Wednesday, September 15, 2010

'Stretch' Challenge Reveal

Here is my 'stretch' quilt for my Fiberactions challenge group. Make sure and check out everyone's great quilts on the Fiberactions blog.

I must admit that these last 3 challenges have been a real 'stretch' for me. For the last 4 months we have been building a second home in NC which is about 2 hours from our home in GA. My time at home has been limited but the flooring was put down last Friday so I may be back to a somewhat normal life soon!

For this piece I started with a fabric that I created about a year ago. I loved the colors but I thought the front was too bright so I turned it over and used the back. I just started adding layers of fabric and paint.



The green leaf on the upper left actually is made up of 11 layers including the quilting. Here is a closeup. The layers are: backing fabric, 2 layers of wool/cotton blend batting, background fabric, orange fabric, red felt covered with organza with designs created by using a soddering iron, green leaf, painted misty fuse, black tulle and finally the quilting.


One of the things that always takes me forever is deciding on how I want to quilt a piece so this is really where the 'stretch' comes in on this quilt. Usually for the background quilting I do some sort of all over consistent pattern. My crutch seems to be stippling.

After starring at this pinned to my design wall for an hour or so I decided to just start some real random allover quilting with no real pattern in mind. At first I thought I would just use clear thread in case I didn't like it but at the last minute I selected a variegated that I had never used before. In this picture you can see the results.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Yes....I'm still here!

Tomorrow is carpet day at the new house!!!!! Could this really be the end and I will be able to get back to some sort of normal life and art? Now I don't want to get too excited since last Satruday was also carpet day...... however when they cut the pieces for the great room the 2 pieces, even though cut from the same role, were different colors. So back to the carpet store and select new carpet.

Truthfully I like this carpet better than the first so maybe it was not a bad thing. Wish me luck and watch this space for my resurgence in art.