Blue Moon

A challenge that I managed to get done on time. I am so thrilled. As soon as I I started reading the challenge I knew what I wanted to do. I have been planning a moon (in fact several) for over a year, and this seemed the perfect time to get started. I feel my choice of song might be a little cheesy but who cares. I have really enjoyed working on this.

I used to be an Astrophysicist so images of moons and planets are pretty inspiring. They are all so different and beautiful. This has 4 shades of blue fabric to make the moon and a very dark blue as the background. My accent colour, if you can call it that, is the black binding. It doesn't show up too well in the picture but in real life it sets it off nicely. The quilting is done with three shades of thread. I love using the very fine thread on the longarm as I can change colour just by tying on and pulling the thread through, even through the needle!

There are bigger pictures on my blog if you want to see more detail.

Blue Moon

14" x 10"

"Blue moon,
You saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love on my own. . ."

My initial thought was to do branches across a full moon. I have tossed that idea in favor of continuing the vases series. I think this will also be more interesting as it’s not the first image that comes to mind with the song. I began with a sketch, and tried to keep the spontaneous look that I achieved with Vases III. The table seemed the wrong color, so I added transparent fabric paint to the table and shadow.

Blue Swans of winter

I did this from the Goldenboy Blue Swans Orchestra.

I only used blue....
very small complementary.
Not sure I got the shading of the reflection in the water quilte the right hue. Worked on paper, but now that it is finished it looks a little too strong. Also the stream behing the moving bird is quite definite. I may use some paint to lighten it up.
Critiques and suggestions alays welcome. It is how I learn.
Carole

Deep Purple

When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls

And the stars begin to twinkle in the sky...

I had such fun making this little quilt. I really only had a vague idea of what direction I was going, but the quilt took over and dictated to me as we went along...LOL

As always, I welcome your comments and critiques. I always learn so much from all of you...

Cherie

Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree

If you read the messages you know I'm not happy about the way the picture washed out most of the yellows. Also I feel there should be something more but I don't know what.

Blue Christmas

My song is by Elvis..
Satin for the curtains, gold lame for the tree garland and gift ribbon, navy flannel for window panes. Not sure if I am happy with this yet, so haven't "fine tuned" or quilted it yet. The gold would be my accent color but I took a little "poetic license" and added the wreath over the window.

Purple Haze by Jimmy Hendrix

This is my Purple Haze quilt based on the song by Jimmy Hendrix. The song is about how he is in a purple haze because of a woman - so i did the woman in purples, and the background is a really dark purple. My accent is my fave shade of blue - to outline her curves. Machine quilted. Critique welcome!
Tina Marie Rey
tmrey@echoes.net

Challenge #6 ~ Monochromatic Color Study

Challenge #6 - Friday, February 23 2007 - Due Saturday, March 3rd

Hostess - Cherie Brown

Theme - Monochromatic Color Study

Design Element- Create dimension using one main color, and one accent color
Accent color is defined as 10% or less of the quilt.


Choose a song with a color in the title or the lyrics (such as “The Yellow Rose of Texas”).

Using that color / song as your inspiration, design your quilt using various shades, hues, values, tints and tones as your emphasis. You may use one complimentary or analogous color as an accent.

You may use any techniques, mediums etc. desired.

Design may be representational or abstract.


Discussion- The following is included for informational purposes only:

Monochromatic Color: One color used in varied values and intensities
The primary key to successful monochromatic quilts is value contrast.


The following web sites have some good examples of monochromatic color studies:

http://www.twistedtreephoto.com/light%20and%20color%201.html

http://www.worqx.com/color/studies.htm

http://www.brigantine.atlnet.org/GigapaletteGALLERY/websites/ARTiculationFinal/MainPages/ColorMain.htm

http://daphne.palomar.edu/design/color.html

Suggested song titles:
Mellow Yellow Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
Blue Moon Whiter Shade of Pale
Greensleeves Blue Velvet
Goldfinger Old Black Magic
Ebony and Ivory Raining Violets
Flying Purple People Eater Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly
Lady in Red Deep Purple
Red Roses for a Blue Lady White Christmas
Yellow Submarine Beautiful Brown Eyes

Vases III

14 x 9

I have jumped way out of my comfort zone and created the abstract version of “Vases”. Haven’t decided yet, if I have jumped in the right direction, but it was fun working this way. It could be a style worth exploring. What do you think?

