Back in the Swing

I'm trying to get back into a routine, and after almost a week, I think I'm getting there.  Exercise is back on the agenda (Curves is my workout routine).  I've filled 3 screen orders in as many days, so that's back on track.  Yesterday I canned some banana peppers, and used 2 zucchini for dinner.  Still some beans, yellow squash and tomatoes waiting and there will be another trip to the garden tomorrow. 

I took some time to complete a readers' challenge for Quilting Arts, so that's the only quilting I've done, but I guess I can't show it until after finalists are selected. (Instead I have a preliminary photo and the finished back.) 

And I'm taking some time to enjoy this beautiful weather we are having - would love it to stay this way!  Who would have expected it to be so cool in late July??

Passages - I Can Fly

Quilting Arts magazine recently had a reader's challenge to submit a 10 x 10 quilt based on the theme "Passages".  Since my submission was not selected  - they chose 12 out of 125 - I guess I can share it here.  Those odds are pretty low, so I don't feel too bad about not being chosen; I'm happy with how it turned out, regardless.  My quilt is a reflective piece about my daughter moving away from home to become an independent adult. When she was growing up, she used to say, "Guess what?" and I'd say, "What?"  Her reply would be "I can fly!"  I have no idea where that came from.  But thinking about this passage brought the memory back.  The text is done with thermofax screens of notes she wrote while away at college.  The bird and wings imagery complete the idea of nurturing a child until they are ready to fly on their own.  I look forward to seeing the challenge finalists' quilts in the October/November issue of Quilting Arts..

 

 

This piece is made on rusted cotton fabric with gelatin plate printing in the background, thermofax screen printing, Transfer Artist Paper (original photograph of robin and babies), and is machine quilted.

"Cravings"

I've been part of a postcard swap group for several years.  Our group keeps dwindling but we are still at it, twice a year. Our most recent exchange was due May 31, and not all have posted, but thought I'd share mine and the ones I have received.

 As noted in the title our theme was Cravings.  I couldn't get past the first thing that came to mind, which was, of course, chocolate!  I found a piece of fabric that reminded me of dark, rick chocolate, and made a thermofax screen of the words "dark chocolate".  I used a discharge paste to print the screen in the center of each 4 x 6 rectangle and after fusing to timtex, did a double row of stitching to resemble a chocolate bar.  Simple, but effective I think  I love the way the discharge turned out.  With discharge, you never know what you'll get - it depends on the dyes used in the fabric.

 This is Lois B's card - like me, Lois craves chocolate.  She really wants to be slimmer, but the craving usually wins.  I definitely empathize!

 

Sherry W. craves an English Cottage Garden.  She is working on a real one, but in the meantime created this delightful piece.

Cathy T. made this lovely card depicting a butterfly flying free from flower to flower - she craves that ability to fly free for herself.  Read more about Cathy's cards and process on her blog.

Song Sung Blue Finished!

In the 2 weeks since my last post, I've finished SSB - it's for a challenge that is to be unveiled at my guild meeting this Wednesday, so finished with time to spare.  Rather than borders or binding, it is finished with an artist;s facing.  I didn't have any leftover of the hand-dyed fabric I started with, and the pieces I auditioned for binding didn't enhance the piece, so just finishing off the edges seemed the best bet.  I haven't taken any pictures of the back - sounds like a good idea for tomorrow.

I'm happy with the way it turned out. 

Quilting Blue Song

I've been working on the quilting for 2 days - first the blue flowers, then the sky, and finally the stems and leaves.  The colors blend in pretty well, so it's not super visible, just gives it some definition.  I still have the grass and butterflies to do.

Magic Paint

Hmm...if only I could make that one flower disappear.  Well, I think I did, mostly!

If you look really closely, you'll see it's still there, just hiding in the grass.  In printing the flower, I covered the bottom leaf next to the rock, so I started by reprinting that leaf.  I added some more blades of grass on top of the white, and repainted the part of the rock that had white on it.  So from a distance it's not really visible, and close up, it's just peaking out from the grass. The others may be a little more prominent than I want at this point, but I think the quilting will blend them in a bit more.

Next - the quilting.

