Challange 46 - Sandstone

I've posted my quilt Sandstone. I'm not happy with it - so therefore it waited a long time. At first it included a turquoise sky - but not so much to my liking - I think the unusually colors were what threw it for me. If I did it again - I'd make it more monochromatic in an unexpected way rather than rainbow - minus the blue. Final size about 28 x 9 inches. Still haven't decided if to bind or face.

Lisa
In Rainy Seattle

Magritte and Me

Magritte and Me

17x23" (challenge #46)

by Laura West Kong

I've been experimenting with fusible "brush strokes" of fabric to "paint" a picture with fabric instead of paint. This is my second attempt at this technique.

I scheduled this quilt to take a week, but due to a shortage of Lite Steam a Seam 2 in my personal quilt stop, aka stash, it took about a month. I have got to have a talk with that store manager about inventory shortages. ... Oh yeah, that manager would be me. ;-)

Here's a detail of the castle. I don't think I could live up on a floating rock like that if such a place existed, but it would make a fabulous location for a studio, surrounded by the sky and the sea, and no place else to go.

I've always loved Rene Magritte's painting, The Castle of the Pyrenees. In fact I liked it so much I did a reproduction of it in a painting class, and I used my painting as the reference for this quilt. You can see my painting and find out more about this quilt at my blog.

The Big One

I thought long and hard about this challenge and mostly the challenge was to eliminate the many idease that ran through my mind. When the challenge came out, I was visiting Samoa and Wellington, New Zealand.

After getting home, I battled the jet lag, bad airplane germs and general spaciness. I wanted to get something done before the next challenge appeared.

Since I live right on the San Andreas Fault in northern California, AND had a 2.8 earthquake on Sunday morning while I was marveling at our recently returned sunshine, I thought that this was appropriate.

Carol

Sea Ranch, California

Devils

This is an airplane view of the Devils Tower in Wyoming.

The landscape was made with a dress fabric and upholstery fabric. It didn't take long to cut pieces which I held in place with washable fabric glue until I raw edge quilted it to the background which is a Carol Bryer Fallert fabric.

Challenge 46, Pam Clark

I finally was able to do a direct post after jpd explained where to find the simple directions. Thanks for your help in unravelling this mystery for me. This is the picture of the quilt, which I was able to upload to the photo gallery earlier. Last year I took a class with Scott Murkins, who was also our quilt show judge. His specialty is strata quilts. I had made several blocks in that class, but couldn't decide how to put them together. When this Challenge came out, I thought by combining four blocks, I could abstractly simulate a geode. Since most geode's centers are light, I made this one dark. I know this is a little bit of a stretch of the imagination, but I love the colors in this little quilt that measures about 16" x 16".
When my sister, Nancy, and I were younger, we had to walk 1/4 mile to our mail box everyday in the summer. We loved to pick up rocks, take them home, and crack them open to see what they looked like inside. We were always astounded at how beautiful they were. We'd find an ugly old gray rock and when we cracked it open with a hammer, there was no telling what we might find. Our favorites were the ones that had flecks of blue in them, which were quite rare, but very beautiful. When we found some that had gold or silver flecks in them, we always wondered if it was "real gold". Of course, it was probably iron pyrite or something, but we always had high hopes that we had found the mother lode. This quilt is symbolic of the flecks and veins that we used to find in rocks. We visited a rock shop where the owner cracked open the rocks and then polished them and they were spectacular.
In this quilt I used metallic threads to quilt it to add those silver and gold flecks. It doesn't show up well in the photo, but I hope you get the idea

Ch 45 - Geology

This has been a busy spring and I haven't had the time to participate the past couple of months. We bought the property next door which has a small building that will be used as a quilt studio and guest house. While moving sewing items over there yesterday, I came across Bargello-Bears which I made a couple of years ago, and I realized this is the geology strata that is this month's challenge.
I apologize for using an older quilt, but I so wanted to take part in this month's challenge.
After making the strata, I wasn't happy with the quilt, so I started adding applique items, until I was happy with the result. I think it is more interesting with the bears, fish, and trees added.

