Our theme for this month was "FRAMED.

Marcia: My granddaughter, Kailyn, made a pencil sketch of an idea for a quilt and asked me to create it. This is the result.  She even selected the colors. This is a very true representation of her drawing.

 

This next piece is one that I started in a class with Esterita Austin. It is a study in depth, shadow etc .  I started with a piece of commercial fabric for the large background and a piece of my ice dyed fabric for the rocks & branch. I then used fabric paint & stitching to add shadow and light. Unusual for me, I machine quilted this piece fairly heavily.  I did some beading in the sky to represent stars and there are some star reflections in the water that play off the beads.

 

I was the one who selected the theme, “framed” for this month. Originally I was thinking of various ways to interpret that theme and did not want to use an actual frame but in the end, I did end up framing 2 pieces.  The first piece is “Mars.” It is made from a piece of the marbled fabric we created a couple of months ago. I added beading and metallic embroidery floss embellishments.

This second piece is “Sand and Water.”  It is a landscape stratification made from silk, sari silk waste,  and  upholstery fabric. Of course, beads and metallic thread were added.

 

Joan: This theme was a natural for me because I often frame my work. This piece is a small seascape. The top section is made from sky-like fabric. The lower section is a photo printed on fabric. I then added sari silk waste with a frayed edge. I love how that edge perfectly represents sea grass.

 

Pat: I have been designing pantographs for Willow Leaf Studios. They are based on my Zentangle quilting and should be ready for April shows. (Pat brought some samples for us to see but they are top secret til the big release. Look for them at Willow Leaf Studios and at quilt shows in the spring).

For the theme this month, I decided to try several methods of framing some of my Zentangle pieces.  I think framing the small ones gives them more importance. For the music piece, I covered a canvas with red fabric, then added the quilt. The inner red is piping. The next black layer is the binding. Then the red fabric covered canvas.  I then edged the canvas in black cord and added the tassels at the join of the trim. You can not see it in the picture, but there is an additional round of trim on the folded over edge of the canvas. This process was very labor intensive and time consuming. I am not sure how often I would use it. I then used a variety of frames to show off some of my tiles.

 

 

Cathey:  As I thought about the theme, I decided that “we are framed by time.”  For the project I photocopied a piece of calendar and printed it on fabric, I used TAP to transfer the pocketwatch image. I wanted the watch image to look distressed so I scraped and roughed it up a bit after transferring. In contrast to my usual style, I  quilted it very simply. I was considering overlaying it with organza printed with a Ben Franklin quote about tie but did not have any organza on hand. Everyone seemed to like it as is.

 

Sheila Rae: Sheila is once again visiting our group. She brought pieces based on a couple of our past themes. 

My first  piece is made from sari silk waste. It started as a wide piece of the silk with open threads in one section. I wove ribbon and thread though the open area. I then added beads and buttons. Several of the buttons are antique, dyed mother-of-pearl. The silk piece is sewn on to felt and enhanced with hand stitching. I really enjoy hand stitching my pieces.

 

The second piece is from the “stamped” theme. I stamped the buttons with tiny dots, then sewed them to the piece with multi-colored threads in a spider-web style. The piece was then hand-stitched with variegated thread.

 

For the month’s theme, I used found metal objects.  “Whatever Happened to Mary?” is made from a vintage metal medal of the Virgin Mary and I framed her with a metal frame. Both metal pieces were found in a junk shop. Star sequins and vintage buttons were added.  The text is hand-stitched. I print out text using my computer & printer and use it as a guide for stitching. The hanger is another piece of “junk” I found. I think it is some sort of lab mixing stick.  As always, it is hand stitched.  I am very interested in religious memorabilia and symbols so this piece was enjoyable to create. The background fabric is printed with stars that glow in the dark. We all went into the windowless bathroom to see the effect. J

Stamping

Our challenge for December was to do some sort of stamping.

Melanie: My piece is called "Rain." I used a piece of parfait dyed fabric for the background, then stamped with small cell bubble wrap, a commercial spiral stamp and a hand carved splashy/droplet sort of stamp. I used lumiere copper, silver & pearl fabric paint for the stamping, and added pieces of silvery, gold and coppery silk.

