Scrap Adventures Hit It With Everything You've Got

Last week, I turned a silk ear into a sow's purse, in the form of a squarish silk scrap dupioni piece that turned into a barely tolerable bowl. 

At about the same time I created a long strip in a similar way - laying silk scraps on muslin, then freemotion stippling on top.  Like the bowl, the initial results didn't impress me.

But then I happened to go through my yarn stash, searching for a take-along crochet project for our Hawaii vacation. I came across a bag of yarn scraps, including lots of metallics and tinsel and embroidery thread and what-not.  I started peeling it apart and strewing mini-clots with abandon:

Next, from my sheer stash, I dug out an old garlic bag (the lavender netting), and various strips of tulle - sparkly blue, gold with glitter, off white, etc, I distributed them on top. 

The more I buried it, the more I liked it: 

You can't just start stitch over this. The presser foot will catch under every thread.  If I owned a felting machine, it could have just pounded the layers together.  Fortunately, there's a cheap and effective alternative: Cover the chaos with water-soluble stabilizer (I use Solvy)...

...Then freemotion stitch on top with a decorative thread....

...Once the stitching is done, soak it to remove the Solvy. Since I didn't stitch too tightly, I decided to just tear the Solvy away.

By the time I was done, I didn't just like it  - by gosh, I loved it! 

The back was a non-colorful mess (I ran down random bobbins), but I had to do one more thing before covering my tracks. I crossed two 18" pieces of floral wire on the back and hand basted them in place. They fit perfectly, from corner to corner. 

When we returned from Hawaii, I fused a blue dupioni silk to the back side: 

And I bent....

...and bent...

It felt like an oceanic seascape. Iridescent algae, tropical fish, and seagull shadows? Plastic bags, water bottles, lost jewelry? I tossed a broken rhinestone necklace on top. 

That looked poignant, and made me think of the Titanic. It also reminded me of the expensive prescription glasses I'd just mysteriously lost on a Hawaiian beach, possibly abducted by the local chickens or dolphins (Somewhere off Kauai there's a fortunate farsighted dolphin wearing Transitions (r) progressives). Going with the lost valuables theme,  I tossed on a few vintage metallic buttons. 

...and tested different bends: 

The more I bent it, the more I realized I had something else stuck in the back of my head. It finally came to me - in Hawaii, we not only experienced multiple H2O waves, but also glass ocean waves. I saw these glass sculptures in several galleries, first in Kela's Gallery, a fantastic glass shop just up the street from Vickie's Fabric in Kapaa (described in my blog post two weeks ago). Here's one from  Kela's. (Google 'glass ocean wave sculpture' and you'll see many variations by many different artists.)

Eureka! My piece wanted to be like that. I curled under one end and found a netted produce bag to pin on for the foam.... 

That's a definite maybe! I'm also going to experiment with lace. When finished, it can serve as an elaborate gigantic coaster: or a nightstand piece to park my replacement Costco eyeglasses (insurance isn't paying); or as a coffee table conversation piece.

Or not. There are other choices as well. If I hadn't put in wire,  and folded two edges to the middle,  I could have a  hypothetical cocktail purse:

Hypothetical, because I am so rarely invited to cocktails (Pause for pity party ). Or, I could roll it and set it sideways and make a base, as a vase/basket

Or, I could cut it apart to make a more structured vessel.  A pillbox hat? A doormat? Speculation welcomed!