"Not Quite as the Crow Flies"

"Not Quite as the Crow Flies"

16.5" by 11.5"

Created for the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Challenge at Art Quilts Around the World.

I usually dislike these kind of challenges.  I tend to save and recycle everything anyway, so it wasn't necessary for me to have a specific challenge to do that.  

However.  When this was announced, I had previously made arrangements to gift another artist a couple of bags of the tiny scraps from my little hand-sewing project.  Mainly because I recently drastically downsized my living arrangements;  I just can't keep everything anymore.  Fortunately, I still had the baggies full of tiny scraps and used them for the leaves on my tree.  

The crow was drawn on a leftover scrap of fabric from my scrap fused fabric bin.  I used fabric, paint, and beads from my stash for the rest.  I did have to purchase a new spool of black thread, but that was because the one I was using disappeared and I would have needed another one anyway.  

This piece reflects my main impetus for recycling -- to save our environment for the wild things.  I took a winding path to get here, hence: the title.  

Art Quilt Challenge -- Hints and Ruminations

I was invited to join the gang of artists at Art Quilts Around the World and the first challenge is a self-portrait.  I am incredibly honored to be part of this group.  So while I focused on finishing the Hibiscus Series in time for the show, I pondered my self-portrait.

My first impulse was to do a literal interpretation using the colors in the quilt Rosie is modeling above.



And then do something using this photo of me that I manipulated in PhotoShop a while ago.



Maybe a little wonky piecing... some thread-painting....


But nope -- now that just seems too, well, expected.  And maybe a bit too pedestrian.

So I got out my sketchbook and played around with this little guy.  Hmmm... cute, but not quite what I was going for (although, to be perfectly truthful, I am pretty cute...).   So I"m back to the drawing board -- or sketchbook, as it were.  Stay tuned...

Mul-tex Part 3: the Art Quilt

So for the art quilt I started by stenciling dots on the mulberry side.  The promotional material that came with this notes that "color applied on the mulberry fiber side glows through when viewed from the shiny, laminate side."  Well, I'm all about glow...

After the dots dried, I flipped the mul-tex over and taped it down again.  I thinned some turquoise paint with gold mica flake and  a little glass bead gel.  I painted this on the shiny side (while the dots on the mulberry side glowed through).

I was looking for more texture here, so I mixed the gold with a healthy amount of the glass bead gel -- yep, I was having fun here...

Stenciled butterflies all over the shiny, laminate side.  See where it's curling up in the corner?  More about that later...

I pinned it to a thin white cotton batt and let it sit for a couple of days while I decided what to do next.

I have two kinds of Mul-tex -- actually they're the same -- the difference is that one is a small roll and the other is on a bolt.  I initially took a piece off the roll and drew this tree on the shiny side.  But it wouldn't stop curling.  I taped and weighted it onto my cutting mat, then left it for over a week.  I tried ironing it (between two sheets of parchment), and rolling it back the other way.  Still curled.

So then I got the bright idea of paint.  Maybe that would make it lie flat.  Or at least stiffen it somewhat.

This is the shiny side painted. I laid it on pretty thick.   I used a couple of different brands of acrylic paints.

And here it is flipped over.  Note: still taped.  I like the way the tree glows through.  I was thinking that if I had used another color, say, maybe blue, or black, It would have made a really nice effect.  But it still curls.  To the point where I'm getting really annoyed.

So I cut it into narrow strips and pinned, then sewed it down.  You can see where the tree trunk shadows through the green.  I like the effect.

I didn't want to do anymore quilting on the shiny background, so I left it here.  But I thought it needed something.

Enter the November technique from the ...Fire blog: extreme texture!  I have a bunch of cheesecloth that I've dyed over the years and I picked through it to find this lovely turquoise piece.

I love the way that cheese cloth takes dye.  I scrunched it up and stitched it on using a zigzag stitch.  I left a bit hanging over the edge of the binding.

So do I love Mul-tex?  No.  But it has possibilities.  I'm thinking that it might be fun to burn it and maybe play around with heating it with various implements of destruction.  But that will have to wait for warmer weather so I can do it outside.

Messing Around with Mul-tex

I was given some Mul-tex in exchange for the creation of samples of things that could be done with this stuff.  Mul-tex is mulberry paper on one side and a shiny laminate on the other.  I made this art quilt and the little bag.  In the next two posts, I will outline the techniques I used to create each of these.

---Stay tuned...

Bloggers' Quilt Festival Spring 2012

It's time for Amy's Spring Bloggers' Quilt Festival!

"Parrotpalooza"

12.5" by 14"

Acrylic inks on cotton.  Wool batt with cotton threadwork.

I chose this quilt because it still makes me smile.  I made it about a year ago;  it was an experiment.  I had some new acrylic inks and I wanted to see if I could use them to paint fine lines with a tiny brush.

I think it worked!  I left the birds mostly unquilted.  The background was a wash of a couple of different colors of the inks -- they are very rich in pigment and when mixed with water, they have a tendency to spread.  But when used straight out of the jar, they are wonderful for fine detail.  

 This is the finished painting on cotton before I layered it and stitched it.

