j frag hibiscus

j frag hibiscus

My good friend, Janet, has a very special birthday this next week.   We have been friends since our college years, both of us were music majors, we both married our respective spouses on the same day 41 years ago, they lived in Batavia for awhile, our kids are about the same age and now they are our vacation/cruising buddies.  We have maintained a good friendship for lo these many years, despite many lengthy periods of not being able to get together because of family obligations etc.

My good friend Janet also loves hibiscus flowers.   This is a quilt made from the photo of her hibiscus plant taken in early August.    I saw an article on fractured flowers and thought this would make a perfect gift for her.    It was a pretty easy technique, using a photo printed to fabric, in this case, I printed on silk to give it the sheen that is characteristic to a hibiscus bloom.  It went together pretty easily and the stitching didn't hurt the silk fabric.   I added simple quilting lines in the flower, just to show the general shape of the folds etc. of the petals and then a leaf design in the outer part.

I call it "j frag Hibsicus" for "Janet's Fragmented Hibiscus".   It's sort of a play on a "genus" or "species" name in the plant kingdom.   It now resides in her home in Dublin, PA.   Happy Birthday, Janet!!!

I went to Bermuda!!!!

Yes, I, Elaine Ross, went to Bermuda!!!  It's not many years ago that for a myriad of reasons that I won't go into here, this would have been unthinkable or unbelievable.   Yet, "Sailing, Sailing Over the Bounding Main" I went.   And it was "bounding"!!!   The first day out we rode the end of Tropical Storm Emily.   The crew, who had their sea legs, assured us this was nothing.   Maybe to them that was so - not so much to us.   Anyway, once there, it was perfect weather, hot and sunny everyday.   I have lots of pictures and it is truly impossible to pick a favorite.   But, I will share a few now and then.   Probably what impressed me the most was the "color".   I am a "color" person in my gardening and in my quilting and everything from the buildings (beautiful pastel shades), to the water ( a turquoise as blue as the pictures you see) to the pink sands and the beautiful flowers was color intense and inspiring.

Yes, the water is this blue and the sands are this pink!!!

Water Lily from our garden tour in St. George

Sunset on Harborfront Evening.   A perfectly gorgeous evening.

Standing under a tree, waiting for the bus to pick us up at the beach (I won't go into that experience with the buses)........this leaf was just inspiring for its color.   There IS a quilt in here somewhere.

One of the gorgeous churches

Looking at the moon from the back of the ship as we journeyed over the Atlantic and back to NYC.

View of buildings from our deck on the ship.   Something about the graphic, geometric shapes and colors - this was a view I loved.

Sunset on the water.

We took a catamaran ride one evening - a "champagne sunset catamaran" shore excursion!!

Mark and I with our friends, Janet & David Fryling, who we vacationed with both last year and this year.   We all went to college together, 3 of us were music majors (Mark should have been also), we were married on the same day 41 years ago, and have remained good friends since. Special times!!!

Ice Dying

I don't really dye fabric much, or have much interest in it.   But after trying snow dyeing a year ago, I was intrigued to try "Ice Dyeing" as described in the latest Quilting Arts magazine.   In a nutshell, you cover your prepared fabric with ice, sprinkle procion dye powder on it and let it sit for 24 hours.   I liked it wet, but the colors fade out so much when dry.   Still, this is an interesting effect I got by folding the fabric in half, diagonally, and then doing accordian pleats and securing with rubber bands.

I used 2 different colors of teal, yellow and brown rose.   There is a smidgeon of purple and a little green.   I only wish it were more intense colors.

QA Fun Day at Val's

Today was the QA Study Group Day.   Since some of our members were at Quilting By the Lake - the rest of us went to Val's house (BEAUTIFUL house on Honeoye Lake) and played in the air conditioned comfort of her studio.   (I LUST after a studio like that).   Anyway, we did encaustic work with beeswax.   I wasn't going to go, (but Margaret invited me to ride) - or play,( but Julie coerced me) and I'm so glad they did.   Most of us spread melted beeswax on collages we made with pictures, fibers, papers etc.   Donna did beeswax on everything from an old sewing pattern to cheesecloth.   She got fantastic results.   Julie had large playing cards and so she and I made collages on these.

This is my first attempt!   I just went for bright colors - the beeswax puts sort of a plastic coating over everything.   Around the edges is melted yellow crayon for a semi-border effect.    The gold blobs here and there are fibrous papers. The beeswax is a little heavy in spots, so maybe it could be scraped off if I wanted to play more.   It's a very tropical picture.

My second attempt - looking forward to our next cruise.  The upper 1/3 is more fibrous papers.  The purple on the starfish and the blobs of green along the side are more melted crayon.    We drew on the bottom of a small iron with crayon, it melted immediately and then we ironed it onto the picture.   Sometimes it melted some beeswax already there - sometimes not.