Rocks and More Flowers

Sorry its been a week since my last post.  It's taken me that long to decide on the last couple of elements for this piece.  I auditioned various amounts, combinations and placements of the rocks before deciding on the arrangement below.

I think this gives it a bit more balance and grounds it, although I thought the rocks might be a little dark.  What I did before fusing them down is add a layer of beige netting that I fused to the top of each rock. It makes them just a little bit lighter and softer, and adds a little shimmer.

Then as a last sort of impulse addition, I thought some small white flowers in the grass would give it a little more spark.  I had some small wooden stamps that I thought would work but neither one showed up very well.  Instead I tried a small screen that I used as the center of some of the other flowers. I liked it on the sample so I went ahead and started adding.  This is what I ended up with.

Hmm....maybe not the best decision?  Except for the one on the bottom left, I think it will be OK. But I'd really like to get rid of that one.  Come back tomorrow to see what I do next.

Leaves and Stems

Yesterday I showed the yellow added to the blue flowers.  I decided it was a bit too much, so I toned it down by overpainting the biggest areas with blue. I had added green to the center of the flowers, and also painted some blue on top of that.  Better. I also added centers to the large stamped flowers.

 Now its time for stems and leaves.  Here I am auditioning some stamps and a screen.  The stamps will work well for the smaller flowers.  The screen is one I made for the stems of the taller flowers.  Results of that tomorrow.

Song Sung Blue - Next Steps

Yesterday I showed the start of this project.  After looking at the printed flowers on the design wall, I thought there were too many light flowers, so I overpainted some of the lighter ones with a navy blue. Better.

Then I started on the flower centers, using a combination of stencils and screens to add more detail. Looking OK so far. 

Brand New Year, Brand New Start

2013 - Brand new year - wow, I remember thinking about 10 years ago how far away that date seemed, it being the year I reach full retirement age with the state.  And now its here.  Happy, YES! But also more aware of how quickly time passes.  9 more months (till retirement) but it will fly by. 

I've also been contemplating what to focus on creatively for this coming year.  Not sure I've come to a conclusion, but have a few things I would like to pursue.  Sketching is one.  I've tried rather unsuccessfully to keep a sketchbook, but I think this is the year to try harder.  I've gotten some inspiration from a few sources - books and blogs - and would love to say I'll make a daily sketch, but realistically, once a week may be more doable.

I just read Lynn Krawczyk's post on her blog about an idea from the JustB blog - a month's worth of creative prompts.  Think I'll have to check that out.  Maybe ideas for sketching prompts.  Hmm....  And posting to this blog more regularly...starting today.

Finishing projects is always on the list.  Thought I'd share the process for one I'm working on now.  It's a quilt guild challenge based on top songs from 40 years ago to celebrate the guild's 40th anniversary this year.  All the participants chose a song from the billboard top 100 of 1974 - I chose "Song Sung Blue" by Neil Diamond.  One of my favorite singer/songwriters.  The piece was originally going to be all block printed, but after doing the background, I decided to combine screen printing, stenciling and block printing, similar to a piece of fabric I created last summer. (Truth be told, it was going to take longer to carve stamps than I had time for!)

Here's the first step, with the sky and grass block printed for the background.  There is actually  more layered printing of the grass than shows in this picture; it looks like I didn't take a picture with that additional printing, but you can see it in the image below.

My vision is a garden of blue flowers, hence the blue flowers printed above.  "Song sung blue, everybody knows one.  Song sung blue, every garden grows one."  These are all thermofax screens made from photos of flowers.  More on the process tomorrow!

Home Is Where the Quilt Is

In early October I went to the Sewing and Quilt Expo. This year's expo was very enjoyable. I missed it last year, so it was like a breath of fresh air - exceptional quilt displays and a great variety of vendors, different from the usual quilt shows. Here are a few pictures of "Home is Where the Quilt Is"; these house-shaped quilts will be auctioned in November to support the work of The Alliance for American Quilts. The auction begins on Nov.12, with a different set of quilts offered each week for 4 weeks.

 

AAQI Quilt

The Celebration 2012 Quilt Challenge joined with the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) to fight Alzheimer’s.  Participants made priority quilts (9" x 11") for the challenge which were then donated to AAQI.  The Challenge Quilts from Celebration 2012 are now available on the Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiative website. To view, bid and buy these beautiful quilts go to www.AlzQuilts.org. The quilts donated to AAQI by VCQ members are numbered 10251-10280.  My contribution is #10, 266 and can be found here.