Fossils of a Different Color

Above is my challenge piece, a day late, which is better then I have been doing so I am not going apologize (too much ). I almost had it done on time but had problems with a quilting thread yesterday that I had to take time to unsew, then to make a decision about what to use instead and... you get the picture. I used reference photos of fossils found in stones to draw this large shell fossil. Actually it isn't that large the whole quilt is about 10 inches square. I carved 2 stamps and used Jacquard fabric paints to stamp the background. The large fossil has been machine appliqued down to the sandwich top, and I didn't do any additional quilting on it, just the satin stitch. I am thinking about adding some beads but not sure where or what color so for the moment I am letting it go as is. I have some in process photos and a bit more description of the making process for this quilt on my blog if your interested. Comments welcome.

Kathy Walker
http://katwalkdesigns.blogspot.com/

Standing Stones at the Summer Solstice

Finally got one in on time. This is a quick one hour project that used my embellisher for the base of the standing stones and some of my hand dyed backgrounds. Strange colors prevail. I threw caution to the wind and chose fleeces at random that went against my better judgement then placed them on the background that I wouldn't normally have chosen. Seeing the finished photo makes me think it might try working this way again. Thank you for the challenge and the stretch!

This was a piece that spoke to me after spending all last summer with Diana Gambalden's Outlander series following Claire Beecham Randal Fraiser and her escapes through the Standing Stones near Inverness in Scotland. If you haven't read it, do it. I am re-reading this summer.

"Bearing Gifts" - A Childs view of Rocks

One of the challenges for me as I approach our Fast Friday Fabric Challenge is to get real about what I can do in a week, satisfy the requirements of the challenge, and satisfy my desire to push myself to create something new, quickly. This was created from a photo of a child's hand holding beautiful stones to bring to mother. The rocks, of course, were really grey and brown with some flecks of other colors. Both the child and mother find them to be truly beautiful. The arm and hand were traced from the photo to a piece of white paper, then transferred to the fabric using Faber Castell Pitt Pens which are India Ink. They dry quickly and are permanent. I held the pen straight up to mark the dots which create the shading. Being the impatient person I am, after a few minutes I chose to use a bolder pen tip than what I started with. Although I am pleased with the results, they would have been finer if I had used the finer pen tip throughout. The rocks were free motion embroidered using three different variegated threads. The contrast between the threads and the fabric is a bit more subtle than I would have liked. The stipple quilting was an opportunity to practice something that I don't use very often.

I enjoyed creating this work - from taking the photo, converting to a sketch, tracing the important lines, tranferring to fabric, free motion embroidering, and stipple quilting. Thanks so much for creating this challenge Kathy. It was great fun.

Any comments or criticism are very welcome.

El Arco

El Arco is my contribution to this wonderful challenge. The geological formation is the predominant landmark at the tip of Baja California, Cabo San Lucas, and is often referred to as The End of the World. Finished size is 25"x19". Techniques used were mainly a form of confetti fusing as well as some thread painting. The edge finish is a 2" facing, and for a change, was successful. This is a favorite vacation stop for us as we have been there several times.

Please Don't Take Me For GRANITE

This is my take on a Tafoni Granite weathering structure in Idaho.

I used only my handyed fabrics, and satin sitched every piece onto the batting. I intend to do a lot of quilting after facing the edges, and backing, using the pillow case method.

I will have to wait a while to do it though, as my therapist told me I was 'pushing it' too hard too soon :-(

I would love critiques and suggestions for quilting...Should I quilt the rocks (they are already quilted in outline with the black). I will definitely quilt the sand and sky.

It measures 22"x291/2".

This was really challenge and a stretch for me Kathy...LOL I tend to work most of the time as close to the real colors as I can get. It was so much fun once I abandoned myself to playing with colors. Thank you Kathy!

Cherie

Here is the quilted and finished piece! What do you think, does it make a difference?

Sikanni Canyon

Wow, my first challenge for sometime and I actually finished on time. I chose a picture of one of our favorite places for this challenge. The rock formation in the canyon of the Sikanni River have always fascinated me. Some rocks sideways others up and down and the prestine crystal clear water of the north. I have also included the original photograph to give you an idea of the true color of the landscape here, nothing like Utah, or Fire Valley NV, yet those are the colors I chose.

I painted a piece of fabric and then added a lot of stitching, both machine and hand stitching. I look forward to your critique. Thank you for the great challenge Kathy.

Geo I

Kathy... this challenge got me! It was not easy at all... I went out and took a picture of our mountains.

