Challenge #42-- Seaweed: An Un-Still Life

This 32" x 36" piece with unbound edges, netting, hand-dyes, covered clothesline, pintucked, folded, and scrunched fabric was inspired by many walks on the beach and photographs of seaweed. So it's a sort of abstract landscape. It took me months to finish -- I was really inspired by the manipulated fabric idea, but then I just wanted to take my time with this and let it evolve. (I have a hard time with this thought: one hand-dyed fabric was too expensive to "just use for an exercise.") Not the spirit of the challenge, but I am very grateful for the inspiration and enjoyed this departure from my previous styles. It reminded me that I and my life are like seaweed: a rather chaotic mess that gets rearranged with every wave that comes my way, but just fine "as is," not something I need to untangle to make beautiful!

Chris Smith (Sea Ranch)

Just finished Challenge 42 - I'm just a bit behind! I was also doing this for a challenge in an art group I'm in here in Maine. We had to use something from the hardware store.

The manipulated part is in the landscape. I pleated the fields - they're hard to see in the photo because my hardware item is screening. My intent was looking through the keyhole/screen door. A friend has some old keys so I will also be sewing on some of those as embellishments.

High Water Mark

20½" x 16"

4/22/10 - Julia was right, it wasn't quite finished. Here it is with a bit of additional work done on it, mostly on the top portion.

3/30/10
This is actually for the February challenge, just finished now, so call it a Slow FFC. I didn't really like it much until almost the final step, but it wanted to be completed, and since I haven't done the last few challenges, I felt I had to put this one up.

I began first by using Tsukineko inks and a shaving cream marbling technique to make the uneven blue, brown and green sections, then used beads to hold an irregular bunching pattern for the waves, pebble beads for the beach, and a combination of seed beads and bugle beads for the land, and the beads got me involved in sorting them so I could get the colors I wanted. I took one strand of rather funky yarn to make the high water line, and then I began to like it. I added just a few strokes with a felt pen and green ink for the final palm tree.

This is the only piece I've done that has not had a single bit of machine sewing! I'd appreciate your comments -- and now I feel free to look at everyone else's work!

Prevent Forest Fires

Today I posted my #42 FFFC...not too fast or on scheduel..I did make it all today..my photo does

not show the "real quilt".I could not pick up the black sparkled net "smoke" over the forest fire.

We went to Florida the day before this challenge was set...I had been snow dyeing black and red

acrylic paints for another project. I did not have time to finish the snow dye before we left home ...

so..I just poured off the melted snow and let the container sit in my laundry room.

I had crinkled up the fabric before dyeing and when I checked it when we got home the fabric was crinkled

and dyed black & red.

Perfect for manipulated fabric fire!!!With fabric glue and red metalic pieces I added

little strikes of fire... and sewed on some deer in the burned forest. The top blue skies and misty &

black trees. (My second thought was to make the sky bigger and put the fire into the blue and not

streight across)Too late!! Any way I quilted vertical lines and next added the sparkled black net for

smoke...hand stitched with embrodery thread. I cut the net bigger than the top and let it puff and

pleat as I sewed it on....I can't get the smoke to show on my photo.

Curacao Landscape

11” X 15.5”

I was on a dive trip to Curacao during the challenge period so thought it appropriate that my landscape be an underwater one. One of the more famous Curacao dive sites is Mushroom Forest and that is depicted in the back with the green manipulated fabric. The green and orange manipulated fabrics are class samples from Larkin Van Horn’s embellishment class. We pushed fabric through a mess screen with chopsticks and then ironed on fusible interfacing or adhesive. The brain coral (yellow) is ruching. The dimensional orange corals and stem of the fan were made in a hoop with water soluble stabilizer and thread. Fan is painted gauze and the purple tube sponges are painted batting. Thanks Linda for a fun project.

Comments are welcome and appreciated.

Pam Harris

Flower Fields of Carlsbad

My landscape is the giant ranuncula flower fields of Carlsbad, Ca. It is 55 acres of glorious color every spring. I used this photo for inspiration (I don't know why the top two rows got cropped off the picture?). When I first decided to do this, my intentions were to do an abstract, loose interpretation, but the quilt had a mind of its own and I wound up doing a far more labor intense piece...

I painted the whole cloth base then heavily quilted it before adding any embellishments. I made more than 100 Victorian rusched flowers using a variety of silks, sheers, and even some suede cloth. They range in size from 1/2" to less than 1". Next I did hundreds of french knots, then beaded with many different types of beads and crystals. The final step was to make a second quilt sandwich using an extra loft batting and hand quilted the wavy divisions between the rows of flowers to create the dimension of the fields.