Arts & Old Lace Quilts Revealed

The Arts & Old Lace exhibit opened yesterday at Artistic Artifacts, so now I can share the 2 pieces I have in the collection of 80+ quilts.  It is a wonderful show, stop in to see it if you can; so many different interpretations of the theme.  Quilts will remain on display through the end of September during regular store hours, Tues & Thurs 11-5, and Sat 9-2.

I have been photographing architectural elements for the last year, so the theme brought to mind a quilt based on Architectural Lace. This piece was created with thermofax screens of architectural elements from various buildings - church windows, porch columns and the arched filligree of a Victorian porch.  The vertical lace inset was part of the kit, as were the other laces added as trim.  The screens are printed on a collaged batik background. The antique buttons were purchased at a quilt show.  Machine pieced and quilted.

My second interpretation of the theme is Nature's Lace, also created with thermofax screens. A lacy fern and of course Queen Anne's Lace, both open and closed, are the elements used here.  A circle of emboidered fabric included in the kit became the center of the fern "flower".  The butterflies are also printed from a thermofax screen onto a hand-dyed fabric, then cut out, fused and stitched in place.  The blue background is a snow-dyed fabric.  Machine quilted.

Myth Postcard

I sent out my postcards to my swap group last week, only a month late; thank goodness they are an understanding group!  The theme for this swap was "Myth".  My interpretation centers on Athena.  You can read her story on the back of the card in the third photo.

The background fabric is hand dyed cotton.  The image of the Parthenon is printed on Extravorganza and fused to the background.  The olive branch is stenciled, and the owl is screen printed with a thermofax screen created from a photo by Elizabeth Gibson.

I am very pleased with how these turned out.

Arts & Old Lace Sneak Peak

Arts & Old Lace is a quilt challenge put together by two local quilters, Judy Gula of Artistic Artifacts and Cyndi Souder of Moonlighting Quilts.  The challenge was simply to create an 18" quilt with this theme; a kit of fabrics and laces was provided, but not required to be used.  I made 2 pieces for the challenge which will debut July 21.  I won't show the completed pieces until after that date, but I thought I'd share a few close-up shots of what I've been working on for the last month.

  Need I mention that both pieces contain screen printing?  Visible in the first picture but not so much in the second.  Stay tuned for more pictures later.

Going Dotty - Finished!

Back on Jan. 2, I posted pictures of the Dotty challenge in my local guild.  This past weekend I quilted it, and added the binding, label, and hanging sleeve.  Tonight I finished the hand stitching.  Here is the finished piece, ready for the unveiling at Wednesday's guild meeting.

Dotty Challenge

My local quilt guild received some fabric samples (5 " squares) from Timeless Treasures and decided to issue a challenge.  The fabric is a collection called "Dotty" and consists of 18 colors with irregular dots.  The challenge was to use at least 6 colors in a small quilt between 18 & 36" square, and use curves in some way.  I've wanted to do a piece with fractured circles for a while, so thought this was a good opportunity.  I used all the colors - one is very pale and the dots are barly visible, so that only appears in one circle, but otherwise they're all there.  I started by layering 3 circles on top of each square, cutting out the bottom layer of the circle each time to reduce bulk.

Then I layed out all the squares on the design wall.

I liked this, and considered stopping at this point, but decided to follow through on the original plan and ended up with this.

I think it turned out well.  The black and white stripe border and blue outer border help give the eye a place to rest with all the dotty riot of color.

Color Challenge

An art quilt group I belong to issued a color challenge last spring - create an 18 x 24 quilt based on the colors of a fish.  We picked from envelopes with paint chips representing each fish; I got "cowfish", which had 4 colors: turquoise, gold. rust and dark brown. This is the finished quilt. It started with a fat quarter turquoise sunprint, then I added stenciling and printing with a textured brayer. The sunprint was done in summer of 2010.  Since the colors fit this challenge, I added the dark brown by adding the wavy strips and borders.  Because the background reminds me of things celestial, this is called "Cowfish Cosmos".