Quilt

This isn't quilted yet, but that seems to be the way I work. The leaves were printed on a loose weave cotton blend with fabric paint. The stamps were ones I made from the Styrofoam from take home restaurant containers. It's fun to use what would otherwise be garbage and since it's a free material, if the stamps don't work, just toss them. I drew into the foam with a pen freehand. Just be sure to clean them first, so there's no oil or grease on them.

I stitched the details by hand. I wanted the piecing to be just a little unpredictable, so the extra strips on the end leaves are in different places. Also, the beige on the ends is a narrow folded strip. The green is a batik.

Quilt

 Now not only did Blogger put it sideways, but my picture program won't change it unless I close this. I used a stencil designed by Margaret Applin and sold by www.joggles.com The link is
http://www.joggles.com/store/catalog/index.php?cPath=473_1355

Here is a detail. I used a sponge and fabric paint to give an irregular look like you would see in nature. I used my hand painted threads to embellish it.

 

It's not quilted yet. That's the way I seem to work-make a bunch of stitched pieces, make a bunch of hangings, then do quilting for a while.

Fiberactions

This is a detail of the piece showing the beading in the center and the red metallic thread that I machine couched along the gold kid leather.

The latest Fiberactions challenge was to pick 3 colors from foods you normally prepare. I use lots of bell peppers, so I chose green, red, and yellow. The gold kid leather is the leftovers of a piece I did too many years ago to think about. Why was I saving it? Maybe for this.

Quilts

Here are two of the Journal quilts I've made for the challenge posted at http://www.3creativestudios.com/  I agreed to do 1 a month but am having so much fun that it's been 1 a week.

This is from a leftover strip of Seminole patchwork from a long Wearable Art vest I made when we were in California. I've tried to find a photo of the vest but so far no luck. Moving can do that-lose things.I'm using alternate ways to edge the quilts, so this one has a ribbon covering the edge.

The patchwork in this one was small strips left from a quilt that I sewed together into two sections and then pieced into the quilt. The fabric is hand painted. A black fussy yarn is zigzagged to the edge.

The Journal quilts are a great place to use up odd bits and pieces and also a chance to try a technique or idea without committing a lot of time and supplies.

Quilts

Years ago I made a quilted hanging I call Inner Leaf. It is a closeup of the underside of a leaf and is done in hand dyed fabrics.

This month I picked the word for http://fiberactions.blogspot.com/  Environment. Leaves and trees are always what comes to mind when I think of it.

I chose to do the same design, but this time by felting it. The background is wool yardage. After felting it, I used Machine stitching to accent the sections.

Here is a closeup.

The woods dark and lush

Provide food and homes.

Protect the wild woods.

Quilts

Here are the last two quilts that went to the gallery.Uncommon Sunflower has petals made of overlapping sheers that are raw edged and machined in place. I quilted the background with a variegated thread. The center is full of French Knots.

Broken Pathways is part of a series made by first sewing lots of strips together then cutting them up and using them with black.

Quilts

Here are some more of the quilts that will be going to the Teagues' Gallery in Longview, Washington.Garden with Bridge is a Japanese silk piece that is hand and machine quilted.

Journey Beyond the Black Hole was made for a Journey show that the High Fiber Diet Art Group had that travelled lots of places. It is my image of what must be beyond the black hole. All light is sucked in and captured never to be released, so inside must be very sparkly.The inside is hand dyes, pieced and beaded. Foil was added to the spokes.

Origins is canvas that I painted, machine stitched, hand stitched and beaded. It is one of my favorites.

All the pieces as on the small side. The gallery has few large walls. Besides I like working small.

Quilts

Here is the latest piece from my motif series. I had lost it on the table and finally stitched it-wanted to see how the motif looked in batiks. I do like to work with them. I think I'm through with the series, at least for a while.In going through quilts to get ready for a show in October, I came across this one. The show doesn't specify new quilts, and I've been revisiting some. I always did like it. The fabrics are the satiny type of cotton, so it feels good. It's called Lines and Circles for all the quilting on it.

Quilts

I'm getting pieced tops ready for the next step and decided to use some of the Japanese fabrics I have. The silks and rayons are all kinds of weights and don't play together well. Batting and quilting will help.I want to do some hand stitching around the butterfly and bamboo.

I always loved this little piece and can see machine work on the flowers. Obi scraps tend to have problem areas and this has a worn section on the bottom right. I thought about trimming it off, but the proportions were wrong then, so I used an iron on stabilizer on the back and will quilt it in place to reinforce that area.

This was the most interesting of the scraps and will have machine stitching to accent the shapes. I had more red and black scraps than I realized.

Quilts

Here is what I finally did with the Blue Flower. It's a fabric transfer of the negative of a photo I took. It looked wrong with just the green and pink strips and needed the blue. To bring that back into the center of the quilt, I machine stitched a narrow ribbon to form a frame.

