"Really...... I Went to Bermuda"!

This is a quilt - a traditional pattern called "Mango Tango".   I did it all in bright batiks and the real fun was selecting a different quilting pattern for each fabric.   I believe I had about 10 different fabrics.  A couple of them got the ripply water design, but the rest were all different.  All my quilting is free motion, done on a domestic machine, no stitch regulator.  Call me weird, but I actually prefer it that way!

I'm not the most adventuresome traveler, so after coming home from Bermuda, I wanted to do this quilt to portray all the bright colors we saw there.   I added the blue for water and green for land - to "calm it down".   Hence the name of the quilt.

Swirling Leaves

This will be my entry for the RAFA Arts Council Show in Rochester in March.

It's a small piece - only 12 x 12.   I'm still undecided as to whether it will hang on the wall, or if I will mount it to a canvas frame to sit in a picture stand.   The show is titled "Off The Wall" and they are hoping for some dimensional, free standing work.   If I can figure how to do it, this should qualify.

I started this well over a year ago in our small QA Study Group.   We were working with paint transfer from a gelatin plate.   After that, we stitched "what we saw from the transfer" - you can see that I saw leaves in mine.   Then we highlighted them further with artist paintsticks - in my case, mostly lumiere paintsticks.   There are 3 of the dimensional thread painted leaves.   After that I dyed some cheesecloth for texture and floated some leaf beads on the cheesecloth.  The background was also painted to look like water, reflecting sky and trees above.

Thread painted leaves

Dyed Cheesecloth with leaf beads.

Closeup of the stitched and painted leaves.

Now, if I can get it to sit in the stand - all will be good!!!

Purple Carnival Mask

So, yesterday was the reveal for our Quilt Guild Challenge - this year's theme is "Carnival"!   What an amazing group of quilts revealed and will now hang in our local library.  I was blown away by some of them - almost all of them.   As usual, there were no two alike although carousel and mask seem to pop up quite often.   This year we decided not to have them judged and it's a good thing - how would a judge ever pick from all of the wonderful entries.   Sure, you could start nit-picking over techniques and how good they were - but it really would spoil the whole idea that was put forth in this challenge.   I think I liked almost all of them better than mine, but in actuality, I'm very happy with my entry!!

Detail of eye showing thread painted eyelashes, crystals and music symbols.

Above the eye - showing more beaded detail, threadwork and crystals.

Secrets, secrets & more secrets!

As it turns out, it seems I'm always in the midst of projects that I can't reveal when I finish them.  This first one I can.

This is a small one I'm working on:

I call it "swirling leaves".........so far.   The center was a gelatin plate transfer.   Paint was applied to gelatin (basically) and then the fabric was laid over top and the paint was transferred.   I saw leaves I guess because that is what I did with free motion stitching.   Next paintsticks were used to give further dimension and definition to the leaves.  I used dyna-flo to make the blue water and some green dabs here and there to reflect trees!   I quilted it in a swirl design and am adding 3 dimensional leaves and beads.   Where it goes from here........is anyone's guess!!!
On the subject of secret pieces,   first off is our guild challenge - "Carnival".   I thought long and hard about this, had a few ideas, but in the end the one I picked surprised me as it was not on the horizon when I first started thinking about it.  It's just a fun piece.....and best of all IT IS FINISHED!!!   We will reveal the at guild on Saturday, so I can share then.

We have also started a round robin project in our ArtCGirlz group.  We each picked a piece of fabric or small quilt to pass between members for each person to add their own creativity to it.   I forgot to take a picture of mine in its "naked" state.   Lori has mine first and she is a photographer, so I think I'll ask her if she minds - just a quick picture for my records. 

My first go around comes from Chris Kuehl.

This is a McKenna Ryan fabric.   She said it reminds her of water, sand, marsh.   I think she is right.   I see marshy reeds etc.

More of the fabric she included....can be added if we so desire.

I have a couple of ideas, nothing firm yet.

Happy New Year & Aaron's Quilted Nutcracker and Silhouetted pictures for my girls!

Aaron's Christmas Nutcracker !

One of my last big projects of this year was to make my Grandson a quilted nutcracker.   He has an extensive collection of nutcrackers in all sizes and shapes.   I have made him a nutcracker wall hanging and a quilt using nutcracker fabric.   This year he asked for a quilted nutcracker - one that was the real shape of a nutcracker and not one on a background!!!!   Well, what could I do?   We all know that when a grandchild asks for something, we will do whatever it takes!!  He asked and I set about to figure out how to do this project........something that I had no clue how to start.