I also brought a "show & tell" of a piece I created from the fabric marbling we have been doing. The cellular looking sections and the more traditional swirly section is the marbled fabric. This piece is titled "All Dressed Up" and uses silks and quilting with metallic thread to set off the marbled fabric.

 



Lastly, I created a small piece in response to the Quilting Arts "Coffee or Tea" reader challenge. The background is a commercial fabric, the teacup created from an Asian fabric with foil for the rim, white ultrasuede and yellow Angelina for the floating lemon and organza for steam.

Cathey: I started by using a bubble stencil as a stamp. I covered the stencil in fabric paint, then "stamped" it on to the fabric. I then used a cork dipped in gold paint to make the gold circles and added ribbon and commercial fabric circles.

Hope: I did not finish a stamped piece but I had fun creating stamps using  Moldable Foam MagicStamps . I pressed them into beads, safety pins and rotini macaroni! Now I have to make something with them.

 



I made this dye & soy wax linen fabric at Melanie's basement studio session last week. I then did a little stenciling on it. More to come on this one.

Marcia: I had a heck of a time with this project. First I used a soft carve-able stamp block to carve some tulips. I used an exacto knife instead of stamping/lino cutting tools and I carved too deeply. As a result, the stamp started to fall apart. Then I tried a linoleum block and a screwdriver. Definitely not the way to go. I returned to the soft stamp tulip block and decided to try "Perfect Pearls" with it. These are frosted powders. You can add water to make them more paint-like. I did that and painted the stamp but the paint kind of slid off. Finally I got enough to stick and did my stamping. The yellow fabric was a funny shape so I decided to go ahead with it and call it a design decision to cut off a corner. My troubles did not end there. When I quilted it, I ended up with a crease in the middle. When I made the label, I misspelled "tulip." I am looking forward to January!

 

 

Pat: I was not able to do the project this month but I did do a little experimenting with Sharpie Markers and alcohol. The big chisel tipped markers work the best cause they are nice & juicy, You draw some lines, dots or a design, then spray with or drop on rubbing alcohol. The alcohol causes the marker ink to spread, creating interesting painterly effects. It can be done on silk, cotton, sneakers, many types of fabric. Heat set it after it is dry. There are several videos on Youtube. Quick & fun!

Joan: I am stuck somewhere between Minnesota  & home.
Blizzards & fog are not airplane friendly. :(

Sari Silk Strip Challenge

The challenge for November was to use 1 or more strips of sari silk in a project. The sari silk strips were given to us by Cathey who gets them from a small business called Darn Good Yarn.

Hope: When I saw what was going on in the Dianne Hire class at A Quilters' Gathering, I decided to make a similar piece. Although I used some Australian fabrics, I think it has an African feeling. I used the sari silk, some other silk, beads and fussy cut motifs.

I also brought my piece from the Pam Mostek collage class. It is not yet finished and you can see some pins in the sky area but I am making progress.

Pat: The first thing I did with my strips when Cathey gave them to me was iron them. The jewel tones really looked great together. I decided to try piecing them together on felt using my longarm. First I used black thread to sew them on to the felt, then used decorative quilting and antique buttons to embellish them. Finally, I cut the felt with a wavy blade rotary cutter to form the decorative border.

I have also been working on samples for my new class on quilting zen mandalas.



Joan: Everyone knows how much I love landscapes. I decided to use one of my Iceland photos for inspiration. The piece is made from strips of hand dyed and silk fabric, a strip of photo printed on fabric (contains small sheep and fence posts) and a fuzzy sari silk strip was used for foreground grass.I quilted it on felt.

I have been experimenting with marbling fabric. I especially like the effect of dropping color on the thickened water and letting it morph into organic shapes. This is a piece I bordered in silk and quilted with a few different thread colors.

Marcia: I started with an idea then changed my mind. I decided to make a color blocked collage. I wanted to hand quilt the piece and have one section roughed but the tight weave of the fabrics made both techniques difficult. I ended up sewing & quilting it by machine. In addition to the silk sari strips, I used satin, beads,  buttons and butterflies.

