Found Objects

The October theme was "Found Objects."

Ghost Pines: Hope Barton
I love wine and wine labels. The label from this wine, "Ghost Pines" is especially beautiful but better yet, the label is strong and comes off in one piece. I had a couple of these saved in my kitchen and decided to use them as my "found object." In this piece, I manipulated a photo of a flaming orange sunset to get colors used in the label and make the tree silhouette more ghostly. I used fabric to continue the hill from the label into the quilt.

Dancing with Wine: Hope Barton
Inspired by my first quilt and a glass of wine, I continued with the Ghost Pines wine theme, and made this happy scene.

Golf Season: Joan Johnson
In golf season my husband's golf tees are everywhere. His pockets are filled with them, and when I do the laundry, they fall out on the floor, in the washing machine etc........ When I saw the "bubbly" fabric, I thought it was the perfect background. The door on the machine opens.

Feathers: Marcia Kilpatrick
I have chickens. I made this little quilt a while back with some of their shed feathers. I thought it was pretty cute at the time with the chicken themed fabric.

Autumn Night: Marcia Kilpatrick
This quilt was made from little scraps of fabric and thread lying around my sewing room. The border is beaded with beads I got for free from a local tag sale. The theme is the forest on an autumn night.

War and Peace: Melanie Johnston
When excavating a new addition to our house, several shards of pottery and glass were unearthed and among the pieces was a white, ceramic lamb.
A year ago, I was a selectman in our town. The day after an unpopular decision, I found a handful of roofing nails in my driveway. I decided to use both objects togther and call it "War and Peace." The peace symbol is trapunto and made with fabric I hand dyed.

Mandala

Our inspiration/challenge for September was "Mandala."

Mystical Mandala: Melanie Johnston

I wanted to do some paper piecing and use some of my hand dyed fabric. I drafted a template to use for the paper piecing. Once finished, I decided it needed some crystals for a more magical/mystical quality so I added some hot fix crystals. It was my first time using them and was a lot of fun. Definitely get the applicator for heating and applying them!

 

Diversity Mandala: Melanie Johnston

I have been wanting to do something with a diversity theme for a while. While doing the mandala challenge, I came across Karen Eckmeier's new work in mandalas. She has a similar piece  that was just perfect.

Painted Mandala: Melanie Johnston

In addition to immersion dyeing, I have been experimenting with painting with dyes. This mandala was made by painting with thickened dye on fabric that was pretreated with soda ash mordant. The painting was then embellished with gold paint and various colors of foil. 

Yo Yo Flower Garden Mandala: Marcia Kilpatrick

So many choices and ideas! I chose one with flowers. I had a box of yo yos in various sizes I had made a while back. I decided to use them. The result is this flower garden mandala. 

Fan Mandala: Marcia Kilpatrick

This piece was made from a classic fan pattern. Four fans make a circle. 

 

Mariner's Compass Mandala: Marcia Kilpatrick

This mariner's compass was made using folded wedges of fabric. The method is a lot easier than precision piecing and looks great!

 

Capricorn: Linda Gardner. I designed this mandala for my embroidery machine. The inner circle is the number nine. The mandala represents my birthday, January 9.

Hope Barton: Hope is a new member to our group. She did not finish a mandala but here are some art quilts she brought to our meeting. 

  

  

A Song in My Heart

Our theme for this month was "A Song in My Heart." Choose a song, a line from a song, or even just a mood a song evokes.

Music in My Mother's House: Melanie Johnston
I love this song. I love the images and sounds of the song. I chose a line from the song: "There was music in my mother's house, there was music all around. There was music in my mother's house and my heart's still full with the sound." The words are printed around the swirl in the heart. I printed some notes on organza, trimmed the organza and placed it so it looks as though it is coming through the house door. I think the organza makes the music "float on air."

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Marcia Kilpatrick

Although she appreciates music, particularly relaxing music, Marcia says she does not have musical talent. She says it was a stretch for her to rise to this challenge.She did a lot of research on rainbows  for this quilt. How many colors? What is the proper order? She covered the rainbow with sparkly tulle, hand stitched rain and sun rays with metallic thread and added charms to represent images in the song.

 

Secret 'O Life: Joan Johnson
Joan selected a line from this James Taylor song. The line is: "The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time."She chose to make a piece that represented the calm, peaceful feeling she gets from the song's message.

Parsely, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme: Linda Gardner
Linda has software to digitize embroidery. She used the words from the folk song, selected a font and graduated the sizes of the letters to create a wedge shape for each word. She stitched out 2 of each word and placed them mirror image to each other to simulate tree shapes.

Zen Music: Pat Ferguson

Pat has been exploring the use of Zentangles® in quilting. For this challenge, she "Zentangled" a G-clef and quilted it. Check our her website for more of her "Zen Quilting" ideas.

 

Photographic Inspiration

Our theme for this month is "A Photograph." The idea is to be inspired by a photograph and use it as a jumping off point. The photo may be used directly or just for inspiration.

Goldie: Pat Ferguson
This is an old photo of my grandmother. I printed it on fabric then "framed" it with fabrics and trims to match the feeling of the picture. The trim is from Germany. It is very heavy and contains actual metal.

Fish: Melanie Johnston
This fish was a photo printed out on fabric. I used Photoshop Elements to lighten and blur the background so that the fish would stand out. I printed the fish, then used some foil to accent certain colorful scales.

Historic Hampton: Melanie Johnston
These are photos from the Hampton Antiquarian and Historical Society. I printed them on unbleached muslin. Each photo has a different Photoshop Elements filter applied. The photo pf the graveyard has an overlay of the same photo printed on organza. "In person" this makes for a creepy holographic effect.

Colorful Nautilaus Shells: Melanie Johnston
Still experimenting with Photoshop Elements. Istarted with a photo pf a nautilaus shell then used the hue and saturation tools to duplicate it in other colors. I printed in on white satin (treated with BubbleJet Set 2000) and further enhanced it with Tsukineko Champagne Mist sparkly ink.

Poppy:  Marica Kilpatrick
This piece was inspired by a photograph I took at the CT Audubon Trail Wood next to the Information Shed where it grew among  grasses. The poppy has ruching on the edge to interpret the frilly edges of poppy. The button and black beads are to signify the dark center of the poppies.  The piece is hand done.

Waterlilies: Joan Johnson
I love waterlilies. Here are 2 quilts inspired by my photos of them. In the second one, I tried a sliced/convergence technique.

Landscape: Mary Oliver
I love landscape and collage. This piece was inspired by a photo of a landscape.

Stained Glass: Linda Gardner
I did not make a piece inspired by a photo, instead, I finished this stained glass piece I had been working on.

 

Organizational Meeting

Our organizational meeting! A group of 8 quilters from Hampton, Chaplin and Ashford have decided to act on our idea of starting a small art quilt group. Our idea is to keep the group to 6-10 members and meet once a month in member homes. At the meetings we will "show and tell" our projects, share ideas, interesting books, and new materials.  We will also select a theme for the following month. From time to time, we may go on applicable "field trips" togeher, invite a guest artist to demonstrate a technique or spend a day working together on a project or technique.