How to Create a Tile Quilt Mosaic

How to Create a Tile Quilt Mosaic
Hi, I’m Faith and I’m here at Flat Fork Studio, and I’m here to show you one of my tile mosaic creations. This is a tile quilt; I made a quilt making pattern called “rob Peter to pay Paul.” Basically, what I did was this was an old headboard that actually belonged to my family, and I took and started out, first of all, the pieces made of ceramic tiles and cement, and also the understructure is chicken wire and metal lack. Basically what I did was I started with the chicken wire, I folded it over the piece and just started kind of hammering it and folding it and bending it to where I thought it kind of looked like a quilt. And then I actually took some wire and I tied all of that together through the frame. And then at that point, I went and I took some metal lack which you can find at the hardware store and I folded that over the top of it. This was to give it extra strength and rigidity, because this is a very heavy piece- this piece almost weighs about three hundred pounds. I took some rebar and put it in my vice and I bent it and hooked it over the top, so that’s what’s actually making these fold pieces right here, here, this edge, and then also this edge as well. And from that point, I took cement, and I laid it flat and I just basically started pressing the cement through the metal lack just to kind of fill the surfaces, to kind of create the surface. After I put a couple of layers on, then I put the mosaic tile on and for that I used the thin set mortar for exterior use and I basically, I had my patterns laid out on fiberglass mesh, already pre-cut out. Each one of these is a separate piece, but it’s acting as one piece. So basically, I just laid it all out, laid it over, and then I thin set it in and cement it in. And then I grouted it with a cement- white, I used white Portland cement. Then after I grouted it, and wiped off all the excess grout, I actually then took some latex paint and washed it down, and kind of created some of the shaded areas. And there you have the tile quilt.