Fresh Fish!

This piece began with sun dyeing muslin using Dye-na-Flow, cut paper shapes, and plant material [read: weeds!] from my yard. It’s a fun, quick and easy process. A fellow art quilter loaned me a wonderful Fred B. Mullet fish stamp that I applied with black and gold textile paints.

As I worked on the piece, this narrative kept going through my head: Five fancy fish, freely floating, fleetly flitting, and fitly finning from Fiji to France, from Finland to Formosa. Fascinating, friendly…and flagrantly flirting! -- Fresh Fish!
I had notions of somehow including that text via free-motion quilting, but I’m just not that good! Maybe one day.

12"x26"

Enjoy, and feedback welcomed.

Robert Hartley

S is For Smile

 

Take a smile. Or two.. Or three…

The Daily Smile Countdown!

Beads, buttons, charms, lace, lock washers, sequins, trims, washers, yarns, zipper.

 

Temperance

This quilt is about "Temperance" and is the newest in my series of family history quilts. The photo in the center is of my great-grandmother, Laura Kincaid Seaman Meade. To the left is her father, the "father of Sumner [WA]," who was very pro-temperance. To the right is Laura's second husband - a "hops king" until aphids destroyed that industry. The photo in the top row is of a hops kiln and workers in Sumner. Sumner was a "dry" town, but many residents became rich from hops, from which beer is made. I have no idea how Laura handled this situation.
I have not quilted this top yet. I enjoyed finding lots of antique-ish red prints. I will probably add more quotes. There are also quotes and images about temperance and the hops industry on the back.

A is for Attitude

In March, 2013 Craftsy.com sponsored its first ever quilting cruise. They provided us with four great instructors. Each one taught us a different technique. Pam Holland taught us how to make a quilted alphabet book. This was our first block entitled "A is for Attitude". Pam has written a book entitled "The Adventures of the Amazing Alphabet" and has created a different character for each letter. Her website is www.pamhollanddesignsandproductions.com if you want to check out her quilts, which are amazing. I enjoyed learning the technique of creating a pattern and then tracing it onto my background fabric. You then either color in the areas you want hi-lited with colored pencil or use textile marking pens. You then quilt around everything to make it more pronounced. I would like to make all the letters for my grandchildren, but I think it would take me forever and a day, so this may be my last attempt at letter quilts. The quilt measures 8.5" x 11". I have two granddaughters, Angelica and Alivia so one of them may get this little quilt. Comments are welcome.

C is for Cute

This challenge was just too good to pass up.  I have been working on a technique in Photo Shop called Typographic Portraits.  I am teaching that technique along with others that I incorporate in my computer image quilts next week.  I needed to work on a few more samples and this challenge gave me just the excuse I needed to create another text portrait.

Generally I incorporate a lot of adjectives that describe the person who's portrait I am working on to make up the image.   Because I wanted to use only one or two words for this challenge I chose cute and cousins.  These two are so cute together as they show their love for each other frequently.  As usual I don't have time to finish this piece but wanted to post it as printed on fabric. 

Summing it all up...

The letter I chose is the Greek letter SIGMA. In mathematics, it stands for "summation", and also "series."

It's probably obvious that I did this in a hurry, (Fast Friday), and it was fun. The letters in the quilt, all sigmas, are cut from the yellowed pages of my high school calculus book, now an antique. The text on the pages is about summation and series. I used tulle over the paper cutouts to protect them, and I did a little echo quilting. It is about 14" x 16".

Speaking of series, this might be the beginning of a series for me. My next letter would be DELTA, which stands for "change." 

Thanks for an interesting challenge!

Marilyn Foulke
Louisville, KY

Challenge #81: What's the Word?

Theme: WHAT’S THE WORD?

