Raven's Wings

I received the final Exquisite Corpse to work on, only one square was remaining in the design. The originating artist, Elizabeth informed us that this was an image of ravens and to make them black. You must go see the entire image, it is my favorite of all, so far.

At first I was stumped on how to do black only! Then I started pulling different types of fabric that I had around that were black. I ended up using the scraps from making my husband's Snidely Whiplash cape, which were a shiny satin and a matte crepe. Those worked pretty well together.

I sewed them on dimensionally, folding in half, sewing down and attaching only one side to create the illusion of feathers. I also couched on top a black ribbon yarn.

Then there was the beading. I used a lot of my black bead stash, and then the background looked a bit bare. So I began stitching on some red or gold beads that went with the painted base fabric. To make the jump between beads I started sewing x's, and I really like how it looks, it pulls together the raven wing and the background. Plus the nymo beading thread is shiny and pretty.

A closeup view of the wingtips where you can see the couching and dimensionality of the wings.
Oh, and the beads.

I guess I like closeups.
Oh why not, another closeup.
The final piece, without flash.
The final piece with flash.