New Explorations in Surface Design

Hi All,
I've been doing loads of surface design lately.  Here is a new piece that began life as left over's from the last three sided vessel that I made.  It is only about 12" x 7" or so.  It has a layer of dark gold hand dye on the top that was heavily quilted with layers of wool batting, cotton batting, Timtex and another layer of hand dye.  After all of the quilting was done, I added some luscious multicolored metal leaf to the quilted surface.
I started the process by pouring up a bit of fabric glue on a paper plate.  Next, I lightly wet a sea sponge and dried it off in a towel so that it was just moist.  Then I saturated the flattest side of the sponge with the fabric glue and lightly sponged the glue across the surface of the quilted fabric so that the glue sat on the raised portions of the quilt and did not seep down into the stitched indentations of the quilting.  I let the glue dry until it was just slightly tacky - about 5 minutes.
I then carefully laid two of the small sheets (6" squares) of metal leaf on to the surface and very lightly and carefully pressed it into the surface.   I left it to dry completely for about 1/2 hour then I placed it on top of a sheet of paper and grabbed a large, soft stencil brush.  I lightly brushed across the surface of the quilt to dust off any of the metal leaf that was not attached, then brushed a little more vigorously to make sure all of the excess was off.  Yes, I save all of the excess, metal leaf is a bit expensive and the bits and pieces are easy to re-use.  I love this technique and the quilted fabric made a delightful little three sided vessel as shown below.
Till next time,
Heather