Steam Punk

Our theme for this month was "Steam Punk." We really had fun with this one!

Shelia Rae: This is my take on steam punk, I even wrote a little haiku to go with it. "A tisket, a tasket, A basketful of gaskets, For my car has died; Time to buy, I created the background from an orphan block I was given. I used alcohol spray to transfer some color from the original basket motif then sprayed with it with glimmer spray. The sewn-on objects include a watch, actual gaskets and various other metal ephemera, There is Angelina film behind some of the open pieces.

Hope: Steam Punk Fish. I overdyed some industrial motif Tim Holtz fabric for the background. The mouth of the fish is a zipper. Gears, picture hangers, and a variety of other metal trinkets,make up the fish details.

Cathey: Victorian bustiers with a steam punk twist. I created the bustier from "pleather" with details of pearls and metallic items. The skirt is shabby, ratty tulle.  This something I would wear if I went to a steam punk event!

As my art quilt group buddies know, I have been studying at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). One of the things I have been doing is designing fabric, Here is an example that I had printed on canvas at Spoonflower. 

Joan: I loved this challenge and made 3 pieces! I had several pieces of fabric I had rusted and thought it would made the perfect background for a steam punk piece. I used my printer to print images on the rusted fabric, I made 2 clocks. Similar but in different frames and in one I used metallic thread for the simple quilting lines. The third piece is in a double window frame. I printed gears on the rusted fabric.

Melanie: Steam Punk Guitar. I was trying to find some gears for this project. I asked my husband if he had an old watch I could take apart. He didn't but gave me these tuner parts from an old mandolin. I also sunprinted some fabric with small clock gears and stencils and used it for part of the background. 

Pat: Modern Steam Punk - Tools of the trade. I have been interested in string art for a while and wanted to use it in a quilted piece, Although steam punk is industrial/Victorian, what better embellishments to use but the tools of the trade in sewing/quilting. Steampunk can also be fairly dark so mine is more modern with lighter, brighter colors. 

The background is black kona cotton. Embellishments include buttons, mother-of-pearl belt buckle, binding clips, pastern tracer roller, and tape measure and rick rack for the binding. 

Marcia: Geared Clock. I just happened to have a big package of gears. I decided to make a steam punk clock. The background fabric is industrial in feeling - reminiscent of propellers or diamond plate. The strips are velvet. Chain surrounds the clock "face" and ribbon was used for the binding. 

Geometry

Our inspiration word for this month was Geometry,

Shelia Rae - I found some measurment tools including a compass and used them as embellishments. The focus fabric is by Tim Holtz. It has a technical motif. The beads are made from enameled dominos. The patterning on the dominos is very much like the fabric.

 

In addition to the challenge piece, I did two others. 

Spirit Horse uses some of the fabric Hope brought back from Africa. Here I have folded it in places to add dimension. I sprayed the background fabric with glimmer mist for a spiritual feel along with the white horse and "stars."

Marital Discord includes an embroidered squirrel on linen, pumpkins, star and other button embellishments. The title refers to an incident in my life involving a squirrel and pumpkin pie candles but I will leave the rest to your imagination.

Joan - Gravitational Waves. Maybe this is more physics than geometry but it is still math so.....

I love the image of the earth with the gravitational waves depicted. I interpreted this using hand marbled cotton for the earth, overlayed with hand marbled organza. The waves are stitched in heavy polyesther orange thread. 

Melanie - Mondrian The inspiration for this piece is inspired by the artist, Mondrian. I used Shiva painticks on black fabric. It is quilted with black pearl cotton along the rectangle lines.

I also did 2 other pieces with geometric shapes. The base fabric here is a Gelli plate print. The shapes are made from silk and hand-dyed fabric 

The background fabric here is a piece with text written with thickend dye in a squeeze bottle, then overdyed with a scrunch technique and indigo dye. The other fabrics are silk and hand-dyes. 

Cathey - Frida and the Concentric Circles. As you all know by now, I am intrigued by Frida Kahlo. Shelia Rae gave me a piece of upholstery fabric with her image and I appliqued it to this batik with a circular theme. I recently took a class at RISD on "experimental embroidery" and used those techniques here to embroider many concentric circles with warious threads, yarns, beads and other embellishments. 

Hope - Tree Snails. Like Joan, not geometry but algebra - The Fibonacci sequence. This mathmatical model is used to describe an amazing variety of phenomena, in mathematics, science, art and nature. The sequence leads to, the golden ratio, spirals, certain curve formations and the petal arrangment on some flowers. No one can really explain why it is echoed so clearly in the world of art and nature.

Tree snails are amazing and colorful creatures that literallly live in trees. I hand painted them on to this leafy fabric. Their arrangement here and the spiral patterning of their shells reflect the Fibonacci sequence.

