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