After at least a month of not creating a fiber piece, I finally made it back to my studio. I thought I would start small and made two 5'' x 7'' quilts. The first one is almost an exact replica of an earlier piece I donated to Fiber Art For a Cause. I found a scrap of the original fabric I created and painted the pear and added the text. The edges are painted. I am going to a dinner with my local fiber artist group next week and will give this one away.
I love this next one because it is so not me. It's called 'Be Yourself'. The background is original fabric that was painted and sunprinted. The face and hands were cut from a magazine photo. I added the clothes and altered the hair and features with paint and markers. I then covered the entire piece with black tulle and did the quilting. The edges are finished with couched yarn.
Here is a great post about Desire and Determination that is a must read. This is from a great blog that was recommended to me by a friend. I am back home from India. Have a great Thanksgiving!
Last night I finally did a little shopping.I went to a local market (no tourist trap) and bought some cotton fabrics.I ended up with 14 half meters so I really showed some restraint.These were priced at 95 Rupees per meter or around $2.I love all of them and of course have no idea how they will be used.
I also bought some shawls that were also very reasonably priced and a silver and amethyst pendant and earrings for my daughter.Picked up a few little things for my GD but want to get her something more. It started to rain when I was out so I took a motorized rickshaw back to the hotel.Here is a view of what it looks like from riding in the back.
The hotel had a Chinese buffet for dinner……. It basically tasted like Indian food with 5 spice power added.
Saturday I am invited to someone’s house for dinner and I am really looking forward to this.This colleague has been bringing enough lunch from home to share with me each day and this has been a real treat.
Love this picture of two little boys having what looks like a very serious conversation.
I finally have a new collage to post. I have been really tired at the end of the work days and have not accomplished much. This one is all about the people. I painted the background and then collaged over it with images torn from the newspaper and a city guide.
Well the worst part of the trip is over...the flights here. I got to the hotel at around 3am local time and then had a good sleep. You can see my room at the right. It is really very nice.
The next picture was taken from my window looking at a vacant lot next to the hotel. A cement truck was dumping wet cement onto the tin and then the women were passing it to men that were sending it down a slide in the bottom of a large hole creating a foundation. Think I will keep my day job. This is my third trip to India and I am still amazed at the difference between the classes. I do love the food and had a great Indian lunch. Had a light dinner and had to laugh at the entertainment. A 'one man band' was playing in the restaurant and I heard everything from 'A Kind a Hush' by Hermens Hermits, to Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus.
This last picture is my first collage about the trip. This was a little difficult for me since when it comes to art I can do nothing in a hurry. I guess that is part of the challenge. I used my flight ticket stubs and a couple of pages from the airline magazine. The other materials came for a shopping guide I picked up here. Time for bed....tomorrow is a work day.
Here is what I finally decided to take to India for my altered b00k project. The thing I always find scary when I start to look for items for a new project is that I had all of this stuff in my stash.
I love to shop the clearance tables and can't resist any sort of paint product. This photo shows 3 Delta Dabbers that I got for $1 each at Big Lots. 4 Liquid Appliques that I got at Joannes for 50 cents each. The multicolor glitter pack was $1.99 at Tuesday Morning. All of the Golden products were free from a product demo. For the watercolor crayons and colored pencils, I used 40% off coupons at Joannes. Hmmm, would you call me thrifty, a great shopper or just cheap????
I will also take some brushes, scissors and a Styrofoam tray for a pallet. I totally decided to nix the magazines and fabric scrapes based on suggestions from the previous post and try to use local objects that I find there.
Here are a couple of pages I painted to test out what I am taking. These are just backgrounds and I will collage on top of them. I will try to post my progress over the next couple of weeks so stop back to see the results.
Truthfully I am not looking forward to this trip but in this economy it is hard to turn down the work. It will take 22 hours or get there and I will be gone for 12 days. Hopefully this project will keep me busy all of those nights in the hotel.
Tuesday I will be leaving for India and will be gone for 12 days. I will be teaching a couple of project management classes but I want to take something to work on from a creative standpoint. I thought I would try an altered book and take stuff to work on so I could collage the pages in my hotel room at night.
You can see my book drying in the picture. It is the first sewing book I bought about 35 years ago so I though it was time to give it a new life. I glued 4 pages together and then cut out 5 pages. That left 9 (or 18 if you count the backs) pages to work on.
