2 Red Squares

My guild, Kaleidoscope, gave a challenge at the Christmas potluck the second Thursday in December. 

 The Challenge

I designed my response right away.  However, creating it took a LOT longer.  I decided I would print out my design, piece the pages together, trace it onto fabric soaked with soy milk, then color it with my water color pencils.

My Original Design

I did not like this when it was finished.

Better Design

I still was not happy.

Final Design

This was frustrating because the corners where not turning as I wanted.  Also the red square on the far right was a bit wonky.  I un-stitched that one.  Then re-stitched.  Still not happy.  I appliqued the red square just left of center.  Like the idea a LOT more.  However, I am not happy with my stitching.

IF I were to re-do, I would sketch the whole design, do another soy painting, then try to figure out how to have the corners crisper.

PS.  When I first attended, it happened to be a potluck.  One of the members told me, tongue-in-check, "The guild is just an excuse to get together, eat, laugh and have fun."  It is a WONDERFUL group of women.  When I am able to attend, I always enjoy looking at the show-and-tell + + + the camaraderie.

PSS.  The colors on the Final Design are closest to the actual colors.  At first I did not like the variegated coloring I got with the pencils.  However, as I quilted, I liked it a LOT more than a flat color.  It seems to have a bit more interest.

Another Idea

Do not like the colors.  Enough for now.  Not sure why, but I am really drawn to this design.  Perhaps it is because it is such a challenge for me?  Not happy with it yet.

Quilt Photo Year 7 in Review

This is a really late post.

My quilting year goes from the first of October to the end of September.  I usually post in October. This is because of when I started to blog. Obligations and necessities took over + Festival.    I knew I had 5 months of personal business that occupied all of my time.  However, I could not figure out why I had such a little bit of output for the other 7 months.  Then, as I was looking at last years calendar to update to 2015, I found the reason.  I remembered that I put a LOT of time into this quilt.  Did not realize how much until I looked at my calendar notes. My calendar notes revealed the whole story.  I started sketching this quilt on 24 January; finished piecing 21 March; just made the photo deadline on 2 May.  I know that later I had to do all of the back finishing, including putting on the sleeve.  I also know that my hands were in too much pain from arthritis to even think about doing hand work.  Therefore, following advice from my very supportive Quiltart group, I did all of my finishing with glue, namely 'liquid stitch'.  It worked wonderfully.  

Blue Rose

Blue Rose center

Chair Bag for Festival 2013

This worked GREAT!  A few folks did notice that I was from quiltart.  However, the biggest use was for storing stuff collected/purchased during the show.  Big stuff of course was shipped.

Butterflies for mobile

This was a Fast Friday Fabric Challenge.

Mobile in Motion

Chemo Quilt

Chemo Quilt

Chemo Quilt

Quilt of Honor

Drone Quilt block

This has become part of a quilt protesting drones.

Star for Houston

too small

Star for Houston

too small

Star for Houston

Frustrated with my pieced stars ending up too small, I used a large piece of yellow linen as the backdrop for this GLITZy star.  What FUN to find it in one of the quilts in Houston commemorating time in the space station with astronaut Karen Nyberg.

Fun Wear

I received the bath robe and a  long night gown as a gift from my cousin Carla.  Not one to wear long gowns, I did a major remake.  I added/revamped the robe belt with a quilted one.  After making a shorty top [with added fabric to trim the bottom] from the night gown, I used the fabric to make PJ shorts, mini top for really HOT weather [that did not get much use] plus made some coordinating short pants and added trim to a Salvation Army collared knit top to complete my night wear ensemble.

This review is NOT in any special order.  The photos are in the order that my program uploaded them.  However, basically, it is what I created during this slice of time.

Golden Sunrise

Golden Sunrise, redone

Not happy with the quilted sky, I ripped it out.  After steaming out the stitch lines, I used gold metallic thread to tie the sky in a circular pattern emanating from the sun.  Difficult to see because of the metallic and the camera's reflection, it does add a small bit of texture, while allowing the atmosphere to just be more as Turner would have done it.

