Opposites Attract

For May, we decided to use the most recent Quilting Art Reader Challenge, "Opposites Attract." The challenge was to make a 9 X 9 inch quilt using mostly complementary colors and the notion of opposites attract.

Melanie - Giraffe Love
I made a Gelli plate print for the background, then painted giraffe over it. I used complimentary colors but reversed them on each giraffe. I think the giraffes here, while opposite in coloring, are clearly attracted to one another. :)

Marcia - Opposites

For my complementary colors, I chose violet and yellow. I used a variety of fabrics and buttons in those colors, then used patterning and stitch to build in several "opposites" eg long & short; plus & minus; horizontal & vertical; straight & curved; dark & light, large & small.

Hope - Painted Fish
I selected orange and blue for my colors and raided my stash for a variety of interesting fabrics in those colors. I thought the marbled fabric worked well for water. His gills are actually dimensional ie not stitched down completely. They move in the wind resembling the movement of fish gills breathing under water.

Shelia Rae - Go Outside and Play

I chose the opposites of playing inside on the computer vs playing outdoors. It is a little difficult to see all the components in this picture but there are computer chips windows and words representing outdoors and indoors. Not sure I got the complementary colors correct but they worked for me. 

I also made a piece called "In an Octopus' Garden." It is pink monochromatic. I used manic panic to dye a lot of the embellishments. There is tulle to hold some of the pieces down and if you look closely you can see little surprises inside the holes in the shells. 

I also brought a piece that I remade after deciding that I could do a better job with the finishing. Here is the revised "Whatever Happened to Mary."

I missed the last couple of meetings but did make the projects. My "Pat Ferguson fun fabric" challenge piece can be seen in the April blog entry and my "Green Paper" piece has been added to March.

Joan

I did not make a piece for the challenge topic but brought some things I have been working on. 

This piece is from a photo I took. I created the silhouette of the bird from black fabric, appliqued it to a circle of hand dyed yellow and used a textured black fabric for the background. 

Pat 

I did not make a quilt for the challenge but I brought 3 other pieces.

First is a new zentangle. This one is on a tan colored tile using both black and white markers.

Next is the piece that toured with the Connecticut SAQA exhibit, Local Color. My theme was the Last Green Valley. It is difficult to photograph as it is quite long. Each piece small zentangle quilt represents the forest floor. Those mini quilts are mounted on a long quilt that was quilted in green to represent forest. You can see the quilting better in the close-up shot.

I also made a "10 minute" table runner. This was a fun and really quick project. The center section looks pieced but is actually patterned fabric. 

Sheila Rae Lutz Exhibit

Congratulations to QCAQG member, Sheila Rae Lutz!

Opening reception, Thursday, May 1st, 6-8pm

Light refreshments will be served

Come join us at the Arts Center to see the intricate art quilts of Shelia Rae Lutz. As we reopen our galleries for spring, these fiber art pieces tell stories from the artist’s life with rich color and hand-stitched detail. With over 40 pieces from the artist’s collection, we are excited to showcase such textured and moving artwork.

Show dates and times:

May 1st -11th, 2014

Thursday 4-8pm

Friday 2-6pm

Saturday/Sunday 12-4pm

April

For our April challenge, Pat gave us each a bundle of interesting - non cotton fabrics. Some of us used only 1 of the fabrics; others used a piece from almost all of them.

Hope - Fusion
I pieced several of the challenge fabrics in with batiks. I tried to pay attention to value and contrast to draw the viewer's eye around the piece. For some of the fabrics, I used both sides.

Cathey - Curvilinear Australian

I had some Australian fabric in my stash that I have been waiting to use. I also had some strata left over from a class I took with Louisa Smith. I added in selected pieces from Pat's bundle including the burlap ribbon. I fussy cut around the motif of some of the red print Australian fabric and placed the strata in behind it. I like the contrast between the color values and the shapes.

Joan - Turtle Trio

For the background of this piece, I used a shibori dyed fabric I made. I then stamped with a turtle stamp my son made a few years back. My plan was to overlay one of the sheer fabrics from Pat's bundle but it was too dense. In the end I used 2 colors of tulle over the top. I hope to bind it with something from the fabric bundle.