I have never done this before so I really need some advice on what materials to take keeping in mind that space is at a premium.
I am really excited to announce a new challenge that I have joined along with 12 other fiber artists. Every 2 months a theme will be selected by one of the members. We will each have 2 months to create a 16''x20'' art quilt with our interpretation of the theme.
The first theme will be announced on 11/15 and since we are going in alphabetical order I am the lucky one that gets to go first. The results will be revealed on 1/15. We will continue this cycle every 2 months until all artist have had an opportunity to choose the theme. You can signup to follow our progress on our new 'Fiberactions' blog. There you will also see a list of the participating artist.
This challenge was inspired by the Twelve by Twelve group project. If you are not familiar with this group you can read about it and see their results here.
I am really excited about this and can't wait to get started!
Last night we went to an amazing Halloween party. The theme was 'Hollywood' and there really was a lot of interesting people there. First is Willie Nelson with a 'Marilyn Monroe' you may recognize. My husband made such a good Willie Nelson it was almost scary.
Next the host and hostess, Jimmy Hendrix and Wonder Woman. They really put on quite the party. Here is Cruella Daville with an unknown starlet from the dreaded 'D' list.
The band made up of Jimmy Hendrix, Stevy Ray Vaughn, Gene Simmons and a priest that you can't see in the photo. Robin of Batman fame was there with her partner who was off getting a liquid refreshment when this photo was taken. A couple of Indiana Jones' showed up. Too many others to mention. Hope you have a fun Halloween.
Earlier this year I entered 2 -8 1/2" x 11" quilts in the Quilting Arts Rock on Challenge. Neither were published but I had a great time creating them. They just got home and I have no idea where they have been for the last 8 or 9 months.....if only they could talk.
For this first quilt the background is mono printed on black fabric with Lumiere paints trying to create a psychedelic look. I used Angelina Fibers for the blue light effects. Miss Molly was drawn on paper then traced onto tan fabric and fused to the background. Her face was done with colored pencils. The hair was made with Oliver Twist silk tops covered with tulle. I tried several fabrics for the blue dress and finally found a large tropical bird print panel in my stash that I had bought on the clearance table for $1. I don’t know what possessed me to buy it but I cut up a large blue bird and it was perfect. The devil horns are made of puff paint painted red and of course it would not be complete without the reference to Chanel No.5. All was free motion quilted.
To create this next quilt I used bright hand dyed fabrics for the fused landscape. I tried to include as many literal references to the song as possible. ‘Lucy’ was stamped on light pink fabric and fused to the sky. The features were then enhanced with colored pencils. The kaleidoscope eyes are two layers of small plastic flowers. I cut the petals to give them more of a kaleidoscope look. The ‘diamonds’ are hot fixed crystals. The ‘cellophane flowers’ are made of yellow and green painted cellophane. The taxi is made of newspaper and the water in the fountain is puff paint and beads painted with Lumiere paints. The most amazing thing is that all of the items used were actually in my stash. All was free motion quilted.
I am sure you have read about The Houston Quilt Festival and how great it was. If you have never been, this is the one show that you really must see. The quality of the work will just blow you away. I have had a piece in the judged show for the last two years and I was really disappointed in myself for not entering this year.
My big surprise was when I was walking through the 'Eye of the Quilter' photo exhibit I found my photo. I was never notified one way or the other if my photo had been selected so I really was ecstatic when I saw it. Guess I just fell through the cracks. It wasn't a quilt but at least I had a small presence. You can see the pictures of the exhibit here. Mine is in photo 23 of 25 and in the lower left corner.
My fabric painting class on Joggles starts on Wednesday and of course I am still working on lessons 3 and 4. Not to worry if you happened to sign up since these won't be posted until 10/28 and 11/05 but if I could only pick one thing about myself that I really dislike is my ability to do everything at the last minute. Right up there with this is that I can really appear to be disorganized. I hate to think of how much time I look for things in my studio. After I complete a project it really looks like a tornado has passed through!
The issue I am having in writing the class is that every time I think I'm done I come up with just one more thing I want to add. My midwest values (I am originally from northern Indiana) tell me I must make sure everyone gets their monies worth. So here are a couple of pieces I painted this weekend.