Golden Sunrise

10" x 10"

The challenge is to capture the essense of  'Turner's Light.' As I look at it now, I wish my golden thread was not so heavily stitched.  However, I just spent the afternoon [and last night] ripping out one quilt; not ready to do another even if it is really small.

This is my third try at this challenge.  It is miles better than the other two.  However, I now have more ideas to attempt.  It seems one painting/quilt always leads to another.

FFFC = day 4

Wet Painting 8-8-2011

My day started really well.  Before Breakfast I painted some on the above.  After breakfast, I hung out my sheets, towels, socks and all the 'heavy stuff'.  Because it was almost 80, my earlier work was almost dry.  Happily, I am able to do some more painting.  That is when I heard a pounding rain hit the skylight.  No time to rescue my laundry.  Just kept painting.  This is the result.

Now I will order paints, as we have no local hobby shop.  I love living in a small town, but shopping can be challenging.  I've only got a smidgen of purple left.  While waiting, I have a long 'to do' list.

FFFC 59 = days 2 and 3

August 6, 2011 Wet Painting

August 6, 2011 Dry Painting

August 7, 2011 Wet Painting

I painted this in the morning.  Hoped that it would dry and I could add more paint later in the day.  No, it is still wet.  Not sure when this will dry as it has been raining all day and more tomorrow.  Not sure how much I'm progressing.  However, I find I get a real HIGH from painting.  Even though it is not exactly the vision in my mind, I am noticing how much I enjoy the process.  After all, it is the Journey that is most important, not the end.

I need to order more paints.  I'm still looking at what is available.  Will definitely order tomorrow.  Need the paint!  Having too much fun not to continue.  Any suggestion about where to order fabric paints is very much appreciated.

FFFC 59 = solitude

Today I started painting a background for this challenge.  The fabric was wet, using Tusinko inks, I thought it was too bright.  Now dry, I wonder where did the color go.

Solitude beginning

The plan is for this to be a rather dark quilt with a light center.  It is hard to believe that vibrant blue is now barely visable.  Experiment and learn.

My Dream Rocket Panel

To me, the peace symbol means a utopian hope for a new age of global peace and unity.  Therefore, my idea has always been to use a large peace symbol on a green background to represent the earth; sky above; sea below.  However, originally I was going to have fabric hands just outside the yellow circle.  That didn't work because the small size made them look comical.  Next I tried using a bit of Lennon's song, ". . . all we really need is love..."  Love the song and the thought, but that didn't seem to work either.  Now the paint is building up.  I laid a piece of transparent paper over.  Much better to sketch it out instead of all that repainting.  Finally, the present design appeared.  I think the peace symbol can be seen from quite a distance.  Moving closer the large words, then the smaller words and symbols are readable.  Up close one can see the fish in the ocean and the birds in the sky.  Although many of the symbols may not bring ready thoughts to everyone, the peace symbol didn't either when it was first used.

My Dream Rocket Panel

One symbol may have many meanings. Following are the ones I place on these symbols. Start on the left and move clockwise.

Circle with a line: water; necessary for life.

Quartered circle: a sacred space or sacred earth; also the Celtic Cross.

Yin-Yang: universal harmony and global unity.

Propeller with a “no” symbol over it: no radiation. The symbol for no nuclear energy was too complicated for the 2” diameter circle. However, I am also thinking of that.

Arrows in a circle: recycle. I am also thinking of reduce and reuse.

Circle with a dot: creative spark of divine consciousness.

Empty circle: unity, wholeness, infinity, the feminine spirit, a sacred space and the spirit of mother earth.

15 Pears

15 Pears

This is one of the pieces I started during my week at a surface design retreat. The colors are a real divergence for me. I agreed to donate 3 10"x10" pieces for a local charity event in October. Knowing how I can not always trust my body to behave, I'm trying to do them now. One done, 2 to go.

