Shelia Rae: I was not here last month. The challenge then was circles. Here is my piece from that challenge. The frightening images inside the circles come from my childhood nightmares precipitated by the Cuban Missile Crisis and the defense drills we had to perform in school and in my town.
For my Series pieces, I used vintage "orphan blocks" given to me to create a series based on the myths and legends of the underground railroad quilts.
This first block is a Log Cabin. Legend has it that when the center was red, it was safe to pass; black meant stay away. This is a safe block with a red button center. There are also chains in the piece representing the chains of slavery.
My second piece is a North Star block and represents flying to freedom, The background fabric is embroidered with many small x's. The wings were in one of my donation bags. I spray painted them green.
The third piece is Turnbolt. There is a north star and compass for guidance and stained glass-looking fabric to bring to mind churches. Churches were often safe havens to slaves fleeing to freedom.
The Fourth block is Bowtie. Its message is "go in disguise" or "hide in plain sight." In this block there is lots to look at and lots of glitz to distract the viewer from the basic block.
Pat: A couple of months ago our challenge was geometry, I liked the piece I made but wanted it to have more depth. I continued to work on it and added a lot more stitching, especially around the edges to create shading and depth. Here is the enhanced piece:
Here is the original:
For my Series challenge, I continued with last month's circle motif. That one was multicolored and this time I want to do one in black and white. I recently purchased some fabric and was inspired by the circles with the turquoise center. It added just a bit of color to the otherwise black and white scheme. I appliqued the circles on to black fabric then used white decorative stitching in circles to create the piece.
This was my inspiration fabric. I cut circles from it for the piece.
Here is my black, white and turquoise piece: (note from photographer - this piece is perfectly executed. The photo was taken with someone holding it up and that made it look a little wonky).
Here is the first in the series (from last month):
Melanie: Abstraction. Well it is not a series yet but this piece was made from a piece of "silk paper" I made. It contains silk roving, metallic threads and other ephemera. The paper is mounted on a batik and silk background then stitched, I have more silk paper and plan to make one or two more to complete the series.
Marica: My series in Gesneria. These 3 pieces were made with raw edge applique, some silk and stitch. The middle piece has a beaded edge.