The first one is 'Monet's Garden'. I did a very small version of this on Warm and Natural and wanted to try in on fabric. This next one is a golden sunset.
This is not new to me. Even when I worked as a full time project manager I still managed to do this. Now I only work part time and teach project management and leadership to PM's around the world. I am going to India next month to do a couple of classes. Sometimes I find it amazing that I manage to get to where I am going. Any other procrastinators out there?
If you want to find some new and interesting quilting blogs check this out Park City Girl. I participated in this in the spring and just saw this fall posting. I thought for fun I would feature this little quilt I made a couple of years ago. It is called 'One Too Many'. I must admit that I do enjoy an occasional martini and I can manage to drink 2 but 3 is just one too many!
This piece is mounted on a painted 12 x 12 inch canvas. The quilt measures about 10 x 10. The background fabric was made from scraps ironed onto fusible web. I then stamped on the copper colored martini glasses. The 'silver swirls' were cut from Halloween fabric I found on the clearance table. Next I covered the whole piece with a shear organza and stamped on the gold martini glasses and painted on the words. I then quilted the piece and added the olives which are made of hand couched thread and then beaded. I also added more embellishments just for fun.
Last weekend we went to the John C. Campbell Folk School Fall Festival just outside Murphy NC. You may have seen the school advertised in Quilting Arts Magazine.
The school was founded in 1925 and is set in a valley of rolling hills in the NC countryside. They are dedicated to teaching all kinds of arts and crafts from pottery, wood carving, folk dance, music, blacksmithing, cooking, painting, spinning, quilting and fiber arts just to name a few.
The 300 acre campus is made up of many studios that are located along winding trails through the woods. You can take a weekend or week long class with room and board on site. This really sounds like it would be a great experience. The class catalog has over 800 listings to choose from and has opportunities for all levels of experience.
The day was overcast so I didn't get the best pictures but I though you still might like a look. The first one is just entering the festival. If you are familiar with the school you may recognize the banner. The next is the main barn that had quilted banners displayed for each year of the festival. This barn is huge and you are only seeing about 25% of it. The barn and entrance both had continuous entrainment featuring blue grass and country music and dance.
Next is the fiber studio where all of the quilting and quilting related classes are taught. Charlotte Ware Anderson teaches a class here. This building was a good size and you could tell it also had areas for fabric dyeing and surface design.
I love this next picture of one of the outside kilns. And finally the entrance to the Market Place. Over 200 juried and non juried booths were located all along the winding trails. They had an unbelievable selection of almost any kind of hand made item you could think of. Lots of demo's and great food too.
If you are in the area stop by and check it out. Here is a link to their website if you would like more info JCC School. Have any of you ever taken a class there?
I was wondering if anyone is going to Houston in a couple of weeks. I will be there Thursday thru Saturday. I am going with my friends Suzanne and Vickie. We share a room and really have a great time. This will be our 3ard year.
I would love to meet some of you if you will be there so please let me know.
Last week I took a picture piecing class with Ruth Powers. If you are unfamiliar with her work you need to have a look at her website. She really does some great quilts and has won many awards.
This was a 2 day class to learn her technique. I usually don't do patterns but for this class we all were working on Ruth's Coneflowers pattern. This is a major accomplishment for me since I have only pieced one small quilt for my granddaughter. I can hardly believe that I have managed to get all of these small pieces to fit together! The other thing that amazed me is that I actually am enjoying it. Since I have never done a traditional quilt, this is a major breakthrough for me.
For this technique you create a pattern from an original photo on freezer paper. The trick is to keep all lines straight so you can do straight line piecing from the freezer paper templates. I can't wait to try my hand at creating my own pattern and see if I can really do this picture piecing thing. I will keep you posted.
Hi everyone. We just got home last night from a 9 day vacation with our daughter and 6 year old GD. Can you imagine 6 days at Disney World, 2 days at water parks and 1 day Seaworld? It was really fun but I must have walked 3-5 miles a day and it was HOT. 6 is a great age to take a child to DW. They are big enough to ride most of the rides and more importantly big enough to walk around on their own.
I missed the semiannual Georgia Celebrates Quilts Show that was this last weekend but I did manage to win an honorable mention for my quilt 'Flight Into Fantasy' which is pictured on the right on my blog. I also won a second place for my quilt 'The Face of Envy' pictured here. Can you see the face? This quilt has really surprised me since it won a Judges Choice award in another show. I created it last December with the only goal of practicing my free motion quilting. Just goes to show you can never predict what the judges will like.