Vases II

15 x 10

I made Vases II to try some different techniques, and to challenge myself to free-hand cutting without marking or templates. I used Setacolor fabric paints to do the shading on the vases, and edge stitched with embroidery floss.

The shading is giving dimension, while the edge stitching is making it look flat, and I don’t think the two work well together. I like the effect I got in the background by combining both hand and machine stitching.

I don't know about the color of that left vase. It kind of disappears into the background.

Vases

10 x 15, fused appliqué.

I turned a photo of my still life set-up into a greyscale image so I could concentrate on value instead of color. I was disappointed that the shading didn’t show up good in my photo. Too many reflections that I didn’t want to deal with. So the shading on each vase was done intuitively.

Choosing the fabrics was great fun. I completed the vases one at a time and chose fabrics as I went. I began with the red and purple batik which has been in my stash just about forever. I had no idea what the color scheme would be until I was done. I chose the shadow fabric, because it had some dark areas and I needed the dark lower corner to balance the dark vase on the right.


I was originally planning to crop the top a couple of inches lower, but the dark vase didn’t look like a vase. So I added more background fabric on top, and put a top on the vase.

Do you see the birds on the vase? One looks like he’s looking into the front vase. He was a happy accident.

I might have to try this again and try to more closely interpret the colors and reflections in the photo. I might posterize my photo for a guide, like many of you did for your quilts.

Sunflowers

10" x 12"

I didn't think I would have time to participate this month...but in the middle of the night I remembered I had started a still life of sunflowers in a vase some time ago. I immediately got up, found it and cropped it within an inch of its life. Great fun! A little thread painting for shadows and some quilting the next day and it was done.

Dinner at Nine

This piece measures 10 1/4 x 11 1/2.
I used a photo to be guided by.

I am looking forward to any comments.
Carole

Maters & Peppers

The first image is the posterized digital pic of my piece. The finished work is the other one. All comments appreciated. Sorry about the earlier problem - it seems that the problem may be with my other ISP.

Finished and only a day late. Maters & Peppers measures 10.5x7'5" and is raw edge fabric under a layer of illusion with minimal quilting (outlines of fruit and indentations in the peppers).

This was actually my second attempt at this piece. The original version had some design flaws and wasn't working well, so at noon yesterday, I decided to make another complete version. I'll keep the other one to use as a "what not to do" reference for the future.

The vines on my piece are heavy twine. The shadows are fused chiffon, which allowed the woodgrain table to show through. It's 1/2" shorter than I planned due to an ironing mishap (Note to self: irons and illusion do NOT mix). The entire piece was pillowcased and turned so that binding would not be needed. It will probably go in a frame under glass similar to Rhonda's coffee cup.

This was definitely a shift in style for me, and a challenge to complete.

A Bowl of Flowers

I tried creating dimension by depicting a corner, as where a hall might lead off from a room, and made the shape and shading to indicate that turn-off. The material for the flowers were scraps that I was given during a recent stay in a Mayan village in Belize; I later found one more piece that I had cut to fill part of the upper right of the arrangement, but since the whole piece is already mounted on foamcore, I will leave it off. I did think of maybe making a backing for it, stiff enough so I could tack it on so it would come out of the picture a bit.

Going with the directive to crop the picture, I originally had some of the flowers at the top and left being cut off by the border, and that just felt wrong. So the background gets cropped; I'd rather violate one of the guidelines than the integrity of the piece.