This is the central bird -- this was taken from a photo I took at the Milwaukee County zoo a couple of years ago when they had an exhibition of birds -- mostly parrots-- from Australia.

I snapped lots of photos and pulled this beauty from those.

This is another ink on fabric drawing from that day at the zoo.  This is my daughter.  I did this with Tsukineko inks -- they're quite different.

Some Blocks, A New Product, and a Finish

First the finish:

"Sit Down -- I Think I Love You"

30" by 36"

I made this as part of the stuff we're doing over at "...And Then We Set it on Fire."  I "accidentally" made a block that looked kind of like a chair.  Then I remembered the chair fabrics in my stash, and I went from there. And yes, I did steal the title from that old song.  Thank you, Stephen Stills.

I wanted to get this finished, photographed, and posted today, so I started out pinning back the binding.  Then I ran out of pins.  Hmmm... I remembered that I purchased some fusible thread at a quilt show a while back.  I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but it seemed like a fun thing to have.  My friend Trish mentioned (quite a while ago, if I remember correctly) that one could use it to hold binding in place for hand stitching.  Hmmmm...!   I couldn't get it to go through the needle, so I wound some on a bobbin and did a zigzag around the edge close to the binding stitching.  Hit it with a steam iron and...  voila!   It still needs some stitching, but I can leave it alone for now.  This just might be a fabulous product for art quilt bindings that don't get a lot of wear and tear.  Thanks, Trish!

And last, but not least, my design wall today sports the rest of the unfinished blocks for my "...And Then We Set it on Fire"  experiments.

Those are the BOM 2012 blocks at the top -- I'm not going to be able to go to the meeting, so I'll buzz up to the quilt shop and get the February "assignment" later this week or next.

To see other design walls, click here to go to Judy's blog.  Thanks, Judy!

Pets on Quilts Show 2011

SewCalGal is hosting another online Pets on Quilts Show with lots of fun prizes.  My kids and pets begged me to enter because it was so much fun last year seeing our wonderful pets and everybody else's online.   Click here or on the button at top of this post to see all the other entries.     

Viewers can vote for their favorite entries in several categories on Saturday and Sunday, August 20 and 21.  We would love to receive votes in the "Dog Theme," "other pet theme" and, of course, "art quilt theme."   I'll post a reminder on Saturday and I'll probably get up on my soapbox and talk about the puppy mill legislation here in Wisconsin.  

 First up is Rosie, posed on a quilt I made a couple of years ago.  This was the first large quilt I quilted all by myself and when it was finished, I felt like a confident machine quilter.

 This was an art quilt I made featuring Rosie on on our front porch.  It was supposed to be the first in a series of "View From the Front Porch:Summer."  But I never made anymore in the series.  I suppose I may sometime.  It's only 12" by 12" but packed with stuff.

This is "Repeat," the leopard gecko and her dinner.  I 'splained all about her here.  This is another little quilt -- only 8 by 12 inches.  You can read all about this quilt here.

And, sadly, Rex, who was such a big part of my entry in the show last year, passed on to that big exercise wheel in the sky this past spring.  We miss him and his shiny black eyes and his whirring whiskers.   My daughter wants to acquire a new inhabitant for his cage, but I'm enjoying the quiet...

Faerie Forest Revealed

"Faerie Forest"

20" by 20" 

 I made this for the SewBatik Challenge at this year's NQA show.  I used the challenge fabric for the big tree.  The background is one of my hand-dyes that looks like a forest.

The door and window boxes in the stone cottage are also from the challenge fabric.  I hand embroidered the flowers for the trumpet vines above the stone wall next to the cottage and the little flowers in the window boxes.

I hand embroidered the bunnies and little purple flowers.

The birds were also hand embroidered, then appliquéd to the quilt.  

Fauna for the Faerie Forest

 I needed some birds and bunnies to keep the faerie company.  So I got out my trusty Tsukineko inks and used them to color in some pencil sketches of birds and bunnies.  I had ironed the fabric to some freezer paper to stabilize it while I used the pencil.

With the colors inked in, if I missed a stitch, I didn't have to worry about white fabric showing through.



The first set of cardinals that I drew were too large for this project.







Using a small needle, I covered the little drawings with thread.   Hand embroidery seemed like the best way to go with these.  They're quite tiny.


I cut them out, leaving a small seam allowance -- somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 inch.

 I used appliqué glue to make the seam allowance stick to the back.

Then I stitched them onto my quilt.  I'll have some more photos next time.

The Pelican is Finished!

"When Will We Ever Learn: Gulf Coast, Summer 2010"

31" x 42"

Hand-dyed cottons, cotton threads, wool batt, oil paint sticks

This was created for Madison Contemporary Fiber Artists' show, "Turning Point."   Works will be displayed from January 17 through April 3, 2011,  in Gallery 1 at the Overture Center for the Arts, 201 State Street,  Madison, Wisconsin.  

While watching the horror in the gulf coast unfold this summer, I was devastated by the pictures of the oil-soaked wildlife struggling to survive.  I hope this disaster will be a turning point for us and lead to more responsible use and stewardship of our natural resources.