This one has many textures and is both silk screen and free form paint applied with some little scrapers I made out of Styrofoam. The Styrofoam was the kind that food is put in at the market. This is easy to cut and shape. Hope you all try using this free material.
 
I'm not a big fan of variegated thread.  However, it just seemed to fit this colorful piece.  Comments appreciated.  What else could I have used.

Flower Child

original photo of Morgandy (taken by her Father)

I finally finished this FFFC quilt I've been working on for two weeks. I had the concept before my week at the surface design workshop. I actually made a background for it while I was there. Therefore, it should have gone very quickly. Well almost. There were a few bumps in the road.

Although I had a photo I was planning on using. I wanted it bigger than the printout from the 8.5"x11" size that is my printer capability. To get around this, I thought I would rotate the photo. When I tried this in Picasa, I lost large hunks of the photo. I went into Paint, added some blank edges all around. Then back to Picasa to rotate it. This worked GREAT. Then I was able to trim to size. Therefore I printed the largest possible image of Morgandy on the same size paper.

Morgandy rotated after adding borders all around.

Sorry I could not show the borders added.

Apparently the file type is not compatible to this system.

Original rotated and cropped photo after some added paint.

You will notice the original photo has some hidden body parts. I painted over the photo to add those parts. At my first try, I painted the shoes with a 'shiny black' paint.  It looked more blue than black.  It took 3 coats of paint to cover that up.

This is the background that I made specifically for this quilt.

Satisfied, I tried the cut out against my intended background. Nope! That did not work. I went through my stash and found some flowered fabric I really thought would work. Nope. That was not it either. Then my small group came to the rescue. Peggy suggested I use bites of both, yet turn over the flowered fabric because it was so bright. [I love bright, gaudy and glitz.] That worked much better and became my finished background.  Thanks Peggy.  I couldn't have done it without your input.

Problems quilting were major tension problems. Of course when the machine is giving me tension problems, I also tense up. Finally I just did it. I decided to quilt around each flower petal so that it would really look like a blanket of flowers.

After the binding was on, I hated the binding. I thought the black would frame the quilt and the black jumper would pick it up. No. It was overpowering. Off with the binding. Next I faced it. That was rather quick except for the hours of picking out the batting from the micro stitching I like to use.

'Flower Child', 12" x 17.5"

detail showing dimensional flowers

'Flower Child' detail

In the end I am pleased with it. When the facing was stitched I added the intended dimensional flowers.

It is a Mother's Day gift for Morgandy's Mom. I think she will like it. At least I am happy with the outcome. I'm finishing a bit close to the gift giving deadline, but I did make it.

Comfortable

Fiberarts Squared is a new group doing a 12" X 12" challenge every two months. This is the first challenge. The hostess chose the word 'comfort'. This was interpreted in many different ways.

I tried to think of what image would bring to mind some form of the word comfort. My little baby nestled on his mother's shoulder makes me think 'comfortable'. After all, what could be more comforting or comfortable than snuggled in that soft, warm niche of a mother's neck and shoulder as she cradles you in her arms.   So comfortable in fact, the baby fell asleep.

Comfortable

The 'painting' was drawn on soy milk soaked fabric using water color pencils. Even after heat setting, I found the color was not permanent. Therefore, I painted on a thin layer of medium. I then heavily quilted the face. I'm not totally satisfied with how the face came out. I drew my intentions on a print of the painting. However, sometimes when I looked up to see the quilt line drawing, I moved off my spot. What I think I really need to do is make some marks directly on the quilt. I got a liquid pen with wash-away ink. That dried up almost immediately. The marks left by chalk were too big. Suggestions appreciated.

Morgandy's First Birthday gift

For a few hours on Mondays, I babysit  the adorable baby next door. Today is Morgandy's first birthday. For this occasion I created a new rocking chair back to replace a rattan one that had been punched out by a 4 year old boy. Of course I've had this chair for a while. I took all the loose joints apart and re-glued them. It is now really sturdy. Then I pulled off all the bits and pieces of rattan. After a final cleaning;  I got my canvas and began painting.

