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

8 1/2 X 11

Sheila Rae chose the "prompt" for this challenge. Size was the only constraint. The piece was to be 8.5 by 11 inches - more or less :).

Joan- I had several pieces I marbled a while back and have been waiting for the right project to use them. I chose this small piece and added a few pieces of red silk for interest and then spent the day stitching. It was so relaxing to just focus on stitching with some interesting threads and letting the marbled pattern guide me.

Melanie - Like Joan, I wanted to use some of the fabric I had previously created. I chose a small piece of dyed fabric and "thread sketched" tulips in a glass jar. I then white washed the background with dilute white fabric paint to make the flowers and vase stand out a bit more. Finally, I added some thread work to enhance the colors in the tulips.

Sheila Rae - For this challenge, I started with this quote: "Time is the fire we all burn in. Some quickly, some slowly, some unevenly and some completely."  I love the effect of burned fabric  I asked a smoker to burn some holes in the muslin with his cigarette and I used his lighter to burn the edges. The background is a piece of "found" fabric that I think was someone's surface design experiment that they thought unsuccessful. The buttons represent the moon rising. I placed black organza over the top of the entire piece to enhance the overall smokey look.

Cathey - I was not able to do the specific challenge this month but I did finish my Tsunami piece. It is fabric collage based on techniques taught by Pam Mostek. It is quite a large piece and has great visual impact. The yellow background was my 4th attempt! I actually had 3 other colors sewn on and removed before deciding on the yellow. I used a wide variety of commercial fabrics from cotton, silk and organza as well as pieces I marbled and ice dyed. It also has some Angelina fiber, tyvek and bubbled poly. Really, a bit of everything! This piece along with 2 of my other pieces, has been accepted into the Quilters Gathering show for this November.

Marcia - I finally finished my piece from the last challenge. That challenge was "Inspired by nature" and my piece is a representation of a rare plant, "columnea arguta." 

For this month, I used lots of silk along with some of my hand dyed fabric and a variety of beads to make a landscape inspired piece. The gold strip represents the horizon. 

Hope - I was intrigued by the "rusting" Joan has been doing and wanted to give it a try. I found a rusty bird piece and used that. The impression turned out great and very true to the object. The dots inside the bird are all part of the rusting process - a great effect. I used quilting to enhance the design and found a perfect fabric for the border. 

She Blinded Me With Science

Sheila Rae chose our theme for this month. "She Blinded Me With Science" is a "one hit wonder" song by British musician Thomas Dolby released in 1982. Those of us of a certain age remember it well. 

Sheila Rae: "Bubble Chamber"
A bubble chamber is a vessel filled with a superheated transparent liquid (most often liquid hydrogen) used to detect electrically charged particles moving through it. I love science and quantum mechanics. This piece is my interpretation of a bubble chamber. In the bubble chamber you never know what you are going to get and everything is connected.
This piece started with a large, old crazy quilt given to me. I added lots of hand stitching and a layer of pink tulle. Then the real fun began with the addition of all kinds of embellishment from sea horses to an old bubble wand. Lots to look at and hold the viewer's attention.

 entire piece

 close up 1

 close up 2

 close up 3

close up 4

 close up 5

 close up 6

Cathey: I actually made 2 pieces. This first piece is "Sunflower Trio"

The greenery in this piece is made from a heavy upholstery piece. The flower petals are cut free hand. As usual, I quilted the *!? out of it!

My second piece is a large leaf. I used various batiks and other fabrics for the main leaf areas and puff paint un-puffed but glitzed with pearl-ex for the veins. 

Melanie: "Macrobiotic"
This is a piece of my hand marbled fabric. It looked so organic and cellular that I thought it was perfect for a scientific challenge. I enhanced the hand marbling with fabric foil and a little Shiva Paintstick.

Joan and Marcia ran out of time and were unable to complete their pieces. 
Hope and Pat are away. Summer!