December Free Style

For December we decided not to select a specific theme.

Hope: I took a class with Jo Diggs at The Gathering in November. I started this project there and was glad to have this month to finish it. The background is a piece of my ice dyed fabric. The design is satin stitch appliqued. I decided to frame this piece and the group really liked the result.

Pat: I have been working on 3 projects. One is based on a photo I took in my driveway of a luna moth. It is not quite finished. I will post the photo once it is finished.

The second project is a baby quilt I designed and sewed for my *almost here* new grandson. It as a nautical theme. That has been shipped off so again, no picture.

My third project is a new zen mandala. The inspiration for this one was a metal sun I saw on the Sunday Good Morning Show. It includes a "tangle motif" I designed.

Joan: As you know I love silk. This month was an opportunity for me to use some of it with a simple design that lets the dupioni silk take a leading role. The silk is combination of orange and gold. I thread painted the tree in black.

Marcia: I made 2 pieces this month. For the first piece I used a piece of hand marbled fabric I purchased a while back and have been wanting to use. I have a large collection of buttons and beads and used a lot of them in this project to embellish the fabric 

In my second project, I used a piece of clamp resist shibori fabric I made. I love circles and kept the circle theme by using yo yo' s, antique buttons in my collection and round silver pieces from the jewelry section of Michaels. 

Melanie: I love modern art. Last year I went to the play, "Red." That play is based on the life and works of Mark Rothko. Since then I have been fascinated by him and some of his contemporaries. Rothko  is an American painter identified as an Abstract Expressionist.  With Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, he is one of the most famous postwar American artists. I am particularly drawn to his use of symmetrical rectangular blocks of two to three opposing or contrasting, yet complementary, colors. I think this style works well expressed in fabric. The fabric in this piece was made using a soy wax batik process, then overpainting with thickened dye.