solomon's temple door

the latest art quilts around the world quilt challenge theme was 'doors'. after sitting out the last challenge to focus on southern lands and jealousy it was odd turning my mind back to the challenge with its boundaries around theme and size. the size this time was 12 inches square which is not a size i have done before.
i played around with a few ideas thinking of thresholds, littoral, hallucinogenics and such. and then came back to my first thought which was the door to solomon's temple. any realistic rendering of this would need a much bigger scale so it became a more impressionist feeling.
in terms of techniques and materials the purple central pattern is layered cotton, silk and a piece of netting from a potato bag hand stitched with silk and copper thread flooded with artists ink and fabric paint. i then went over the netting with copper and gold paint stick.

this was laid over black linen, wool felt, 2 pieces of gorgeous deep crimson silk brought back from vietnam by a colleague, 2 pieces of wired mesh ribbon teased open to give a slight baldacchino effect then fine black tulle.

i then machine stitched with a mix of rayon thread in gold, copper, purple, crimson and black and hove to with the heat gun to lightly toast.