This is a piece that has been around unfinished for a while. I showed it in progress and finally decided what to do with it. The Shisha are held in place with needlelace stitches. I've never used any glue to hold them-learned how to do it long before such glues were available. The edging is 2 rows of a fuzzy yarn couched in place by machine. Somehow a regular binding didn't seem right. I tried to use beads on it, but it refused them. It's called Starflight.

Quilts

Here are two more class samples that I've rearranged and made into hanging. The turquoise was two pieces one of which I divided off center and put on the ends.This one had borders put on it. I like the strange red stripe, but when the whole piece was on the cutting table, it was hard to look at!

Quilts

I've been going through WIP's/UFO's and taking old samples to see if they can be turned into something. The first one is quite small but I liked it, so I put on the two borders.

The green I'm not so sure about but decided to try it anyway. The top border might follow the angle and the piece turned upside down.

It's fun to go back and revisit some of the classes I've taken. At least I seem to be in work mode. Winter is a time when I don't want to go anywhere, just want to create.

Quilts

Here are two more quilts in the strip pieced series. This is All Squared Up. I've always liked the Log Cabin type blocks but wanted to do something that looked like my own version. Here is Reflections. Can you guess that I like color? Each one is an opportunity to try different color schemes. I'm not one of these people who can instinctively use color. I've had to learn how. The more you work with it, the more you learn.

Again, thanks to everyone who visits. It's fun to get to know you. I check out the blogs of those who comment and try to email everyone I can.

Quilts

Everyone seems to like the quilt that is my blog header, so I thought I would show some of the quilts in the series that lead up to it.

A number of years ago I took a week long retreat with Nancy Crow and learned so much. We had done sets of strips in class to use in some exercises. When I came home, I decided to use them with black seeing how many ways I could change them. This is Dancing with my Shadow. It is using curved piecing to join the strips with the black.

Here is Pick Up Sticks-it reminded me of the child's game.

Then I used navy and did squares. This is Broken Pathways.

I used one of the Kaleidoscopes that are clear to look at the blocks, rotated it to see what would happen and came up with so many ideas. There are more to this series and many sketchbook ideas waiting to be made.

Quilts

Before Christmas I took a class from http://www.joggles.com/ on using Tyvek and did the above pieces. I didn't realize that I'd scanned the small quilt before I sewed the binding.I've been experimenting some more.

This time I tried flowers but feel that leaves seem more natural for the destructured look. Here is a detail.

Then I printed a photo of a flower in our garden on Tyvek and machined it to felt. I barely hit the iron to it(with parchment paper over it to protect the iron), and this is what happened. I am pleased with this one and have another flower photo ready to stitch.

Quilts

My Quilt Group is having a show at the Artreach Gallery in Downtown Portland, Oregon opening tomorrow. Three of us hung the 30 quilts by the 12 of us yesterday. It does look good.

Knotholes is a large quilt about 5 feet long and 3 high. The greens are my hand dyed fabrics. It is heavily quilted and every edge is irregular like the trees that inspired me. The black is the wall it was photographed on. It is all machine pieced.

Curve of Time is a small piece with the two black back sections pieced from many blacks in all kinds of fabrics. The overlapping section strip pieced, slashed and rejoined many times.

Pick up Sticks is part of the series including the quilt presently in the other gallery show. It is done by making a stripped piece, then slicing it up and inserting it in a black background. It is machine quilted in circles.

TIF Challenge

My challenge for the Take it Further group is done. This is a group started by Sharonb http://sharonb.wordpress.com/ I had designed the block with Electric Quilt 6 based on the number 4. To use a 5th color, I added a line. Each section is composed of 4 blocks, and there are 4 sections. It was a fun challenge, and I look forward to February's.

Quilt Blocks

CarolClasperhttp://carolclasper.blogspot.com/ did a series of wonderful New York Beauty blocks, so I thought I would try some and did 4. Here are 2 of them. I think I'll stick to non-traditional piecing. It took so long to be able to work freely-being very left-brained, but I really enjoy it now. I have enough for a small hanging probably for my DIL who likes traditional quilts.

Quilts

I decided to use up some of the stash of batiks and made blocks of 2 strips, 3 strips, and half square triangles. No matter how I arranged them on the design wall, the triangles refused to play with the strips. Oh well, now I have 2 stops using the same fabrics. I tend to make tops which are easier to store than quilts and quilt them when a show comes up.

Quilt

This is a small piece I did a while ago. The center landscape is done on the knitting machine using the intarsia function. It also has some hand stitching on it. I bordered it with corduroy and machine quilted it. It was in a show of pieces showing traditional quilts and then unusual contemporary styles. Perhaps this year I should try more of this.