Hope you don't mind me being nosey

[jufergu]

I am not a piecer. I do very little sewing seams together. I am a fuser. I use wonder under or Misty Fuse. I make my elements on freezer paper, and iron them onto the fused fabric, then cut them out and fuse them to a background. fuse edges will not fray if they are done right. But, I usually do a tiny zig zag over them, just in case. In some cases, I like frayed edges and they become part of the texture.

[jufergu]

After viewing my gallery posts, I think that you may be asking about my process for layering my focal elements. I treat my surface like a three dimensional plane. Background, middle ground and foreground. Of course, I am working on a mostly flat surface. In order to make my focal elements stand away from the background, I sometimes mount them onto black Peltex. Peltex looks like felt, but is stiffer. The focal elements are fused onto the Peltex and some threadpainting is done on them for dimension. The stiffness of the Peltex allows me to do as much threadpainting as I need to. Then the element is cut out, leaving a thin line of the black peltex showing. This gives the illusion of space between the focal element and the background. It is then machine appliqued to the flat surface of the background. This is the final finish to my piece. Hope that explains things.

[zed]

Thanks for that, Judy
Some of your pieces have different fabrics right up close to each other, I don't really sew or know about fabric arts so don't know terms, but it must be how you described in your first reply, thanks