First Clematis, Mary Diamond & Thread Painting

First of all, I must share my beautiful clematis.   It sits right by the front door, planted in the entry way concrete planter that is about 30 inches high.   I picked this because it said it would do well in shade....and it had purple flowers.   It does not disappoint!   So prolific!!!



Saturday at guild we had Mary Diamond, thread painter, for a program and workshop.   her quilts were lovely!    There was not one I didn't like.   I did take the class and we were to pick out flowers from her fused fabrics, attach them to a background and create a realistic looking bouquet or art quilt.   This is mine so far!!!

You can see that I did venture into the background to create some little green springs.   It's not done yet....perhaps some beads will find their way onto my little quilt.  Time will tell.

Autumn Sky

This is my latest quilt - I'm thinking the title is driven by the fabrics.  I fell in love with these marbled fabrics that I saw at a show in New Jersey.

The orange is a little darker than this picture denotes.   I attached fusible webbing to a piece of black fabric, folded it in half and drew half a tree.   Then I proceeded to cut through both layers, with an exacto knife and scissors, so as to have a symmetrical tree when finished.   It turned out to be no easy task.   It was even more cumbersome when I removed the fusible and all those black branches twisted and stuck to each other.   Carefully, I had to separate them and form them into what would appear to be a symmetrical tree.   I think that was the hardest part of the whole project.   I then did close stitching on each branch, to permanently attach the tree and to complete part of the quilting process.   I completed the quilting with free motion swirls in the background, mostly following the pattern of the fabric.   Simple, yet strong!

"Yes, the Water Really is This Color!"

Everyone knows I went to Bermuda last year and I'm STILL creating quilts from the sights, sounds and colors I saw there.   This quilt is from that experience!

One of the things that impressed me the most was the color of the water.   We always see pictures of the turquoise waters, but it REALLY IS that color, or in this case "this" color!   I've always wanted to do a beach scene and I knew this would be it.   I used many different fabrics - a definite sky print, some stonehenge fabrics (in the water and the beach, some batiks, silks, a lame (however you spell that) and some laces, cheesecloth, yarns, beads, crystals and buttons.   It was fun to do and went together quickly (relatively speaking).

This is the cheesecloth, about halfway in the water scene.......it covers another teal fabric with white dots, to which I added beads - denoting bubbles or whitecaps or whatever it is you see!

 Closeup of the buttons and beads to denote what you might find while walking on the beach.

Closeup of the lace and fuzzy yarn and beads to denote the foam you find at the waters edge!

This quilt was SO much fun to do!   As I said, it went together quickly and more times than not I find that those quilts are the ones I like the best and I think maybe show the best.   They practically make themselves!!!!

6x6 maybe...........

Every year our RAFA group in Rochester participates in the 6 x 6 challenge at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center.   The goal is to make any type of art as long as it is 6 inches by 6 inches.   I can't remember how many they collected last year - from all over the world, but it is well over 1,000 - probably WELL over.

This might be my piece this year.   It is a sun print that I did a couple of years ago.   It is cyanotype with special fabric that you place in the sun to tranfer a design.  This was a snowflake stencil that I laid on top of the fabric, set in the sun, under glass, for approximately 15 minutes and then rinsed.   The dye under the stencil washes away leaving the lighter design.   Beyond that I emphasized the snowflakes with metallic thread and then "beaded the heck out of it".  You can't see the thread and all the beads, but they are prolific.

March FMQ

OK, I'm participating (however loosely) in a FMQ Challenge done by SewCalGal. http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/p/free-motion-quilt-challenge.html   I'm usually always pretty happy with my machine quilting, but figured I could always learn something new.   This is my posting for March (the first I have actually posted)........part of a quilt entitled "Really, I Went to Bermuda".   I don't know if it meets the goal of the month......it seemed to be a rather "loose" challenge.   Anyway, these are my squiggles and swirls!

Cute little luncheon place

I had lunch at a cute little place in Rochester today - a converted gas station which now houses Great Harvest Bread Co.   Wonderful breads, desserts, coffees and soups.   As usual, I'm always snapping pictures of my interesting surroundings (sometimes much to the amusement or dismay of my family & friends).   Anyway, I couldn't resist these.   Being a quilter, you know what I'm seeing here!!   Patchwork and sheers...I can just see it now!!!   I'm already constructing these in my mind and that may be as far as they get!

