This is really strange ...

In the back of my mind I have been thinking about that self-portrait challenge that Quilting Arts is having. The examples in the magazine showed fabric collaged faces. So I thought I'd try one.

It might have been a bit smarter to try it in a larger size than 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches though. In case you don't know - that's the size of an Artist Trading Card. I started by fusing a dark blue background to a piece of Timtex. Then I fused Wonder-Under to a bunch of different fabrics and just cut out the pieces in the shapes I needed. Using my tiny Clover iron made fusing the pieces to the face way easier than trying to use a standard iron. I actually fused all the facial features to the skin piece before I put the entire face on to the background. Manipulating those tiny pieces of fabric was a pain in the butt though. Tweezers worked great to place everything where I wanted it. Yep, some pieces were THAT small! Then I made the mistake of trying to make the lips smaller AFTER I fused the piece down. Not wise. I pulled up one side and got it trimmed a bit but the other side didn't want to budge - so now she has these lopsided collagen lips. I added a touch of white paint on the eyes and used black pen to separate the lips but the rest is all fabric. It was a really different thing for me to try. Probably would have been easier if it was larger. But I kind of like it. Still need to do some free motion stitching on it to make sure the pieces don't lift but it's basically done. Weird, huh???