“Double Double”

“Double Double”
Copyright Susan Brubaker Knapp 2024
42" x 70.5"

 

White fabric, acrylic textile paint, Lutradur, cotton thread, cotton batting, cotton backing. Hand painted, free-motion machine stitched.

 

“Double Double” is a large piece I made this summer to explore ways to use different weights of Lutradur. First, I hand painted white fabric, smearing on orange and yellow paint with my hands and Bondo scrapers. Then I hand cut hundreds of circles out of Lutradur, and paint-dyed them before stitching them down to the fabric. After adding backing and batting, I free-motion stitched and quilted. 

 

The name comes from Shakespeare’s Song of the Witches in Macbeth (1606):

 

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the caldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,

Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon's blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.