Host:  Ann Turley, Fallbrook, CA

Due:  June 1, 2013

Create a quilt that illustrates a word and a letter of the alphabet. Think outside the realms of normal with subtlety, whimsy, or emotion.  For example, when you think of the letter “A”, the image most of us see is of an apple. Go beyond that, thinking of nouns, verbs and adjectives. For example, I might want to find an interesting way to portray an arpeggio – a quick succession of musical notes. Or perhaps I may want to find an emotion and a letter match. Think “F” is for fear – how would you work with that imagery? Lastly, add a bit of relevant text to your quilt. This could be a subtle as repeating your chosen letter in the shadows, or as in-your-face as a large block print in a corner.  Maybe a bit of poetry that speaks of your image could be used. Whatever you decide, make it yours and make it personal to you.

This is one that I made that illustrates the idea, entitled Pea Pod Soup (the words are there, on the right, if you look closely):

Links that may be helpful:

Hexagons, music and text

http://luannkessi.blogspot.com/2012/11/hexagon-text-quiltmore-progress.html

A collection of paper-pieced blocks that get my idea across better that I ever could!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/basildonkitchens/8112518230/

Scroll down to the little heart quilt:

http://www.pjhornbergerfolkartist.com/2013/03/new-textile-art-art-quilts.html

This one could easily illustrate an emotion:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/102618933/framed-guardian-angel-original-outsider?ref=v1_other_1

In my opinion, Susan Shie is amongst the best at adding text to her pieces:

www.turtlemoon.com/gallery/gallery.htm

So have fun, don’t over-think your quilt, just do it!

Joy, Peace

These two quilts, "Joy" and "Peace", are in remembrance of my sister, Joy, who died May 3, 2013. I wrote a lot of memories and thoughts on them, both fronts and backs.

His Eyes Bored Into My Soul

 
I took this picture of an owl when my husband and I were in Alaska a few years ago.  His intense stare has always enthralled me.  I used Photoshop filters to alter the picture of the owl.  I found a yellow fabric in my stash that matched the yellow of his eyes, to help highlight the eyes.  I used browns as the frame so as not to take away the intensity of the eyes. As shown by the close up, the owl is heavily quilted except for the eyes and the beak. I have always wanted to do something with this photo and really enjoyed making this quilt. I have several other ideas for eyes but decided on this one.  I may continue with this theme for a while. I truly enjoyed this challenge!

The Eye of the Beholder

I loved the idea of this challenge but really didn't have the time to put my design into fabric.  But it excited me so much that I felt I could at least do the design work and I will work on creating it in fabric later.

I entered a photo of an eye into PSE 11 I also entered a photo of this cute little baby.  I deleted the background from around the baby and reduced its size in order for it to fit into the pupil of the eye.  I also made the baby a little more opaque than the eye.

I then went to my filters and used the cutout filter in eight layers to create this image.  I'm very happy with the results, wish I had time to work on it now.

Night Vision

15" x 19"

5/9 -- I have renamed this piece "Night Vision" instead of "Night Eye"!
----------- Setting out to do this challenge, I looked up drawing an eye in a "how to" book for the basic shape.  The original picture was in pencil, so there was only dark versus light -- and the dark seemed to prevail in what came together!  The "eyebrow" is from a fabric scrap from a costume project I did this winter, which had a grey floral border on black fabric, used for a 1910's mourning dress, but the curve seemed right for an eyebrow.  The red of the eye came from another costume scrap.  It doesn't show very much, but above the eye I used some navy blue as "eye shadow".  The netting and a bit of thread painting created the shading in the upper part of the eye.

I had tried out a silver sharpie for lines below the eye, but it wasn't right.  Black ink did not cover it, and unfortunately seeped into the white.  I ended up using black foil to cover the silver, and a bit of silver foil to create the reflection of light in the eye.

For a quote, I had this in mind: "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."  Various translations have the words "healthy", "sound", "unclouded" or "good" instead of "single" so maybe I should try to get that black smudge out!

Comments welcome -- as well as suggestions for a better title!

The Eyes Have It

"The Eyes Have It" is mounted on black felt, then quilted, is 6" x6".

I Only Have Eyes For You

 

The quilt is uses positive /negative images for the eyes and is based on the quote:

 The eyes are the mirror of the soul

Designed in Make the Cut software, cut with an electronic cutter and free motion quilted.