Leviticus in progress

And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD'S.

I find this a difficult verse to express into a image. I can see the picture of the priest making the offering, but that's not so easy to translate in a textile image.
For this one I did a LOT of sketching, and trying different colour schemes. In the end I came up with the idea of seeing the altar from a birds-eye perspective. On the altar is the food offering. The food offering are kidneys. There has to be fat (how do I do that?) I have got an idea of free motion stitching in a creamy colour, but better first practise...And what about the fire? I think I might put some flames inside the kidneys. Kidneys look like this:

And I might make the darker segments look like flames.

Some sketching

A fabric I found. I thought it might serve for the coals and colouring in some orange to represent the fire. But I don't really like it. So....

Mixed some white and black fabric paint and stamped it on black fabric. Maybe a bit less paint? But other than that quite happy to use it.

I am going to use a golden yellow for the square of the altar and the corners. But would like to add some copper to it. Got some copper foil. All you do is dab some glue on the fabric, leave it for about 10 min. It should still be tacky. Place the copper foil on top of the fabric and iron!! Nice.

Leviticus 3:16 start

It's time for the third one: Leviticus 3:16 And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD'S.

Imagine making a quilt about an offering. and burning animals on an altar...Hence, I cannot skip this verse, so better start thinking about the chapter and its meaning.

This chapter deals with a so called Peace Offering and the rules and sacrifices to be made. In all cases, specific animal parts that are covered with fat are to be burnt on the altar. One of the chief characteristics of sacrificial offerings was their agreeable aroma.
We usually think of fat as something to get rid of. But to the people of ancient times, fat was associated with richness. 'all the fat is the LORD'S'

The offerings also tell us that the blood of animals cannot take away guilt, but only the sacrifice of Christ Himself: Ephesians 5:2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

I thought it very hard to capture everything in a quilt, since I don't like to work to realistic. So rather not have a picture of a priest offering...

 

 

This is the shape of the altar

 

 

 

But maybe more looking at the shape of the altar and the pieces which were offered (kidneys). 

I jotted down a few words to get ideas: thanksgiving, peace, thanking for all goodness, prosperity, peace.

kidneys, nice smell, fat, smoke, burning.

I had this fabric, which I thought would work for coals, I tried to paint some piece orange for fire. But I am not happy with the look. I have been sketching a lot this time, trying to come up with a good colour scheme and this doesn't really fit it. What now?

Maybe just black and use that as a background. What about this?

I mixed some black and white and used bubble wrap to stamp onto the black. I might use this as the background fabric.

Unveiling Exodus 3:16

"Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt"

 Nearly finished. This is the top layer, but it only becomes a quilt when it has 3 layers. I wanted to have the 'burning bush' idea in there as well, so I started practising 'flame' patterns.

 Decided to go for the orange/yellow thread.

I found it very scary. The top layer looked good so far. Won't I ruin it by sewing all over it?

Well, this is it! The 'bricks' on the left hand are made from teabags. I drew the images on them. One says the word elders in hieroglyphics, others have Pharaoh's, slaves, evil eye, snakes on it. Top right is the land flowing with milk and honey, Hebrew words, the 12 tribes as in 12 stones. The verse is written on papyrus.

You can't see it very well, but I did some interesting binding: Twisted some gold thread and zigzagged it straight on the edge.

 Detail Egypt

 Stitching at the back

Detail Canaan

Layout for Exodus

Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt:
It took me a long time to develop my ideas for this verse. How do I visualize 'elders' ? Or do I focus on the appearance in the burning bush? Or on the covenant God, all knowing and never forsaking?

I decided to more focus on : ...I have surely visited...and seen. Meaning: -seen their misery, -to take notice, -pay attention.
And then also try showing what has been done to the Israelites in Egypt + the context of the exodus out of Egypt to the Land flowing with milk and honey.

A few elements I wanted to include: bricks (slave labour of the Israelites), land of milk and honey, and possibly a map. After reading an article about using used teabags, I thought it would be nice if I could draw Egyptian images on tea bags and cut them into brick shapes.

These are the kind of words I scribble in my sketch book:
bricks, city, camels, desert, slaves, pyramids, papyrus, burning bush, stitch flames?, print map on fabric of papyrus?, paint left hand dark, print on papyrus?
Colours: clay, dark blue,gold, earthy, honey, cream.

I then went on exploring how to transfer maps onto fabric.

For this one I copied a map and flipped it, so I got a mirror image. I put the right side on top of the fabric, poured turpentine over it, and really pressed it down. The ink from my laser printer transferred onto the fabric quite well.

 For this one I just fed the fabric through the printer. A much easier, cleaner way :)

This is the final layout for my quilt. This time I don't have a clear design, but it's more a rough composition.
The problem I face with printing a map to A4 size is that my quilt size is bigger, so I have gaps which I need to 'fill'. How to solve that? I think I am going to use my inktense pencils to make some fabrics in blue (for the Egyptian side) and some creamy/yellow (for the top right Canaan side).

Off track

A few other experiments, nothing to do with my Exodus quilt. But nonetheless quite exciting and hopefully useful for some later work :)

I really like my Derwent Inktense Pencils





You can draw with them like pencils, then add water and they act like inks. For the butterfly I thought I should try my shadowpainting liner (which I normally use on paper only). The pencils worked well on fabric, only disadvantage is that they bleed. Someone recommended using Aloe Vera gel instead of water. Worth a try. To get the liner of was extremely hard.

Another fun thing I tried is dying fabrics with shaving foam and inks or acrylics.

 first put a layer of shaving cream on your workspace

Then add drops of ink - I used acrylic inks

Random skewer patterns

Put fabric on top and lift off

and another one with a bit of silver ink.

I think I should try this again, but with more colours and different marble patterns. It's a fun way of making your own fabrics.

What have I been doing so far?

Exodus 3:16
Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt:

So far: mostly thinking:).....and sketching. I have about a 20 possible ideas, but none is right just now. I know I am heading there and this time the idea is more taking shape in my mind than on paper. I also have been reading quite a lot of books and magazines (digging up some old Art Quilting mags), mainly to learn different techniques.  Most of them I won't use in this quilt, but some I might give a try. I really enjoyed this book:




I also read an article about using old (used) teabags on fabric. By reading that all of a sudden an idea popped up: using teabags as an imagery for the bricks the Israelites had to make. I got all excited and started drying teabags and drew Egyptian inspired pictures on them.

I also remembered I had bought a piece of Papyrus when I was in Egypt. So I might try to incorporate that in the quilt. First tried to draw and paint on it with Ecoline inks, which worked quite well.
 

Then stitched over it and that worked too!

The first 5 verses

Gen 3:16

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Exd 3:16

Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt:

Lev 3:16

And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD'S.

Num 3:16

And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD, as he was commanded.

Deu 3:16

And unto the Reubenites and unto the Gadites I gave from Gilead even unto the river Arnon half the valley, and the border even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon;

The first 5 verses. Working on the second now.