Fire and/or Ice

FIRE and/or ICE was our topic for April.

Pat: Campfire
This campfire has logs made from leather and flames made from silk, sparkly sequin fabric and thread. Some escaped embers float above the fire. They were made from tiny pieces of the sequin fabric. The blue background and the blue "ice cubes" under the fire represent ice.

 

I also brought a more traditional piece I made a while back. It is call "Rings of Fire." The double wedding rings are made of scraps from classes I taught. Colors are perfect for fire and ice and the quilting has a flame motif.

Cathey: I used a lot of sari silk waste in my piece. I love that stuff cause it is silk and in this piece, I love the texture it gives the flames. I also used a new fun spray "Tattered Angels" to spray on a glimmer gold background.

 

I also brought a piece from our "time" challenge. I finished Life is Framed by Time with added text and mounted it on a clipboard.

 

 

Joan: I found yet another fun, free app on my ipad. Actually I found two. One lets you paint flames with your finger, the other lets you create snowflakes on a background. I used the snowflake app to create the background of my piece and did some fussy cutting of a painted pole shibori fabric to create the flames.



I also brought a couple of other pieces I recently finished. This one was created from some cotton and organza fabrics I marbled. The organza is overlayed on the cotton. For added interest, I cut away some sections of the organza.

 



This last piece is a landscape made with Earth Oxide painted fabric, silk, synthetic and upholstery fabrics. The bottom 2 sections are upholstery fabric. I used both sides of the fabric then added gold and copper Shiva paintstick highlights to unify them. The Earth Oxides give a soft, earthy color to fabric that is difficult to achieve with other types of paint or dye.

 

 

Hope: Firedancers

When we chose the inspiration for this month, I immediately thought of "fire dancers." I used some of my hand dyed parfait fabric for the background and some ice dyed fabric for the binding. I quilted in flames so the silhouettes are dancing in fire.

 

Last week I was inspired by the new issue of Quilting Arts to try a couple of the techniques in the article on the cup of cappuccino. I created a composition from newspapers and a teacup. I tried painting with tsukineko inks but found it difficult to control the level of color and texture so added water colored pencil and  water soluable crayons to the mix to get closer to what I wanted. I bought some metallic colored pencils but was disappointed that the result did not seem much different from other colored pencils.  I also tried the technique with colored newspaper and gel medium transfer but that did not work for me at all so I abandoned that all together. So.... mixed reviews but always fun to try something new.

 

 

 

Melanie: Forest Fire
I love to create batiked fabric from soy wax mixed with procion mx dyes. The result often looks like a forest of trees. In this piece the batik fabric is used for the background; silk and sari silk pieces make the flames. The entire piece was then covered with red tulle.

Marica: I used silk and a lot of beading to create my fire. I love how the raw edges and threads left uncut create texture and errant threads of flame. There is blue at the base of the fire because the hottest fire burns blue.

 



Sheila Rae: Demerol Dreams 
My dad was a cop. When I was young, he sometimes took me with him on calls. When I was three, he took me to the site of a church on fire. I never forgot that powerful image and I often dream of it - especially if I take pain pills. The center of the piece is a church. The flames were created from fussy cut flame fabric. Religious icons and other ephemera are hand stitched on to the church. I found some birds, painted them black and sewed them into the flames. I seem to remember birds on the scene that night. In the lower left corner is a car representing me waiting for my father in the car, watching the fire.

I was asked to bring a piece I created a while back. It is called "A Tear in the Fabric of Space." I stated with a large piece of wool and asked a friend to literally shoot it full of holes. When I got it back, I washed it. This felted the wool, creating lots of texture around the holes. I then placed the wool over very shiny fabric and sparkly organza. This fabric along with the many beads and sequins represent space and stars.