Marcia - Silver Ripples

I tried to use as many of the fabrics as I could. I really wanted to showcase the slivery, pleated fabric with the cutwork at the bottom. I was able to use a lot of my sliver and clear, crystal beads as well as buttons on this piece. It was very difficult to bind! I ended up binding the top and sides and let the bottom be free.

Melanie - Guitar

For this impressionist guitar piece, I used one of my ice dyed fabrics for the background and a dark gold/bronze organza piece from Pat's bundle. For the side of the guitar, I used the organza double thickness. To define the side and sound hole, I couched yarn along the edges. 

Shelia Rae - Waterfall

Like Marcia, I used the pleated silver fabric. I thought it looked like a waterfall. I added some rocks in the fall and on the side and hand stitched each pleat down.

Paper

For this month's challenge, Pat Ferguson gave us green paper straps with gold seals that hold together sets of Zentangle tiles. Our challenge was to incorporate them into an art quilt.

Melanie - Bridges
I had a piece of hand dyed fabric with some of the green/blue color in it and decided to use it as the background. I cut the paper straps with a pinking bladed rotary cutter, then cut some black fabric with it to create shadows. I left the gold seals on the strap edges. The result looked sort of like floating architecture to me so I named it "Bridges."

Joan - Landscape
I decided to play with some of my unusual and upholstery fabrics. I spent some time cutting up lots of fabric and composing on my kitchen counter. In the end I created a raw edge landscape composed free form as I went using a glue stick to hold it all in place. The shape of the piece just flowed as I pieced and I like the irregular way it turned out. The green strapping appears in 2 of the layers. I placed the gold seal in the sky. The sky fabric is a piece of hand dyed indigo I made a while back

Cather - Untitled 

I pieced in the green strapping along with some other odd pieces I had saved. There is some paisley, batik and velvet in here and even some pieces of a woman's pants I cut off to shorten. Some of the fabric is stamped with glittery ink using a feather stamp I carved. I couched embroidery floss in with the quilting. 

Hope - Dream
I cut out Chinese symbols from my green paper. The symbols mean "Dream." I used some hand dyed fabric for the base, then added threads, fabric snippets and scraps to create a background with lots of energy. I placed pale green tulle over the entire piece to hold it all together and give another layer of interest.

Pat - Key to My Heart
I cut pieces of the paper strips, placed on white fabric and sprayed them with water. After a while, the color leached out on to the fabric and "dyed" it in interesting patterns. There is no piecing, the patterning is created entirely from the ink in the paper. The heart motif was created with a product called Ver Day paint & patina. It is a metallic paint that develops a patina when sprayed with the companion liquid. It comes in copper, bronze and other metals. The keys and tiny nuts were found objects.

Shelia Rae - Icon
This piece is not quilted fiber art. It is a collage behind glass. I asked my son to write whatever came into his head on the green paper strips given to us. He wrote some interesting things about talking to God. That inspired me to add other iconic religious images. As my friends know, I am fascinated by religious icons in art.

January Free Choice

Again in January we decided to go with artist's choice for a theme.

Pat: Luna Moth
This piece is really from last month. I finally finished it. I took a photo of a luna moth on my stone driveway. I printed some of the shots on paper to play with composition. When I was satisfied with the size and layout, I printed the images on fabric and enhanced them with colored pencils. I had some green fabric that worked well with the color of the moth and used it for the background. I carried the rock shapes into the background fabric with stitching, I used several different colored threads and quilted each stone several times around to give a lot of definition.

The labeling on the back includes some information about the luna moth and its life cycle. It is a beautiful and interesting insect.

Dresden Plate

For the 25th anniversary of the Willimantic Textile Museum, I along with several other quilters made an art quilt inspired by an antique quilt in the museum's collection. The antique and new quilts will be on display in a special show in April & May, 2014. 

My quilt was a Dresden plate design. By now you know that I love Zentangle and use it a lot in my quilting so naturally, I made my Dresden plates with Zentangles. The quilt is double sided, including the binding! On one side, the each plate is decorated with stitched zentangle patterns in a variety of colors. On the reverse side, the tangles are enhanced with colored pens, pencils and markers to create "calico."