Messy Worktable photo collaboration

Lynn Krawczyk of the Fibra Artysta Blog is hosting the "messy worktable project". ...today March 26 
http://fibraartysta.blogspot.com/2012/03/messy-work-table-photo-collaboration_26.html

OK, so probably not the messiest of all that will be seen here, but all these things represented several different "in process" projects - one of which was due in 5 hours after taking this.   I'm pretty much a "Type A" person, so this was really driving me nuts that day.   Everything, literally, was just thrown when I finished using it - because of the deadline.

You can see more about this project if you click on her link, above.

Springtime in Batavia

It's springtime at my house.   We had 2 gorgeous weeks of "summer" and it forced everything out and open early.   Unfortunately, this week will probably end much of it as it is supposed to be quite cool (as in COLD) and rainy!   But for today........it's very pretty!

 The front of the house..........the sandcherry tree is in full bloom and it is BEA-U-TI-FUL!!!  You can see the forsythia peeking out at the back corner.

The forsythia.........all the forsythia around here seems to be such a bright yellow this year.   Is it really brighter, or are we just so glad to see color!!!!

No quilting to show this week.....I've been cleaning out my gardens and enjoying our "teaser" summer!

Spring has Sprung! Or is it Summer has Sprung?

We are enjoying the most "beautifulest" of weather here in western NY.   A gift - temps at or above 70 for 12 days now.   I know it can't last, but oh that it would!!!!   I try to savor every minute of it by being outside.   So, consequently, it doesn't look like I have a lot to show for my blog.....but I have been very busy - other than quilting!

 This is my clematis - growing near the front door.   It's an early one.....but it's REALLY early right now.   So lush and green!

 We have these pretty blue star shaped flowers all over.   My husband calls them "blueits", I think they are "Glory of the Snow"!

 Little mini daffodils near the mailbox.   I don't know if they are really mini, or if the heat forced them before they got tall.   They do seem to have put on a little bit of height since they bloomed last week.

 My 3 alium plants, with the Delphinium in front.

 This shows what I've been up to - cleaning out my gardens!

 More cleaning of gardens - the dead looking thing is my hibiscus - not to fear, it always looks dead until June and then it becomes a beautiful glorious plant full of deep red flowers by August.

My clematis by the mailbox - also off to a great start.

More quilts that inspire me!

This quilt was part of a display by B. J. Titus at the New Jersey Quiltfest.    I love the colors, bright things really appeal to me.   I would love to have her come to do a workshop/lecture for my quilt guild.

 This quilt was titled:   What if  Global Warming is for Real!   The quilt was inspired by a photo in a park NYC taken by the quiltmaker.   If Global Warming is real, there will be no more pretty scenes like this.

 The quilt was done by a group, in 6 sections.   Each person was given a section of a picture to replicate in a quilt.   They were given dimensions and a picture and then they had to make it all fit together.   My art group did something like this.

This is another group quilt - I'd love to do in my art quilt group.   Each person was given a color pallette to interpret a flower.  The quilts were then all attached to one strip, at the top, with buttons that looked like flowers.   I just love it!

New Jersey Quiltfest

Last weekend I had the fun opportunity of viewing the Tri-State Quiltfest in New Jersey.   Two of my friends from RAFA were winners there and one of my friends was also a winner in the Mid Atlantic Quiltfest show and her quilt was on display at this show.   My biggest thrill was in being the person who told them they were winners.   They had not heard and it was fun for me to discover this.

 This quilt is done by my friend Julie Brandon.   I'm not sure the exact wording on the quilt so I won't try to tell it all, but it is the story of her Grandmother.   This was a "Best Interpretation of Theme" winner in the MidAtlantic Show.

The story of her Grandmother continues on the back.   There was so much interest in the back that a docent was stationed there to show people.   Very special honor to have its own "docent".

This quilt is called "Engima", done by Julie Brandon (again) and Val Schultz.   Julie manipulated the photo of ice on the bay in the winter, and Val (an EXPERT Machine quilter) did the quilting.   They were the winners of  Judge's prize.   It was so much fun to see these quilts in a national show after having seen them shown at one of our local RAFA meetings.

There were so, so many quilts that I could post here.....all of them unique in their own way.   This is one gorgeous one I saw.

The gradation of the fabrics and the thread in the machine quilting makes this quilt glow.   Each little segment is heavily stippled and it made each section look almost like felt.

This quilt is done by Betty Busby, part of a SAQA exhibit called "Layers of Memory".   It was very striking!.   Each of the sections is separately constructed and then added to a purple quilt - almost like a quilt on a quilt.   The crevices and forgotten memories, is so powerful.

"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.