Project Quilting 16.6: Button It Up

This week's Project Quilting 16.6 Challenge theme is "Button It Up," a lovely way to get closure on finishing up a 1-week challenge, as well as season 16 of Project Quilting. While our project had to be inspired by the "button it up" theme, it could be literal or inspirational, use actual buttons in your project, or skip the notions and simply use the word/phrase as inspiration.

I am currently traveling in the Umbrian region of Italy for an mixed-media art retreat. As I was packing for my trip, I had considerable uncertainty whether I would manage to participate in this final Project Quilting challenge. Not wanting to break my Project Quilting participation streak, I packed a small sewing kit of fabric swatches, fusible, threads, and block-printing supplies. Unfortunately, I did not pack any buttons, but I was definitely thinking about which clothing items I had with me where I might sacrifice a button or two!

As our retreat travels continued, my uncertainty about participating in this final challenge grew day by day given our busy travel itinerary. But then I started to see a few signs of encouragement along my Umbrian travels...a sign with needle and thread as well as a miniature sewing machine.

But the ultimate sign was found while exploring Sansepolcro within the Province of Arezzo where I found the Casa del Bottone, House of Button. 

Inside this cute shop, there was a wall of buttons, as well as a wall of thread!

So of course, I picked out a few items to inspire and incorporate into my project. 

On Friday, we visited the Burri Foundation museum. Along the guided tour, I soaked up lots of art inspiration from Maestro Alberto Burri artwork using a variety of materials including burlap, shirts, stitching, and other materials. And I was especially delighted to see that Burri incorporated a button into his All Black piece created in 1956.

Maestro Alberto Burri, All Black, 1956 on display at Burri Foundation in Città di Castello, Italy

It took some effort for me to find the button in the top left corner...just to the right of the tan patch...so I included a detail photo of the button.

Button Detail of Maestro Burri's All Black, 1956

After touring Burri's artwork on Friday, I looked through my photos for floral inspiration to carve one or more blocks.

All along my travels, I've been photographing the doors and windows for design inspiration. I chose this one to inspire a new carved design. 

True to my Project Quilting modus operandi (MO), I started my project Saturday evening with the "Let's see what happens" mindset. 

I started by drafting and carving out the motif from the window.

Once the carving was complete, I did a few test prints on paper with text...

...before printing onto some silk swatch fabrics including this beautiful gold shot silk.

When it came time to fuse my quilt sandwich, I was thankful that my bedroom here at the beautiful Civitella Ranieri castle is equipped with an iron, ironing board, and a grand piano!

Here is where I left my project before heading to bed...knowing it needed something more in the solid gold background. I used some floral wire to create a stem and attach the button. This fulfills my Day 28 and 29/100 of Engineering Interactive Elements in my Fiber Art 100-day project.

Right before I fell asleep, I remembered seeing a window filled with hand-lettered text. I pulled out my gel pens to remind me to add a bit of asemic writing to the background when I woke up in the morning.

Simple hand embroidery frames the entire piece. I wanted to fray the edges but wasn't sure how it would look...so I took a before photo just in case.

The fraying was fine and because it is a shot-silk, you see two different colors along the edge as the other thread was removed.

Here is the finished block-printed and stitched Artist Trading Card celebrating some of the many sources of inspiration from my travels throughout Rome and Umbria, Italy.

All Gold, Finishes 2.5" x 3.5"

And this is my 60th 1-week finish for Project Quilting! It also doubles as Day 28 and 29/100 of Engineering Interactive Elements into my Fiber Art!

Interestingly enough, I managed to finish and link up my finished piece right around the time I would have usually finished were I in California with many hours left to enjoy my travels here in Umbria! 

Later that day, we visited a botanist at her beautiful grove. As we were taking a tour of the grove, this artsy scarecrow immediately caught my attention.

Imagine my delight when I got closer and realized that there were buttons in her hair, wings, and heart!

What a lovely way to celebrate another fabulous Project Quilting challenge and season! Many thanks to Kim and Trish for being fantastic PQ hosts. Thank you to Umbria for all the incredible inspiration to incorporate into my finished piece. And many thanks to my travel partner, Gayle for nudging me to get to work on my Project Quilting piece, while also photographing my process!