My journal quilt 'Flight Over Greenland' is home again. It has been in the Journal Quilts Elements exhibit that has been traveling to all of the IQA shows this year. You may have seen my second Flight Over Greenland quilt that I posted a couple of months ago...it still is not quilted.
This quilt is based on a picture that I took when I was returning from a business trip to Denmark. I was sitting in business class and
everyone was watching movies so all the window shades
were closed. The pilot announced that we were flying over
Greenland and that in was a really beautiful sight. I opened my window shade and was stunned by the simple beauty of this scene. The sky was an incredible blue and the snow covered mountains surrounded by icy water glistened in the bright sun. I always have my camera and immediately started taking pictures. This was not a popular thing since I was letting in light and I did get some dirty looks from the people around me. I knew that this had to be my journal quilt so I could share this incredible sight and hopefully help people appreciate our beautiful earth.
This piece is painted whole cloth with Angelina fibers added to give sparkle to the water. The 'window' is painted shirt interfacing.
If you noticed, I deleted a comment from my 'Eye of the Quilter' post a couple of days ago. This comment was something about wallpapers for your pc and also said I could post my blog link on their website. It included a link and when I went to check it out it was a pornographic site. I was really shocked.
I hope someone hasn't figured out how to send random comments to blogs like spam emails. Has this happened to any of your on your blogs?
I was too tired last night to give the details on how I did the salt painting in the previous post, so here they are. I use setacolor transparent paints in most of my fabric painting and that is what I used on this. I painted lemon yellow, oriental red and a mix of lemon yellow with just a drop of the red, on water misted fabric. Then I misted the fabric one more time and sprinkled Morton's Rock salt over the piece. One more shot with the mister and then I took it outside to dry.
I was thinking about the results since this is not what salted pieces usually look like. Usually the salt effect is much more predominate and it creates some dark spots around the larger pieces of salt. My box of salt is about 3 years old and has been open the whole time. As you can imagine, it can get pretty humid in the Atlanta area. I was wondering if maybe the salt has absorbed some of the humidity and has lost some of its effectiveness. I will have to get some new salt and see.
Today I did a little quick fabric painting and sprinkled it with coarse salt. See the full piece above. Below is a close up and some really cool results. Click on the photos for close ups.
But look at the back! I have no idea how I got this result. Not sure what it reminds of but I just love it.
Just wondering if any of you sent photos in for the 'Eye of the Quilter' contest that will debut at the IQA Quilt Festival in Houston in October. I was really disappointed with myself this year for not entering a quilt since I have had one in the judged show the last 2 years. Somehow I felt that this year I just didn't have anything good enough. I thought maybe if I could get photos into this exhibit I might feel a little better about not entering a quilt. You were asked to enter up to 3 photo on any subject and you could manipulate them if you wanted. A couple of years ago I visited a lighthouse in Florida and was fascinated by the play of light on the original lamp that was on display. The glass was thick and cut to best intensify the light. As I walked around it, each angle provided a rainbow of colors and I couldn't stop taking pictures. I was a teenager in the 60's and loved the psychedelic colors. I used Coral Photo-Paint to create a different psychedelic effect on each of the images. Here is one of the original images and my psychedelic interpretation. I think this would make a great quilt.
I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping I get selected.
I love this tie-painted piece! These are really fun and easy to do. Start with a fat quarter of PFD fabric and then pull up sections of fabric, wrap them tightly with string and tie the ends so they are secure. Do this randomly pulling up different amounts of fabric until the fabric is covered. These will look like little fingers sticking up on the fabric. Spray the whole piece lightly with water. In this piece it looks like I had 11 different ties.
Next using a paint mix of about 50% paint and 50% water, paint each 'finger' multiple colors being sure the paint saturates the fabric. Dab the paint around the outer edges of the 'fingers' so you cover most of the white. Let the piece sit for about 1 hour in a dark place so the paints will spread and blend. Then place the piece in the sun and let it dry completely (or let it dry overnight). Carefully cut the strings and be surprised by the results! Heat set by ironing on the back for a couple of minutes.