The pictures below are samples of one block. Come to the show to see the entire quilt!

Here are a few more zentangle projects. The black square is done with "moonlight" jelly roll pens that glow in the dark. I used some of them on the luna moth above as well. 

Hope: A Fish Story

This is a piece I started in a class with Leah Allman. The technique uses broderie perse for the fish and other underwater elements. The upper background is a piece of my ice dyed fabric. I am really pleased with the bright colors in this piece.

Sheila Rae: Lady Madonna with Chickens at her Feet

This piece started with some Indian fabric I was given. It already had mirrors and embroidered birds on it. I added buttons, stitch and quilting - all by hand. The back fabric was also given to me. People know I am intrigued with religious relics so this fabric with the madonnas was meant for me. I thought the colors went perfectly together and made for a fun theme. 

In-a-godda-da-vida

In this piece, the 60's era background fabric is strip pieced with raw edges. Other fabric, bakelite rings, dyed buttons, fake flowers, the turtle were all added by hand. I dye my buttons with "manic panic" hair coloring. I love multi-purpose products!

Marica: Orange!

This piece is a study in orange. I actually used the Joen Wolfrom color tool to get a palette of oranges. It was interesting to see how different colors looked on their own vs when they were placed next to other fabrics. In this piece the lace looks pale and golden yet on its own it was clearly orange. 

The fabrics range from silk and taffeta to fake fur and upholstery. I again got to raid my extensive trim, button and bead collections and found plenty of orange to use. 

Melanie: A New Sunrise

I am also participating in the Now and Then WIllimantic Textile Museum exhibit mentioned in Pat's piece. My inspiration quilt is a mariner's compass design. Since I love surface design and dyeing. I decided to paint my quilt with thickened procion MX dye. I drafted out a quarter of the design based on the original quilt. I masked off one section at a time with freezer paper or masking tape and over the course of 5 days, painted the various sections in colors inspired by those in the antique quilt but much more vibrant. 

I then decided to mix up the composition. Instead of straightforward circles, I used a very contemporary layout of the 9 quarter square sections. I hope you can come to see the show in person!

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.

Inspired by a Photo

This month our project was to be inspired by a photograph.

Cathey: "Saybrook Sailboat"  
I took a photo of a single sailboat out in the water in Saybrook. It looked so beautiful as it sailed along solitary on the water. In this piece, I used crinkled 2 color silk for the water. It has a great shimmer and wavy quality just like water. For the sky, I used a piece of ice dyed fabric which I overdyed with indigo using a pole shibori technique. The boat is made of white silk over layers of timtex and batting to give it lots of dimension.

Sheila Rae: "Itchycoo Park"
I stated with a piece of my son's old, patched jeans. I added buttons and sequins by hand. The piece has snippets of fabric scraps including some with stars that glow in the dark and some frayed luminescent polyester. These scraps are an extension of the "patched" jeans/life theme.
For the centerpiece, I took and old, round mirror, sanded the finish off the back and mod-podged a photo of a fairy from a jacket I made a while back.

Joan: "Cooking Memories"
This is a retro piece I made just for me. The theme is cooking memories from my childhood. We had a set of pink pyrex bowls which I loved (even after my sister broke the largest one). I printed onto fabric, an old, stained recipe of my mom's (in her ow hand) for pumpkin bread. The wooden spoon and aluminum measuring spoons were always present in our kitchen. I still have my mom's metal recipe box and took a picture for this project. And who didn't cook with Betty Crocker? The edition you have dates you. This was the edition in our house.
Somewhere I have a picture of my mom in her apron. When I find it, I will print that on fabric and add it.
Retro pink rick rack was the perfect border embellishment.

Marcia: With permission, I took a photo of a photo at a recent show I attended and my piece is based on that photo. It is a landscape with unusual coloring. I used mostly silk and fabric samples. Some of the edges are fraying which adds interest.

Melanie: "Like Walking in the Rain"
This piece is inspired by several pictures and paintings I have seen of a single figure in the rain under an umbrella. I masked off the area for the figure with freezer paper, then painted the "rain" with thickened dye. I then thread sketched in the figure and used some silver beads for a few streams of rain drops