Cathey: I started out wanting to make a large collaged/stitched fabric piece from the strips. I had some trouble and it needs more work. Here is the progress so far:

Then I decided to create a scarf. I layed ironed pieces of the sari silk together, sandwiched them between pieces of water soluable stabilizer, stitched them, then dissolved the stabilizer. I really like the result!

I also brought my collaged wave from Pam Mostek's class. I am still working on sewing down all the pieces and adding lots of texture to the foamy part of the wave.I am also experimenting with background color. In the photo I have some green fabric there but I am not yet convinced that that is the right color. Right now I am leaning toward yellow.

Melanie: For the sari silk challenge, I decided to incorporate my strips into the piece I started in Dianne Hire's class. I used silk, hand dyed cotton, Australian fabric, beads and crystals. I call it Jewel of India because the colors and felling remind me of India.

I also am almost finished with my collaged guitars. This was a great class and technique.

Natural World

The challenge for October 2012 was "the natural world."

Joan: This sunprint was made using grasses and setacolor transparent paint on cotton. I used blue for the binding and the inner flange to pick up the blue thread used to quilt. I used several other thread colors as well. The main border is natural linen.

This hosta is based on plants in my garden - complete with slug holes. The background and the outer part of the large leaf are hand dyed and fabric. The inner section of the large leaf is silk. The 2 smaller leaves were printed from a photo I took. I used some variegated and some solid thread for the quilting.

This landscape was created from silk, batik and linen then quilted with a variety of thread including metallic and variegated.

Cathey: I recently returned from Maui and had a lot of pictures of the amazing flora. This piece is a representation of a monstera plant. The leaves are huge! The leaf is made from painted Lutradur. I used several colors to get the depth and variation present in the actual plant. The veins are stitched with yellow pearl cotton.

I finally finished my piece for the "cookie" theme. I made 3 chocolate chip cookies on a plate. The cookies are made from hand dyed fabric and 2 layers of batting. The "chips" were added with puff paint, then painted chocolate.

I also made this jazzy box. I started with an altoid tin and covered it with scrapbook paper and modpodge.

Marcia: I used a variety of silks for the background, then appliqued a tree cut from a man made leathery type of fabric. It is based on a picture I took.

I was also inspired by all the rain, fog and drizzle of the last couple of weeks and made this piece using tulle to represent the weather. The mushrooms and other plants were painted with fabric paint.

I finally finished my "seed packet" piece from last year. Actual wildflower seeds are trapped behind organza.

Melanie: This is a sunprinted piece. I used a variety of leaves and 2 or 3 layers to achieve the depth. It is bordered in hand dyed fabric.

This small piece is made with transperse dyes on white satin with a paper tree mask. The borders are hand dyed fabric.

For better or worse, the snow will be here soon. In anticipation, I made these snowflakes by creating a freezer paper mask, brushing over the mask with blue fabric paint, then removing the mask and painting the flakes with pearlescent fabric paint. The background is hand dyed fabric. One flake is made from white Angelina finer. It is more ethereal in feeling.

Hope: I again used the Judith Larzelere strip piecing method to create this gray palette piece. I used paint, paintsticks and stamps to embellish it. It is not yet finished. One idea I have is to add preserved leaves to it. I preserved some using a glycerin soak. They are supple but not as colorful as I'd hoped. Stay tuned for the final result.

Sheila Rae: Sheila was a guest at this meeting. She brought some samples of her work for us to see. She uses a lot of  buttons, beads and found objects in her pieces. She has jars and boxes full of things people have given her or left on her doorstep hoping to see them in one of her fiber art works. Sheila Rae does not use a sewing machine for her work, it is all done by hand.

This first piece is titled" The Original Woman."It is based on African esthetics and incorporates many images and objects reminiscent of African life.

This piece is called "Pond Scum." It is made from felted curly wool and water themed embellishments. She said that when it was finished it reminded her of pond scum.

This last piece is "Nyquil" made after using too much of the stuff. It is made from an old crewel pillow top and assorted other objects.