Marica - Geometric Collage. In this piece everything from the weave in the base fabric to the cut shapes, added embellishments and the quilting reflect geometric shapes. 

Pat - Optical Illusion. I found some images on Pinterest of black and white squares put together in a way that bends sight lines and creates depth, I thought it would be interesting to make this with fabric. 

 inspiration pictures

I did not quite get the bending illusion in the linear pieced strips but it is still interesting. The circles are shaded with pencil!  

African Fabric

Our challenge this month was to use some amazing fabric Hope brought back for us from Africa. Everyone did a great job!

Hope: I wanted to showcase the baobab tree because it is an important asset in African life. 

The baobab tree is often called the tree of life because it can provide shelter, clothing, food, and water for the animal and human inhabitants of the African Savannah regions. The cork-like bark and huge stem are fire resistant and are used for making cloth and rope. The leaves are used as condiments and medicines.

The fruit, called "monkey bread" is edible, and full of vitamin C. The fruit has a velvety shell and is about the size of a coconut, weighing about 3 pounds.. It has a somewhat acidic flavor, described as somewhere between grapefruit, pear, and vanilla.

The tree can store hundreds of litres of water, which is an adaptation to the harsh drought conditions of its environment. The tree may be tapped in dry periods. Mature trees are usually hollow, providing living space for many animals and humans. Trees are even used as bars, barns, wine and beer shops and more!

In addition to vitamin C, the dried fruit powder provides varying amounts of carbohydrates, pectin, riboflavin, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, phytosterols,  protein and fats. 

The fruit is eaten fresh or dried and stirred into porridge and drinks.

Shelia Rae: I made 2 pieces. The fabric viewed with the strips vertically, reminded me of trees or a forest in autumn. I added fairies and stenciled in some "glimmer shimmer" for fairy dust. There are fairy embellishments and an metal embellishment at the bottom with the phrase: "Reality has limits; Imagination is boundless." This piece has been sold.

I named the second piece "What time is it, white man?" This time I treated the fabric like ricks. There are painted bangles & curtain rings, some Judaic fabric, lots of hand stitching and quilting and a bit of glimmer shimmer. 

Pat: I also made 2 pieces. The first piece is "Good and Evil." Most people see the word "good" first but inside the good is "evil." I used 2 layers if black felt instead of batting and snippets of the fabric to embellish along the top.

In the second piece, I use a cut and flip technique to create mirror imaged cut-outs. It is a piece inspired by Matisse based children's challenge that I can across.

Melanie: "Unstrung"  The fabric reminded me of wood grain. In this piece I used it for the suggestion of a guitar. 

Marcia: "Sunset Dreaming" The fabric reminded me of a pond in a golden sunset. I made some flowers from other fabric and used them for embellishment along with other flower objects, beads and buttons that I had. 

Joan: I used the Tech-tuck technique a while back and wanted to try it again. It is not quite finished hence the pin "embellishments" but the fabric works really well with this technique. 

Cathey: I had an idea for my project but have not yet made it. I did however, make some fabric 

These pieces are made with screen prints and stamps that I created.

Extinct

We took a few months off but now we are back! Our prompt this time is "extinct."

Pat: Nola was a Northern White Rhinoceros. She lived at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park but died in November 2015. That brings the world population of Northern white rhino to 3. Those 3 were unable to breed and are now too old. Extinction of this species is happening now.
To create this piece I used thread painting on black fabric enhanced with some white highlights. I wanted her to look ghostly - consistent with the extinct theme. There is narrow piping in the binding.

Cathey: Nola. By coincidence, I also chose Nola! For my process, I used TAP to transfer the image and hand calligraphy for the text. The background is ice dyed fabric over-dyed with orange.

Hope - Tree Frog. These colorful frogs are so beautiful but habitat loss leads to extinction and these creatures are at risk. This piece is raw-edge applique.

On a recent trip to Sierra Leone, I acquired some fabric that was died with cola nuts. It looked like feathers to me and made a great bird!

Shelia Rae- My piece is about nuclear extinction. The glasses on the side are used by the military for special training for a nuclear event. Fire, black tulle, nuclear particle embellishments and atomic symbols work together to represent this type of extinction.

Marcia - The "Showy Lady Slipper" is a specific type of lady slipper difficult to cultivate and now almost vanished from much of its historical range due to habitat loss. I traced the outline of the lady slipper from a botanical picture and used colored pencils to give soft color.

Melanie - Ammonite. Ammonites are an extinct group of marine mollusk animals. The last species died out during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. I love the shape of these fossils and am always amazed that nature produces such complex beauty. The piece was created using Tsukineko ink. I didn't plan to use a border but this Stonehenge fabric seemed perfect to set off the design. 

Joan - My extinct piece is the rotary dial telephone. It is not quite finished but a picture will be added when it is.