Art Quilt: Culcita Draconis

Long ago, perhaps 2007, I taught a workshop called, "Tiny Shiny Books," in which we embraced our inner sparkle and brought pearlescent acrylic inks to share and paint paper, then bound a book, adding threads and beads. Smiles and joy all around. I don't think anyone took it seriously. At the time, I made a book I eventually posted as a video called, "I Want It."

With that same joie de vivre came this improvisational quilt. The pigmented blue linen came first and waited on the board for a subject. I began reading the dragon books by Naomi Novik, the first in the series [Amazon link] is His Majesty's Dragon, a truly warm story that is pleasurable to read, as much about human behavior as dragon behavior. As I wrote about in another post, much of my work is influenced by or is a response to something I have read, so: dragon. I drew and cut a stencil, deciding it would be painted gold, but not sure I wanted to stencil directly onto the linen. Maybe something translucent: silk organza. The quilt would be a collage.

Dragon quilt, dragon. Hmm. What would the title be? My friend had just spend the summer taking an intensive Latin course. Culcita (pronounced kul-KEEta) Draconis is Latin for "quilt of the dragon." Draco is also the name of the dragon constellation. And Culcita is a genus of sea stars that are called "cushion stars" because they don't have the arms, just the puffy pentagonal shape that make them look like pin cushions. Back to the connection with stars and sea stars again. I had some tiny stars that I had cut out of Asteroidea, so I formed the dragon constellation as well. 

Culcita Draconis

20"w x 25.75"h (51 cm x 65.5 cm)

Hand-pigmented linen; silk organza; commercially printed cotton; hand drawn and stenciled with fabric paint; embroidered; appliquéed; beaded and sequined; hand and machine quilted

To embroider the dragon I wanted different kinds of stitches. I tried learning the Closed Feather Stitch from [Amazon link] The Geometry of Hand-Sewing: A Romance in Stitches and Embroidery from Alabama Chanin and The School of Making (an excellent and beautiful reference), but I wasn't getting it. An online video made the stitch more understandable to me, and I was able to use it for the scales on the dragon's back and legs.

My (all wrong) practice stitches looked like imaginary writing or asemic writing and they were part of the process, so I decided to include the practice piece in the quilt as well. 

The beading. I had removed some beads from an old sweater and noticed some iridescent sequins that really appealed to me, but there were only a half a dozen in total. At JoAnn's I asked where the sequins might be found? Two workers agreed that  the kids' crafts aisle would be the answer. I had thought maybe in a brideswear section or something, but 99 cents in the kids' aisle gets you a little bag of iridescent sequins. Sold!

Embrace the sparkle! Behold, the dragon! : )