Morgandy means 'Little One by the Sea.' So of course I painted a little girl at the edge of a big body of water. I used unprimed canvas and acrylic paints. I knew this would work because I painted a skirt with acrylic paints 30 [or more] years ago. They do make the fabric stiff, but in this case it would make it better to be stiff. I do not like acrylics for my regular wall quilts because I do not like the stiffness. The painting is simple, and was easy. The assembly was hard. The back is larger at the top than at the bottom; it is also curved.  Because of my distracted, grieving mind I first sewed it together making the top 1" too narrow. This is tough stuff to sew, but rips out easily. Then of course I had to repaint a bit to cover those lines. After sewing to the correct size, I trimmed the corners and turned it right side out. This is very hard stuff to work with. Getting it turned right side out is a job in itself. I intended to quilt it. However just stitching a band around the edges, was difficult. I used a #16 needle, the largest I had. At this time, I decided not to quilt. It was even difficult to bury the thread from this little bit of sewing. However, by stitching that band, I had 4 pieces of canvas acting as one at the edge where it will get the most strain. I think it is strong enough for a little girl.
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Then I used carpet thread to sew it into the existing frame. That was the hardest job. After I had the top installed [little over 8 hours], I wished I had my old grommet maker. If you are going to do something like this, and I highly recommend it, use grommets to line up with the holes and then it can easily be laced into place. I feel writing about my mistakes, helps any reader avoid them. One of those, "do as I say, not as I do" sort of things.  I do hope this was a good learning experience for you; it sure was for me.

Wild Rose

The FFF challenge number 40 was using a color scheme from a product to portray a still life with a plant. I started sketching a yellow rose in a vase, then gradually I eliminated the vase and blew the rose up. I only had this tiny bottle of yellow dye, so the colors changed during the development.  It started out as a 'Yellow Rose', but ended up as a 'Wild Rose'.

I forgot to photograph just the yellow and white.   However, you can see that the tiny bottle of yellow and the small bottle of white are not going to cover this big sheet.

I used a piece of white sheeting, dyes, and paints. My original thought was to just paint the yellow tones of the rose and leave the white for the highlights. That didn't have enough depth for me. So I just kept painting until I got some shapes I liked. I found the painting so relaxing and exhilarating and challenging all at the same time. Obviously it was fun!

The background seemed rather uninteresting so I remembered the month we experimented with stamping and mark making. I scoured the house for things that would leave some texture. My problem was stopping because I was having so much fun.

Although my yellow rose gained a lot of other colors during the process so that it doesn't exactly match the predominately blue and yellow of my chips package, I'm thrilled with the result. It is the most colorful thing I've ever done.

Wild Rose

27.75" X 28.75"

I've also been admiring those interesting borders that many folks use on their quilts. Mine never really called for that. However, as I made the rose larger, I realized it might be more dramatic with the bottom border following the lines of the rose and leaves. It does! I struggled with this border for over a week. Finally I stitched it by hand on the back to hold the facing in place. Any and all advice about doing this would be appreciated. I got it done, but it did involve a lot of angst.

On Point

The colors [one color and the rest neutrals], in this little quilt reflect the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge for May. The size is to meet the requirements of the 'Little Gems' sale that will go on in August. The proceeds of this sale will go towards establishing a Guild Museum and Gallery in York, England. If interested in learning more, try this link.

http://littlegemquilts.wordpress.com/

So far they only have one quilt from the USA. Perhaps you might have time to make a contribution. I'm sure it will be appreciated.


This is a new product I tried. It makes a bead on the fabric. I was hoping it would block the ink. Unfortunately, as you can see it didn't work well for that. It is easy to use and guarenteed permanent color.