It measures 20 1/2"x 29"

This was a real challenge...

Comments most appreciated as always...thanks

Cherie

Stormy Seas

I thought for sometime about landscape possibilities, but decided I hadn't enough time to do it justice.

So, today, I dug around in my texturised fabrics from the workshop I did some time back. This grey taffeta was a part of a piece that was not textured as much as I would like. So, I pulled up some sections from the fusible interfacing it was attached to. Then sat and manipulated it by hand, pinning waves in various ways.

Then I thought. What does it look like?

Stormy Seas.

12"x12"

So I found a fabric with a ship in my stash. I found it wanted a cluster of rocks at the top. and then it wanted a lighthouse. I decided to leave the organic shape of the piece and mounted it onto black linen. Then I sandwiched it and added the silver cord which I couched down for waves. I quilted it further with waves and clouds at the top! Satin stitch round the sides and Voila a seascape!

One of the quickest pieces I have made in sometime.

Lavender field

I did a sampler of different techniques. The mountains are Vikki Pignatelli's zigzag tube method, with a fold in the centre to give the two tones. The ploughed field is texture magic, which I hated - the stitch tension was all over the place and I don't like using plastic. The hedges are ruching, one in the centre, single layer, and one at the edge, doubled. The lavender field is chenille method. I don't think I will take this any further. Batting and quilting would only flatten out the textures.

Ice field at Twilight

Here is my small piece called Ice Field at Twilight. I recognize that twilight can occur any time of day in some places . The background is a hand painted whole cloth piece. I fused a pleated and folded piece of white cotton on top and then machine quilted it, adding accents of silver on the folds. I accented the colour in the sky a bit with with a peach-y cololured chalk pastel, and did a tiny bit of the same colour on the folds of the "ice". The mountain and shore are hand dyed cotton. Over all I'm pleased with it. It is about 13" by 18"

Pat F in Winnipeg
aka fndlmous

Wildfire

Wildfire is a year old.   Made with Tissue-tex, glue and muslin.  The paper becomes wrinkly and lumpy when glued down to the muslin.  It is then dyed by painting on the various colors of dyes and allowed to dry.  I used the big piece as a background for the trees, showing the raging wild fire.

Carol tackett
Sea Ranch, California

Snow in the Mountains

I don't know what to say about this except I think it needs something else but I don't know what. The snow and mountains are textured.

18-1/2" x 14"

In real life it is a nice rectangle -- my picture is wonky.

Tree - Approx 7" x 12"

Done. On time. This has been a fun challenge. Actually much of the fun doesn't show up on this piece. I got out some presser feet, tried pintucks, gathering, and pleating. It was great to explore these ways of manipulating fabric, but in the end, I did not use them.

Tree started with a gelatin monoprint. I added scrunched dark grey fabrics for rocks at the bottom - scrunched over fusible web. Then I reverse appliqued the moon under the tree. Appliqued the rock fabric and the moon using monofilament free motion zig-zag. Quilted with metallic thread.

Thanks so much for this challenge.

Any comments/criticisms are welcome.

Winter Corn Rows

Done but I'm not happy with the end product. I using piping to create the foreground corn rows and then just strips on the farther hill. There is a grayed hill on the right that I tried scrunching with warm Misty Fuse. I've done this effectively before but I didn't do well with it this time. I also didn't get the background strips at an angle like I'd wanted. I feel they're too vertical. I also added some stitching to attempt to show some dried clumps of grass peeking through the snow. All of this bleakness is what it's looked like here since Thanksgiving! It does have an uneven bottom since I decided it added to the effect of the corn rows. I haven't put a binding on it yet since I'm trying to decide whether or not to just just zigzag around a few times or to put on a narrow light grey border. It measures 10 1/2" x 15 1/2".

Saguaro sunrise

Saguaro Sunrise is my desert landscape for Challenge 42.  The saquaro cactus on the left is "bubble tucked" with folds crushed under over-the-tuck stitches. There is a hole in the cactus where an owl has made his home.  The barrel cactus in the foreground is stuffed and quilted separately, then attached.  The organ pipe cactus is ruched with two colors to provide shadow.  The horizon line is blurred with quilting and foiling to represent the rising heat waves so common in the desert.  This piece is 18 inches square.  Can you find the lizard?  I look forward to your comments.  Hope you all have as much fun with this challenge as I did.

oragami sandscape

I decided to do a representative oragami type landscape. The different fabrics are sewn together then pleated. TheDunes /rocks are tucked in the pleats and stiched. The final measurments are 19x14 1/2. It was fun and easy and just right for this very busy month.