Brenda's Still Life

I decided to redo a still life I did for my September journal of some pots up above my foyer. I tried to add shading to the pots with Neocolor II pastels (worked better on some than others), and then by thread painting. The yellow wall is shaded with a layer of gold tulle. I admit I misunderstood the guidelines about cropping on three sides (a case of jumping in before carefully studying the rules:), so I really only cropped the right side slightly. I'm also not totally thrilled with the way I have the fabric coming out of the pot, but I'm not sure I want to rip out the stitching and try to fix it either. This was a great challenge! Now that I've seen what everyone has done with the cropping technique, I plan to try this again.

A penny for a spool of thread I

9.5"x9.5"

I had fun bringing out all my old black and white prints. I especially liked the part about the cropping; it was a challenge at first, but I will be sure to explore closely cropped images again. I like the way it gives a little sense of mystery. My original intentions were to make the still life more abstract, but in the end I decided realistic would be quicker since I wouldn't have to do so much trial and error to get the shapes, shadows, and everything right. A bad batch of Wonder Under caused the pieces to start falling apart, so I called it done at one border. The applique is raw edge, my first time not completely covering all the edges. I don't want to add a sleeve because that would cover up the picture (the border's only 3/4"). Any suggestions on how to hang it? If you want to see the top before the quilting, it's here on my blog.

Time to Mend

7 1/4" x 6 7/8"

cottons, tissue lame, wrong side of satin
cotton/rayon/metallic thread

This is definitely the smallest quilt I've ever done! Also this was the most difficult challenge so far for me to do. I have quite limited experience with drawing; I chose some difficult ffabrics to work with; this was my first attempt at building a picture with Wonder-Undered pieces onto a pattern; and my first cropping. The edges are finished with satin stitch.

I certainly learned a lot and am happy with the results.

Sally Field

Dreaming of Summer

This was fun, I have been wanting to try a mug of beer for awhile and this was the perfect opportunity. I used a real silk flower, and a piece of plaid fabric folded and draped to resemble the napkin. The beer mug is yellow fabric with iron on vinyl on it, the vinyl also covers and inch or so of the head, the rest of the head is poly fiberfill attached on top of the vinyl, covered with tulle and free motioned over. I added some highlights to the mug and the table near the napkin with fabric crayons. I couldn't think of a way to make the drops on the mug...well I thought of using drops of super glue or clear nail polis but dont have either...any suggestions to make my mug look frosty?

Still Life - revised

You people are awesome! I absolutely see what you mean, and I hope this is better, because the pieces are whacked!..LOL I really do like it better this way, but now my problem is keeping the left edge straight. The basket is just too unruly and wants to bulge! I will probably frame this piece, so that shouldn't be a big problem.

So...what do you think...did I get it right this time? I am learning so much from you pros.......

Still Life

I posed the veggies with a basket and took a photo to work from. I wove the basket using raffia and strips of fabric twisted together. The veggies were all stuffed trapunto style before the quilting was done. I used my hand dyed fabrics augmented with Prismacolor pencils to add shadows and contours.
I wasn't really sure what was meant by 'crop three sides'. Did I get it right?

I would love your great suggestions...

Carrot Soup

That hardest part was thinking of a subject. I had set up the still life ages ago and took some photos. I used a crop photo to work from. I did a blue background to complement the orange carrots - if I redid it I would have used a different background. I used pastels for shadows - which would have been better had the background been lighter. Yarn for the leaf tops couched down at random. Quilting on the carrots to add some dimension.

Finished size 8 1/2 x 11.

This by far ranks as the hardest challenge - a little too realistic. I think I'd like to go back and do an abstract still life. Good to think of shading next time I would have looked at my pastels before I picked the fabric. I used only what is on hand - scraps only.

Lisa - In Sunny Seattle

Breakfast Table Still Life

8 X 10
Raw edge applique
Shiva Paintstiks
Free motion quilting

This challenge was fun. The hardest part was deciding what items were going into my picture. I finally gave up and photographed what was already sitting on the breakfast table. I enjoyed using the Paintstiks except I forgot they had to dry for a while and made the mistake of pressing the little quilt. Just a bit of a mess. I also want to announce that I finished the edges with a satin stitch - I always put on a tidy little binding so wah hah I've gone wild.

Any comments or suggestions you share will be appreciated. Thanks, Roberta