Each of these circles remind me of flowers and I plan on quilting them with multiple colors of thread. I think I will then embellish this with yarn, threads and beads. So many projects so little time.........
There is a reason for all of my fabric painting lately. I am writing a new online class for joggles.com called 'Painting Your Own Fabric Landscapes'. This is the latest sample that I made today inspired by my recent trip to Colorado. I think this is my favorite so far.
The class will start October 14 and run for 4 weeks. Each lesson will have at least 5 projects so you will have plenty opportunity to practice your skills. There is also an interactive forum for discussions and posting pictures of your work.
Here is the link to Joggles if you want to take a look.
I just wanted to give a quick thanks to all of you for following my blog and let you know how much I appreciate your comments. Sometimes I get a little behind and don't take enough time to get back to your blogs and let you know how much your opinions mean to me. All of you are great!!!
I have started another 'On the River Bank' background. I know this doesn't look like much yet but this is how the other piece started. This will be a view looking up from the water level. This started from a piece of fabric that I was trying to sunprint but the sun went behind the clouds right after I laid everything out so it didn't really print. Then I just over painted it with some leftover paint from another project ( I really do hate to waste anything :)
I will work this background a little more with some screening and stamping. I am going to try some different overlays on the water and see it I can get it to look like there are some rocks or something underwater. I also have a couple of extra bluebirds and will see it I can integrate one of them for continuity with the other piece. I'll keep you posted on how it comes out.
I just put up a new photo of myself since I felt the other one was a bit dated. My granddaughter took it 2 years ago when she was just 4 1/2 and we were playing with the camera before we went out for dinner. I hate to be a silly old braggart of a grandma but she is of course very very smart :)
My husband and I are in Denver at a conference and while he was in meetings all day yesterday I got a little bored and decided to see if I could take a new picture of myself. I must have taken 20 shots before I got one that was ok. No matter how I sat my nose still looked big but I guess reality is that I do have a big nose......... I have my short summer hair and it gets really blond in the summer due to all of the time I spend at the lake and pool. Also for me this is really really tan. So this is how I look as of yesterday.
Yesterday I did a couple of painted landscapes. This is good for me since there is only so much control you can have with these paints and I do like to have control. If anything I tend to almost 'overpaint' things and I am trying really hard to let the paints do the work.
In this first landscape I don't really like the sky. This is a case where I didn't let the paints do the work. I can always cut away the sky and do another one....humm not a bad idea. To do these you have to work in steps and have a little patience. First paint a horizon line on dry fabric and let it dry, next the water on damp fabric and let it dry, then the sky and land on damp fabric.
In this next one I was going for a kind of impressionist look. The sky was painted with very watered down cobalt and ultramarine blues mixed with a little pearl and black, and yellow mixed with orange and a drop of black again very watered down. In this piece I think I let the paints do there thing a little bit more.
I plan to paint a couple more of these and then quilt and embellish them for a small series of painted landscapes. Each is fat quarter size.
I have been busy today painting sky's. I use Setacolor paints and hake brushes are my brushes of choice. This first sky is kind of a fantasy sky and I really love the colors. When you do these it is important to start with the lighter colors and then move to the darks. Also leave some white areas since the paints will run together. Keep the brush moving in a scrubbing like motion and don't use too much paint or you will get blobs.
This next one is the sky reflected in the water. Not sure about it but again when painting you have the freedom to create what you want and although I have never quilt seen a sky like this it is my art.
I love this next one. It reminds me of the tropics.
Lastly just a plain old blue sky. For these I go back in with the white to create the clouds after the blues have dried. Important again to leave some white so you can scrub in some clouds. The streaks in the upper right where made by dragging the handle end of my brush through the wet paint on the fabric.
After at least a month of not creating a fiber piece, I finally made it back to my studio. I thought I would start small and made two 5'' x 7'' quilts. The first one is almost an exact replica of an earlier piece I donated to Fiber Art For a Cause. I found a scrap of the original fabric I created and painted the pear and added the text. The edges are painted. I am going to a dinner with my local fiber artist group next week and will give this one away.
I love this next one because it is so not me. It's called 'Be Yourself'. The background is original fabric that was painted and sunprinted. The face and hands were cut from a magazine photo. I added the clothes and altered the hair and features with paint and markers. I then covered the entire piece with black tulle and did the quilting. The edges are finished with couched yarn.
