Uta Lenk - Matisse's Legendary Blue NuDenim

Working in 3D is not my forte, and I was very close to opting out of this challenge after searching for an idea for a long time. But one grows with the challenge one faces, and finally I decided I would do something with all the pieces from denim that friends of mine have been collecting when they are working with denim, yet mainly using the flat pieces. I was given a very voluminous bag of these, and some extras. A quilt with 3D elements is 3D, too, I did not have to make a sculpture or jacket.

And then I decided to use a poster of Henri Matisse's famous "Blue Nude" cutout as my starting point.

I printed the photo, traced and slightly altered the contours and enlarged it on a photocopying machine.

Tracing the contours onto fabric by stitching was easy, and that was where the project rested for several weeks. Until our reveal date was pushed back a bit, which finally was the incentive to get really started. Attaching the denim pieces to the white background fabric went quickly, they are simply stitched on. Quilting is a thorough workout around the figure in seed stitch - many hours, it took much longer than the stitching of the denim.

But I could spend some pleasant hours sitting on our balcony.

Many hours of stitching seed stitch later I decided to add a bit more 3D-denim-attractions, and, as the white fabric originally was a duvet cover and still featured a row of buttonholes, I added buttons from my large collection of mother of pearl buttons as well. The work is still in progress, here is a pre-finished mock-up layout:

If I had seen this card earlier, I might have chosen this shape as my inspiration.

But then the word play would not have worked...