Leaves

Pat: For my new book, I added color to some of my Zentangle Quilts. This is an example.

 

Joan: Over the month, I had lots of ideas about what I wanted to make. I was thinking about stamping, taking photos etc, Then I found a quote that reminded me that what I want from this art quilt group is to be more free; less structured and concerned about "rules." I used the quote as my inspiration, printed it on fabric and added it to my piece. The background is a piece of screen printed home-dec fabric I got a few years ago. It was fun to "thread paint" over the blue/shadow trees. For the leaves, I manipulated photos in my photo editing software, changing the color with the"invert" option. I used the resulting colors to select batik fabrics. I fussy cut the leaves from the batiks using dye variations to show the shading evident in the photograph. I then thread painted the leaf veins.

I have also been making little bags out of fabric I created by putting strips of fabric  together then "thread painting" over them to integrate them.

Linda: I used a combination of purchased silk leaves and embroidery. The background is made from leftovers from an charity quilt. The piece is quilted with metallics. I thought with all those leaves, there should be a branch or two but could not quite make that work. In the end, I added brown borders on 2 sides to represent the tree from which the leaves are falling.

Cathey: I thought this project would be a great opportunity to used several different techniques for the same leaf shape. I made a freezer paper leaf stencil then used several techniques. The first leaf is "foiled." The foil glue was put down using the stencil, then the foil applied over it. The next leaf is made with Lutradur colored with Shiva paintsticks cut into the shape and appliqued onto the fabric. The 3rd leaf was made using 2 layers of "puffy paint." When dry and puffed, I painted it with green Jaquard luminere paint. The next leaf was thread painted and the last leaf was made from Angelina fibers.When I fused the green Angelina fibers to the fusible web, it turned blue! So I had to overpaint it to bring it back to nature.

Melanie: I had ideas for 3 or 4 pieces but ended up scrambling to finish 1 piece but managed to get 3 techniques in it. As Cathey did, I used Lutradur to make leaves. The stuff is lots of fun to work with and takes color very well. I colored the Lutradur, then put it through the printer to print the leaves. The leaves were then cut out and appliqued to the piece with variegated thread to create the veins. On another section of the piece, I used a piece of leaf sunprinted fabric that I made last summer. The lower section is leaves printed on sparkly organza over celery green satin. I added some tree silhouettes because with all those leaves......

Hope: I like my pieces to tell a story. For this challenge I was inspired by a Desert Rose plant I bought a Logee's last year. It was doing well when, by mistake, I fertilized it. Desert Roses do not like to be fertilized. It dropped all its leaves and looked quite pathetic. I was so sad but decided to see if I could nurse it back to health. All winter I took special care of it and a few days ago, a single leaf appeared! That leaf made me very happy and I decided to memorialize it on this quilt.

Marcia: After chickens, plants are my next favorite things. The leaf theme fit right in. When I started to think about this project, I doodled around a little with "leaves." That lead to the small quilt with leaf shapes quilted into it and the letters of the word "leaves" embroidered and beaded in different configurations.  I then used Sue Pelland's "leaves galore" ruler/template to create the larger, White Ash leaf piece. You might think it is many leaves but it is one single leaf called a compound leaf with leaflets on a stalk. I used beads (of course) for the leaf veins and found some great leaf fabric for the border.  If I had time, I would make one of these for all the tree species I know and love!