Pat Havey

The photograph hopefully will show the fabric manipulation in the form of gathering stitches in the sky and water. This piece is rather large at 4'x6'. I used paper, photo transfer, pleating and gathering along with one of my old earrings!

This piece is a reminder of our many sailing trips through the British Virgin Islands and incorporates my love of color. Sky, ground, beach and water are painted with acrylics. I incorporate many trim pieces on the cottage.

Jane Stricker

Max Patch

Here's a partially finished landscape, based on an altered photo of "Max Patch", a beautiful spot on the Appalachian Trail, where you have a 360 degree view of all the spectacular scenery around.

The fabrics are all dupioni silks, and were wonderful to work with. It is a practice piece for me to try different metallic threads and silk-finish threads for thread painting.

I am happy with some of the effects, but wish I could achieve more of a three-dimensional look, since it is mountains and valleys. Right now, it looks a little "flat" to me.

I love adding beads to my work, but I'm not sure if that would be appropriate here.

I would welcome any comments or suggestions. I have also posted the photo it was based on, and the little quilt will be a gift to the person who shared the photo with me. It measures about 12" x 16"

Marilyn Foulke

Louisville, KY

Challenge 42 - Sunset

This was fun. . I actually took a UFO from my stash of them. The sunset I had done was when I first starting playing around with backgrounds. I never finished it because it was kind of blah - I had pieced 2 1/2 inch strips. So I took all the stripes - put in a tuck at 3/8 inch on each seam. Then I staggered the seams. First I tried doing so quilting it at the same time but then just made of a jumbled mess. Then I did the tucks on just the fabric. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to quilt this without losing the texture. I settled on just facing it with a batting and back. Then I thought I'd add some hand stitching but that didn't work - I tried some French knots on each of the tucks - so as for now I'm leaving it as is. I think next them - you know there will be a next time I'll quilt 1/8 inch from each tuck then flap the tucks.

Anyway - it wound up being kind of fun - plus I got to cross a UFO off my list. Final size is 13 inches by 31 inches.

Lisa
In Sunny Seattle

Challenge 42 - Landscape and Manipulated Fabric

Challenge # 42
Guest Hostess – Linda H. MacDonald of WY
Challenge Description: Create a piece emphasizing fabric manipulation in a landscape.
Nature Theme: Landscapes
This can be any interpretation of a landscape - coast, desert, mountains, plains, jungle, farmland, and even a cityscape. .
For cityscapes and abstractions one of my favorites is Ludmila Aristova: http://web.mac.com/ludmila.aristova/Ludmila_Aristova/Gallery/Gallery.html See her work published in Quilting Arts Magazine, August/Sept 2009, Issue 40 (page 30).
A few other landscape quilters found on Google are: http://www.doughtydesigns.com/index.php , Eileen Doughtyhttp://www.quiltedvalley.com/index4.html , Katherine Ferris Nicholsonhttp://www.labadiefiberart.com/ Denise Labadie’s work, is also on the cover of Machine Quilting Unlimited (July 2009)
Composition and Technique: Fabric Manipulation
Fabric manipulation is defined as using a technique that changes the look and feel of a piece of cloth with the assistance of a threaded needle. You can create puckers, folds, waves, puffs, projections, and openings with stitching by hand or machine to make a new surface on a flat piece of cloth.
Historic techniques include: gathers, pleats, tucks, smocking, cording, stuffing, and of course quilting. Use one, or a combination of techniques, to add texture to your landscape.
For a modern approach to shirring or smocking try the new shrinking threads http://www.shoppersrule.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SP-INCSRTHRD or try the new Texture Magic by Superior Threads.
A great reference is The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff (1996). While I couldn’t locate Colette Wolff on a website, see the Shibori Girl site for information about the book.
Folded Fabric Elegance (2007) and Quilted Elegance (2009) by Rami Kim also have good ideas, but are geared more toward clothing. If you want to make dimensional flowers in your landscape, a good book is Cindy Zlotnik Oravecz’s Into The Garden (1995). Here is a free tutorial on ruching: http://www.roserushbrooke.com/how-to-ruche.html from Rose Rushbrooke.
Additional Fabric Manipulation and Trapunto sites: http://www.cathyfranks.com/id17.html
http://www.miss-laurence.co.uk/Artwork/Textile_and_embroidery.htm
Textured fabric http://arleebarr.squarespace.comFabric origami http://www.instructables.com/id/Fabric-Origami-Quilt-Block/
Some examples of fabric manipulation found on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/fabricmanipulation/pool/
Have fun manipulating your fabric!
Linda H. MacDonaldhttp://macsplace.net/quilt.html mailto:lov2quilt@gmail.com