"On Point" is approximately 8.5" x 11.625". As you know, if you have followed this blog for a while, I LOVE ballet. Now I'm just an observer and recorder, but I still love that mode of expression.
I can still remember my first time in toe shoes. Surprisingly they really didn't hurt much. However, they were very awkward to walk in. I am continually amazed by the beauty and grace of ballerinas.

My World in Black and White entries

The last of these two quilts was finished on my birthday, September 30, 2008. That was the deadline for entries into this traveling show, "My World in Black and White". The show catalog has now been printed. I've just been given permission to show my entries.

"Mom"

Artistic Statement: Mom has been in fragile health since her 92 birthday when she suffered a crippling stroke. Knowing her time is extremely limited, I've found myself remember how she was when living on the farm, her home for over 60 years. This is a memory of her at 90 years of age.

Mom and the fruit were painted on a sheer fabric and then overlaid and quilted so that the underlying fabric comes through to add pattern and 'texture'. All of the other fabric pieces were torn. The farm scene was made by thread painting. The whole piece was framed in velvet which in person gives it a lot of depth and textural contrast to the other fabrics. Size 33" wide x 42.5" high.

"Ballet Trio"
26" high x 29" wide

Artistic statement: As a child I took ballet until the end of High School. That was my joy. I still LOVE watching wonderful ballet performances. Now because of physical limitations, I only dream of ballet. This is my dream.

The ballerina on stage was painted; ballet slippers are 3 dimensional with construction and fabrics similar to the way I remember mine were made; satin with satin ribbon ties.

Quoth the Raven

Cocky fellow that he is, this Raven is reading Poe as he struts his stuff in his orange form fitting boots.

I made this for both the FFFC [Fast Friday Fabric Challenge] and a Raven Postcard Challenge. Since I had posted it on the FFFC blog, it is not eligible for the Fiberart for a cause fundraiser.

SOOO, with that good cause in mind, I have posted it here--all 4" x 6" of it. I couldn't think of anyway to do an auction except let people leave messages with their bids; a silent auction of sorts.

The winner bidder will make out a check to the

National Breast Cancer Foundation

and mail to

National Breast Cancer Foundation

2600 Network Blvd. Suite 300

Frisco, TX 75034

In return, I will mail this one-of-a-kind Raven Post Card to you. Of course your donation is fully tax deductible. The post card will just be a gift from me to you.

I do hope there is interest in this idea.

This silent auction ends at midnight January 31, Eastern Standard Time. I will then notify the winner via email. Therefore, please email your email address to me, designerann@yahoo.com. I will get all of the mailing information from the winning bidder.

Please post your bid in the comments section so everyone can see the bids. If someone has a better way to do this, please email me the details. This is my first try at a charity fundraiser on my own.

Thanks for looking, ann

Finished 'Lovie'

I had heard of 'lovies', but didn't know what they were. The head of one of my on-line quilt groups asked for volunteers to make a 12" x 12" or 10" x 10" 'lovie' for someone who has had surgery for cancer and soon will be starting chemo.

Well in the quilt world a 'lovie' is simply one square of a lap quilt, made with love to comfort a person who might need some extra love. What a NEAT idea. Here is my 12 x 12 ready to mail tomorrow. Someone will add sashing, stitch the squares together for the top, add batting and a back and make a small quilt. We are studying leaves this month so we thought that was a GREAT idea to use nice fall colors.

Then we found out her colors are red, white and blue. So now we are all making red, white and-or blue leaves. I used blue paint on sheer fabric, then quilted it with blue thread on top of this red-white-blue organic patterned fabric. What fun this was! It will be exciting to see the finished quilt.

Hypsboas Pellucens = endangered species

2008 is named the year of the frog by Conservationists. Up to half of the world's 6,000 amphibian species are in danger of extinction. All are being affected by habitat loss, pollution, climate change, pesticides and introduced species. An even bigger threat is the deadly parasite fungus known as amphibian chytrid.

First photo is the painted frog on the fabric background.



Second photo is the frog with the background enhanced with stitching, then framed in velvet.


Third photo is to try and show the dimension of the piece.