Today's TAFA Market focus zooms in on:
Meg Hannan
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| Fabric Jewels by Meg Hannan |
Candy? Something from the deep sea? Meg Hannan's fabric jewels sure look edible or other worldly to me. I remember stumbling on her website and just feeling awed by these gorgeous pieces and was delighted when she joined TAFA. Now, Meg has sent a box full of her pins and earrings all the way from Seattle, Washington and I got to see them for the first time yesterday. Light and hard, they are even more beautiful in real life.
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| Embedded with beads, Fabric Jewels are uniquely Meg Hannan's creations. |
How does she do it? Well, find a bunch of long scraps of cloth, yarn, strips of fabric, lay them all length wise on to a fabric that will contain them, sew it up, soak in resin, and then saw slices of them. Embed with beads and other decorative accents. Sounds easy enough, but I can guarantee you that it is not.
Similar techniques are used in making glass and femo clay. The technique is ancient, called Millefiori, from two Italian words meaning a thousand flowers. It has taken Meg 20 years to perfect her process, a careful craftsmanship easily seen when looking at her pieces.
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| Fabric Jewels earrings are lightweight and durable. |
Meg often sells her work at quilt shows and I just know that these are going to fly out! She has them beautifully displayed on cards, making them perfect gifts for the artsy person in your life. Not coming to Paducah for our TAFA Market or the Quilt Show? Meg's Etsy shop is stocked with a great selection, so anyone can jump on over there and own a jewel for herself.
Thank you so very much for the posting Rachel!
ReplyDeleteI truly appreciate it. I'm so happy to know that you are enjoying the work in person. I make the pictures as clear as I can but I feel that when you actually see the jewelry and hold it in your hand, it takes on a new dimension.
Some of the details you wrote about need clarifying. I know my process can be a mite mystifying!
There actually aren't any beads in the slices pictured in your post. It's all fiber. There are however, what I call the "phantom beads". Those dots that look so much like seed beads are cross section slices of rat-tail satin cord. There are other cords in the slices that look bead-like as well. The Endbits I sent are really helpful in understanding this.
Occasionally there are holes in the slices that prevent a pin back from being glued on, or the holes are just not good lookin' at all. In those cases I do stuff beads in and glue them from behind. You may have a few pieces there that have that going on, but again, the items that you posted on the blog have no beads except the phantom ones.
Before I roll up the roll, every piece of fabric and each cord I'm using has to be fully saturated with glue. Just soaking it doesn't work, so it's applied with a brush or by hand and massaged deep into it. I use chunky stuff a lot and it's a little like massaging a rock! But this is important to making sure the work holds together and is fully protected.
I don't sew them, there's not a stitch used. Once fully wet, I roll the fabrics up tight with my hands then lay the roll out to dry. The drying takes weeks before I can handle the rolls without extreme care. I don't use a resin- I use my secret glue. Thankfully it is not as toxic as a resin, but still does an astounding job of making them super durable.
So that's the low down. Thanks again Rachel for all you are doing to bring our work to the world!
For more info folks can go to my home page at meghannan.com or the Jewels FAQ page on my site.
Thanks!
Meg