New Year, New Challenge

It's 2019 and I am going back to a challenge I made myself a couple of years ago.  At that time I made a 7 inch piece each week of the year.  My only goal was to get into the studio on a weekly basis and do some playing.  I liked some of the pieces, some others not so much, but it made me play each week and I completed the year with 52 pieces!  A success.  This year I am challenging myself to do something similar.  I will make a piece each week, 6 inches square, but I am going to make them in certain colorways.  I want to make 9 pieces each of the 3 primary colors (red, blue, yellow) and the 3 secondary colors (orange, purple and green).  That will come to 9 x 6, or 54 finished pieces, so I'll have to extend the year by two more weeks.  I hope to have each week done by Saturday, and will post my work as I go along.  I have an idea of how I want to put this all together and I'll see how it works out when they are all completed! 

Metamorphosis

I made a piece for the SAQA competition "Metamorphosis".  My piece is titled "Metamorphic Rock".  Metamorphic rock can be formed by heat or pressure and it totally changes the look of the rock.  It most usually adds striations in layers.  This piece was made with commercial cottons and upholstery fabrics, all torn to give an organic look to the piece.  I then hand couched silver cord to the edges of the rock, free machine quilted circles in the open areas and quilted the background in straight lines which echoed the lines of the rock striations.  Next I used a silver Paint Stick on top of the quilted circles.  I had to add several layers of the Paint Stick, allowing it to dry between applications in order to cover the black background.  I did not make the cut for the competition, but hope to enter this piece into the Fiber Artists of Oklahoma (FAO) yearly competition. 

Here is a detail shot of the painted circles:

New Doll

OK, so I haven't posted at ALL this year; I really don't know where the time goes, but here we are at the end of July already!  Christmas must be just around the corner.  I have been busy, though, and have completed three quilts and a new doll.  I don't know what to call her yet, the Muse hasn't struck, so if you have any suggestions on a name for her, I'd certainly consider all possibilities.  She is made from a magazine pattern by Judith Pryor.

She was made for my doll club's Batik challenge, she had to be made completely of Batik fabric.  And she is, except for her parasol and gloves.  Don't you just love her figure?  Oh, those were the days......

Last Post of the Year, Week 52

Well, we are finally at the last week of 2016!  My last entry for the year is what I was wishing for on Christmas, and what we certainly DID NOT have: A White Christmas.  This area of the country had extremely warm temperatures for the day, and it will continue throughout the coming week, so that we will end the year on a warm note. 

If I can't have a white Christmas in reality, I can create one in fabric!  I used commercial fabrics and a little bit of silver mesh for bling.  That's supposed to be a small pond in black; not sure it's totally believable, but then, it doesn't really have to be!  I love the fabric I used for the sky, with the rays coming from the horizon.  I'll have to remember that fabric when I'm looking for sky fabrics. 
I hope everyone had a wonderful, blessed Christmas and that the New Year of 2017 (EEK!) will bring lovely surprises, lots of creativity and JOY to you all!  Thanks for sharing my 2016 weekly project with me, it's been fun!

Week 51

You can probably tell by this point that I enjoy doing squares and rectangles, since I've done several over this past year.  It just somehow speaks to me.  Maybe next year I need to switch to circles?  Spice it up a bit?  Well, I may have to work on that!  This week I wanted to work in blue again, mainly because it is so reminiscent of winter; skies and snow and all.  We have finally had a dusting of snow and the world has turned magical, especially in the mornings when the sun hits the ice covered trees.  Just beautiful.  But I digress. 

The fabric on the left side has a Christmas tree in silver in the fabric, so it just seemed natural that it would go in this square.  And of course, we have snowflakes in the central square.   I decided to add some orange for a bit of  pop.  There's only one week left in the year and I will have completed 52 pieces!  WOOHOO! 

Week 50

Week 50!  We have only two more weeks in 2016.  Wow, this year has flown by.  My piece this week is a bit uninspired, but it's done, so there's that. 

It's funny, I have a lot of blue fabrics but I seldom work in blue! 

In trying to keep with a wintry theme, I decided to pull out some blue pieces, but really had a difficult time putting them together, hence this piece of squares and rectangles.  As I said, a bit uninspired.  I'll try to be more creative next week!  Maybe get some time in the studio to really play.  That's when the fun happens! 

Week 49

This week came on me too quickly!  Combine Christmas decorating and my granddaughter's 3rd birthday, which takes us to Oklahoma City, and I simply ran out of time to work in the studio.  So today I managed a couple of minutes to put together Week 49's entry.  It was done in a hurry, so I can't really say it was time playing in the studio; more like "OMG, I've got to get this done!"  We've all been there, haven't we?

As you can see, I managed to move away from fall colors, and made a more wintry scene.  We haven't seen snow around here yet this season, but we've been promised a couple of flakes tomorrow night, although I am not holding my breath for that!  In any case, Week 49 is done.