So I found this picture on the internet..

I cut it into 4 sections and kept enlarging    
 each section...... until I had this...on the right!




 This is a tracing I made once I had the nutcracker from the internet enlarged to be 48 inches tall. I wanted it as tall as Aaron, but he is over 5 feet now. I had to stop somewhere.




These are some of the detailed pictures:

The star is made from gold lame.


The hair is a furry fabric with curly loopy yarn.   I was so fortunate to find that.
                                                       

The beard is white fleece. 





The belt is from a piece of leather and the buckle is from a belt I purchased at Salvation Army store - just to get the buckle!




                          

The shoes are more pieces of leather.  The feet were actually the hardest to do of the entire thing.   Not sure why, they just never did look right to me.

The final picture is the best!   The looks on his face is the best thanks I could have gotten.   I'd do it all over again for that look!!!

These are the silhouetted pictures I made for each of my daughters.   When they were each in first grade, the teacher had a local artist come and do silhouettes of each of the children.   They were done on paper and mounted to a sheet of white paper and sent home with the child as the Christmas gift for their parents.   Over the years, that paper has yellowed and tattered.   So, after seeing an article in Quilting Arts magazine, I decided to trace the silhouette and reproduce it on fabric.   I reversed one so they would be facing each other,   Karen, my youngest is on the left and Heather, the oldest is on the right.    They both loved their Christmas Gift this year.

In conclusion......my wish to you all for a Happy and Healthy and Prosperous New Year!   I love this quote......

 "And now let us welcome the new year full of things that have never been.”
                                                                                                     – Ranier Maria Rilke

 

YEAAAA!!! My computer is back!

Yea, my computer is home.   Now I have to try and remember all the things that I wanted to post before Christmas.

At our last guild meeting we exchanged our secret sister santa stockings.   My secret sister gave me a lovely quilt that she had made with attached beading (because she knows how much I like beads) and then left it with a note for me to quilt, saying I could do a much better job than she could.   I don't know - she is an expert handquilter, I am a machine quilter.   Oranges & Apples!!!   Anyway, here is the finished product, on my table with the advent wreath.   I think they coordinate quite nicely.

This is the quilt.   There is a String of silver beads around each of the purple squares.

I knew I wanted to quilt a wreath - as it was the Christmas Season and I knew I wanted to do a feather wreath.   Free motion - no pattern....a fun project.

This is a terrible picture color-wise.   The purple is a deep rich purple as seen in the other photos.   For some reason, I couldn't get it to show as dark in the photo.

The triangles around the edge.   The feathers continue - in the triangle and in the sashing.   I did a large scroll over the outside borders and sashing.  

Together, we have made a lovely quilt, I think.

Wahhhhhhh!

Wahhhhh! I have all these pictures of projects I've been doing and didn't post too soon because some of them are gifts.....and CRASH goes my computer!! Of course I haven't backed up things as I should so I'm really hoping it can be fixed or at least my data retrieved. I don't think Santa has any money left in his budget for a new one. Thank goodness for my IPad, even though I can't do everything on this things.....like get my pictures etc. So no pics until I get it bsck from the shop :(

Brown Bag Challenge Revealed

So, this is it!!   "B is for Butterflies"!   That's the title of my finished piece.   The photo on the above right is a reminder of the objects we had to use.

I chose to make a big purple butterfly!   Why, well, because that would be "so" me.   I love purple and I love butterflies!!

I used the brown man's tie to make the body of the butterfly.   I used the doily to stencil the coppery design onto the wings, the zipper is the antenna and I cut the lime green hair scrunchy into little tiny bits and glued them to add dimension for the spots on the wings!!!

The background of this quilt is a piece of fabric I created by snow dying fabric a couple of years ago.   The green is created using the rubber gripper from the brown bag.   I painted onto one side of the gripper mat, then put it on the fabric and rolled it with a brayer to release the paint.   I used the copper mettalic scrubbie to add the dabs of copper paint you see above the butterfly wing.

Finally, I fused a the letter "b" onto the flat wooden bead - hence the title of this piece.

This was so fun and everyone's piece was way different than the one before it.  You can see all of the pieces on the Museum Quilt Guild Blog

http://museumquiltguild.blogspot.com/ 

Brown Bag Challenge!

What do all of these things have in common?