What will I do with these?    No clue - they were "playtime".   But for now, I'm hanging them in my studio because I like the colors and the thoughts they project of island time!!!!

RAFA Display at Cazenovia Show

Our RAFA group has a small display at the International show "The Art Quilt Experience" in Cazenovia this month.   The juried quilts are spectacular (and I will show some more of them at a later time), but our little RAFA group also has a spectacular display.   I didn't get pictures of all - but here are some.........   (Sorry I can't seem to get the hang of putting 2 pics in a row.   Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.   Blogger is so frustrating that way.)

 

 Pat Berardi's piece.   I just love Pat's work, lots of gentle curves.

Janet Root - "Trill"

Janet Root - "Soft Black"

Diane Miller - a real coppery effect
that I just love.

 Diane Miller

 Val Schultz - another person whose
work I really admire. 

 Val uses a lot of cheesecloth from time to time - a really nice effect.

 Julia Deal - so simply stunning

Julie Brandon - "Saxology"

This is mine - called  "Summers Reward for a Winter Endured II".   It is to portray the wildflowers - lots of beads and crystals on this one.

 Liz Scott - "The Eleventh Song"

Patty Pizzicato did both of these - love it!

I wish I had gotten the name of the person who did this one - so wonderful.

Anne Fischer - lots of thread work - the piece speaks for itself in its beauty.

Detail of Ann's piece.

Donna Patrick - does a lot of dying & felting of scarves and shawls

The knotted piece is by Brenda DiAngelo.

This was not a quilt in our display............yet!   This was a window shade in an adjoining room - my husband thinks this should be my next quilt.   He is often my inspiration for new pieces.

Textured Book Page

Our ArtCGirlz group has been involved in a project where we are each making a small piece that will eventually become  a page in a book we are creating.   We decided to take a picture - either one we took or from a magazine, crop a small portion and make that into a small quilt.   The challenge was to interpret it in "texture".

This is my finished piece:

The finished pieces are attached to upholstery samples which conveniently have all these grommets for assembling the page.   I used cottons, corduroys, silks, sheers, upholstery fabrics, beads and metallic stitching.

This is a picture of a light on the ceiling in the karaoke room on our cruise ship last fall.

This is the one portion of the light that I decided to use and shrunk down even further.

This is the final picture, that I used to interpret my piece shown above.



Happy Birthday Lori

This is a card I made for Lori..........she likes butterflies "almost" as much as I do!   The ArtCGirlz celebrated with her at her cottage.

The butterfly is threadpainted and attached to a background of similar colors.   I used at least 11 (possibly more) different threads - varying colors, thickness and one metallic.    I really do enjoy this when I get going on it.

This is just to show you how I sign most of my quilts.   I used the treble clef sign because I am first and foremost a musician (having been a piano major in college) and then I add my initials.   Sometimes I stick a butterfly on the end - but it seemed redundant here.

"Together" Art Quilt Show

I'm part of a 2 person art quilt show (with Sarah Terry) at GoArt (Arts Council) in Batavia, NY.   We hung our show today and it will be up until August 30, 2011.   A "Meet The Artists Reception" is planned for June 30, 2011 from 5-7 PM.   I designed the postcards which advertise our show - shown below!!

My wall:
Self Portrait - Part of me is "black & White; Part of me wants to be more colorful
1:45 AM - torn strips of orange & green fabric make up this flower.   This was created one early morning about 1:45
Which Came First"   The stone on the turquoise shape mimics the colors of the quilt.   Or, does the quilt mimic the stone?

Joint Walls - with Sarah's Mask quilt

Joint Wall - Sarah's "Trails";
my "Edge of the Gorge - Stony Brook"  - created from photo taken in Stony Brook
"Oliver's Stained Glass" - adaptation of the staiend glass window at Oliver's Candies in Batavia, NY

Joint Wall with Sarah

"Looking for the Sun in Western New York"
my quilt will tulle, beading etc.

my "Breaking Free"

my "Melted Chocolate" (guild challenge earlier this year)

"Feathered Heart" - totally free motion quilting without a pattern

Both of these works are done with silk fabrics

my "I Always Wanted a Grand Piano"

My "Seagulls in Portland, Maine" - adaptation of a photo taken at Bug Lighthouse shoreline

"Longwood Watergardens" - adaptation of photo taken by me at Longwood Gardens

 my "Beaded Tree" - painted and heavily beaded on silk fabrics

my "Black-Eyed Susans" - thread painting

Joint Wall with Sarah

same Joine Wall with Sarah

My favorite of Sarah's - this features a lot of "metals" - so shiny