SAQA Auction Piece

SAQA, which stands for Studio Art Quilt Associates, is a truly wonderful organization, dedicated to preserving and advancing the art quilt. (www,saqa.com)  Each year around September they hold an online auction consisting of fiber art made by its international members.  Last year was the first time I donated a piece to the auction, and was so pleased it sold.  I am donating a piece again this year.  Each piece has to be 12 inches square. 

I used commercial fabrics and some of my rusted fabric (shock!) as well as a piece from a napkin (the small square in the larger rectangle).

I tore most of the strips for a more organic look, fused them onto the batting and then heavily grid stitched them down.  I then used gel medium on the piece, let it dry and then added some gold acrylic paint.  I couched some gold cord around the small square as well.  I call the piece Prairie Dawn, as it evokes, in me at least, the colors of the prairie in the midwest.   Here is a close-up:

The piece didn't turn out exactly as I had envisioned it, but I am fairly pleased with the finished product. 

Rusted fabric

I have been having fun working with my rusted fabrics, mainly because those are the fabrics I brought with me in my temporary quarters, waiting for our new house to be finished!  Everything else is in storage.  On this one, I used some turquoise with the black and I really like the contrast.  I placed some bronze mesh on the top and hand stitched it all together.  The black dots are french knots, not beads.

This postcard was inspired by a friend, Jill, who does a lot of fabric weaving.  I used only rusted fabric and black cut in half-inch strips.  I find it effective, and will be doing some more weaving in the future.

I'm Back with some Postcards

Wow, I can't believe I have been gone so long!  We sold our house and have moved to a townhouse temporarily while the new place is being built.  My studio is in storage in Tulsa and I don't know when I'll have the new studio up and running.  Bummer.  I have a few things in the townhouse to work with, like my sewing machine and a few fabrics, but almost all supplies are packed away, making it very difficult to do much work.  About all I have been able to work on are some small postcards.  Here are a few of them:

This one was done with some rusted fabric I did; the rused fabric is textured.  Hand stitching and some French knots finish the piece. 

This postcard is again made with rusted fabric, hand stitching, some beads and pieces of fabric with text.

As you can see, I've got some rusted fabrics with me, as well as black!  The top rusted fabric has been sprayed with black webbing spray (Krylon), and the black fabric sprayed with gold webbing spray.  The square in the corner is a piece of a napkin and the whole piece has been painted with gel medium so I could stitch on the paper without it tearing. 

This one is a whimsical piece I did with scraps of fabrics I had with me, and I added some machine quilting.  The grass spikes are hand stitching with embroidery floss. 

More postcards

I have done several postcards this year, given as birthday cards through the mail.  The one below used a fabric and paper background with decorative stitching and a piece of metallic mesh.

This one is one I would like to expand into a larger piece.  Often I do postcards to play with an idea, and then I can enlarge the design and work in a larger format. 

This postcard below is made using my felting machine.  I love doing felted postcards because they work up so quickly!  I used several different yarns, some cheesecloth, fabric and mohair to make the body of the piece.  I then embellished with beads.

I made this one a while back using sheers on top of a shiny white fabric.  I attached the jugs with Misty Fuse and stitched around the edges to hold them down. 

I also made this one a while ago.   It uses rusted fabric torn on a black background.  I then stitched in a square spiral and put some altered web ribbon on the front.  I painted gold Lumiere in some of the holes .  I try lots of different things on postcards; they are just too much fun! 

NC Truck Revised

I have made a couple of changes to the truck piece.  I asked for some suggestions from a friend, Ellen Lindner, who does wonderful art quilts and teaches some really fun, informative classes online and in person, ( www.AdventureQuilter.com ), and she mentioned that the background was too bright, and took the eye away from the truck.  She mentioned perhaps using tulle or a paint wash to correct it.  Well, I had already done the quilting on the background and thought the tulle would just flap in the breeze if not completely sewed down, so my alternative was to use a black paint wash.  Let me tell you, it took some courage to take that first brush stroke on the almost finished piece!  I watered down some black acrylic paint and darkened the leaves and tree, and I really think it improved the piece, don't you?  Thanks, Ellen!

I have added some FME to the fenders and the wheel well, but I think the piece is now done.  And perhaps I have the motivation to begin the larger piece.  I mounted the work onto a piece of archival foam board and will have to go out to find a suitable frame. 

An Experiment

I have a picture that I took in the backroads of North Carolina of an old, rusting truck and I have wanted to do a large quilt of it for awhile, just haven't had the time to start.  The project seemed a bit daunting to me so I decided to do a small piece to kind of work out the bugs.  This is what I have assembled so far:

I intend to mat and frame the small piece, it is 8 x 10.  I haven't completely finished it yet; I still want to add more quilting and some thread work.  I used colored pencil to do some of the shading on the truck and like the effect.  The shadow was created using a black shiny sheer with a black interfacing behind it.  The original truck was red, but I liked this mottled orange/red fabric that I have, and it sort of gives the illusion of rust.  What do you think?

Robin's Baby Quilt

My niece, Robin is expecting her first child in July.  She is a PhD and works for NASA in solar research.  She wanted a quilt with a rocket and planets, in primary colors and this is the quilt I designed for her baby boy.  It has to be quilted and my friend Irene is going to do that for me.  She has a longarm and will be able to put in more detail than I would.  As you can see, I added some coronal ejections to the sun, because of Robin's profession.  I hope she likes it!