1. A Man's tie (brown)

2.  a zipper (yellow)

3.  a white paper doily

4.  a metal scrubber (chore girl)

5.  a flat wooden bead

6.  a hair scrunchie (purple)

7.  rubber shelf liners

These are all part of the brown bag challenge we are doing in my guild.   We each received a brown bag with these 7 items (different colors and patterns) and were challenged to create something using all of them with any fabric we chose.   We could make a small quilt, purse, pillow......anything that we could show we used each of these items in some way.

I love things like this......I was one of the coordinators....but this was hard!   I'd have an idea and get stuck on using the last two items.   I'd have another idea and not like the way they all went together.   We have to use all 7 in some way, but they don't to appear in the quilt as they do in this picture.   Example:    Use one of the items to alter fabric in some way. 

 
Well, it is finally done and 2 weeks ahead of the due date (December 10).   YEA!!!!!   It's not a masterpiece, but I conquered the challenge.   No...of course you're not going to see the final product yet.   You know my blog is read my hundreds of people and I can't risk my idea being copied!!!!   Ha Ha...FYI - that is a big huge joke, designed to bring a smile (maybe even a loud guffaw) to your face!

Stay tuned!!!

Longwood Gardens

I have been doing a little quilting lately - very little because of post-surgery on my finger - but I can't show any of it here as it relates to Christmas - both for family and for guild.   Instead I will show pictures from my recent trip to Longwood Gardens, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.   It was their annual mum festival.   Mums were never my favorite flower, but they certainly do wonderful things with them.

This is the first mum "tree" you see when you enter the conservatory.   There are 1167 blooms on here and they are all carefully grafted and inserted thru wire holders to present this sort of display.   It is just spectacular to see.

Loved the colors on this one!

This one is called Spoonflower!

Truly an Asian looking Mum - just outstanding in size and color.

I'm also on the hunt for a new waterlily photo to make a new quilt.   Here are some possibilities from the Longwood Gardens!



SOLD!

We had a Fine Arts Festival at my church today.   It was a combination of an Art Show,  an International Bazaar and a Musical Concert tomorrow.   I was in charge of securing the art and we ended up with 42 pieces - a nice little display.   Large enough to be interesting and small enough not to overwhelm.   I showed 4 different art quilts, one of which is shown above - "Seagulls at Portland, Maine".   SOLD!    I was very surprised to see the sold sign on it when I went back to help close up the show this afternoon.   I know the home it is going to and it will be loved!    It is from a pictures I took on our cruise last year along the New England Coastline.   I manipulated one seagull to make 3 of different size.   I printed that onto printer fabric and then added other fabrics for the rocks and water.   Then I added tulle for shadowing, lots of threadwork for dimension and finally some colored pencils to enhance the color of the seagulls.   Metallic threads highlight the water.   Below is the original picture I took.

A Sunday Morning Stroll in October

Well, if you read my previous posts, you know I'm still not quilting because of surgery on my finger (more involved than I originally thought--Silly, naive Elaine!!)   Anyway, I took the camera out today since it was a nice sunny day for a change!

This would be my favorite row of trees in Centennial Park - quite possibly the only real color this year.   We seem to be seriously lacking in color in this part of the state.

A very interesting tree in the park.

Interesting texture from said tree.   I like the roots - they al look rather "halloween-like"!

My favorite tree on my street, that is NOT mine!   It looks rather "painterly" don't you think?

Closeup of said tree.   I like the way the leaves move about the tree.

Just some lone red leaves amongst all the dead burdocks.   I like the juxtaposition of the bright, living with the dull dead leaves.

Be Very Careful...........

This is a VERY dangerous object!

 It is not just the lid of a soup can as you might imagine, it is as dangerous to your fingers
as a rotary cutter (if you are a quilter).  In late June I was opening a can of soup with this type of ring top lid and it just "snapped".   I had to go to the ER immediately and returned home with 4 stitches.   After about 6 weeks it all seemed to be healing just fine - on the outside.   But the color was off, parts of my finger were still numb and parts hurt to touch.   I was referred to a hand surgeon and am now awaiting surgery to repair a severed nerve.   Apparently the nerve endings are attaching to scar tissue and if I touch it at all, or try to use it, it is like sticking my finger in a light socket.   So, next week I will have surgery to insert a conduit like object into my fingers into which the nerve endings will be threaded....to get them away from everything else they are looking for and/or attaching to.

So, I have no new quilts to show right now - but, stay tuned!!!