Geo I

Then I defined the lines in Photoshop and set it as background on my computer for a few days to look at and think. We have a favorite spot where we used to stay with our 5th wheel at Hurricane, Utah and I tried to remember some of the colors and because it has been a few years now, I cannot remember the lake, but it is not on the same side of the road as Zion..... and I did add ...I think, anyway... somethings unexpected.. Anyway, I am adding this one to my 'crap quota' for the year.

Because I really want to remember this, I wanted to do a piece for my fabric journal.. so it is 9 x 6 and I have it in my Journal already.

I learned a lot.. mostly what does not work. I had more stitching and I took it out, you can see the needle holes. In this case.. less would be more.

I used a feather to do the 'rock work' because of the size, I couldn't find anything with a small enough point
nor the color I wanted. I am going to post some photos of the feather at work on my blog and will link to it when I do.
I don't really expect any comments, but if you can find something redeeming, I will file those comments
in my Fabric Journal.

Kathy... that was an awesome Challenge.

The Grande Grand

Here's my small piece, about 14 by 10 inches. When I first saw the Grand Canyon I walked into a visitor's center and for the first time in my life I applied the word awesome to my experience and it was the correct use of that word! Both visually and spiritually, the view took my breath away and kept me enthralled for the duration of my time visiting the area. I have tried to capture that image in this piece. I painted on decorator fabric, a textured off white piece, with acrylic paints and a putty knife. My goal was to created layers of color against the blue sky. Light areas on the piece are the background fabric unpainted showing through. I free motioned quilted in a loose pattern for the sky and in a more rigid layered pattern for the canyon rock formations. I satin stitched the edge so as not to cause any sense of hemming in of the great expanse. It is inspiring to me, and maybe will be to you. I can still remember the site and how I felt that day. Thanks for any comments.

Strata

This is my piece called Strata. It is pieced with a curved piecing method, the seams are emphasized with metallic thread in a triple stitch. Each bead is attached individually by hand. The colour is not great, and I had a difficult time up loading the picture. Somehow I got into Picasa, and then it refused to upload the close-up. My colour choices include turquoise and purple with some touches of pink. The piece is faced rather than bound and is 11 1/2" by 10".
Pat f in Winnipeg
aka fndlmous

Geologic Wonder

I used a friend's picture as inspiration (with his permission). I tried to put a link to it but I guess Flickr had other ideas.

Anyway -- I used a paper towel that I had used for wiping paint for the mountain. Feathers for the bushes growing out of the rocks, and just strips of fabric for the rocks at the base.

This was the quickest one I've done in a long time.

Betty

Challenge 46

FFFC Challenge # 46 June 2010 Host Kathy Walker

Geology with Unexpected Colors: ou are free to use whatever techniques and materials you feel your piece requires. Do keep in mind the elements of design, and that value can be more important than color.

When I was in the 9th grade I took an Earth Science class. It wasn’t really what I wanted to take, I would have preferred Biology but for some reason that option wasn’t available to me. Anyway I did enjoy the class far more than I expected to, that class helped to reinforce a long time love of rocks and in interest in the structures of the earth. In Earth Science we studied meteorology, some paleontology and Geology. Geology is the study of the earth itself that includes rocks, their names and how and when they were formed and the structures that rocks form. Included in the study are earthquakes, volcanoes, and now plate tectonics. When I was in school plate tectonics was a crazy fringe idea that couldn’t possibly be true. With the discovery of deep ocean ridges and their upwelling magma we now know that plate tectonics is how the earth’s crust moves and restores itself.

The theme for this month is Geology, you can take whatever aspect that interests you, from a single rock/crystal to the fantastic layers of rock that have been formed over the millennia, creating features such as mountains, or the structures of Monument Valley, or even the grand canyon.

To add a bit of spice to this challenge I have added the concept of using unexpected colors for your piece. If the stones are gray use purple or red, if the layers of the earth are red, and orange, use their complements. Feel free to play with color, if things clash a bit so much the better.
Various quilters have used geological themes in their quilts. I have tried to find as many of those who have quilts on-line as possible for examples.

Links:
Michele Hardy, Quilter now living in Colorado, http://www.michelehardy.com/GeoformsGallery.html

Esterita Austin creates quilts with rock images, http://www.esteritaaustin.com/gallerymain.htm

Denise Labadie quilts the Irish stone landscape, while these are not strictly speaking geological forms they are portraying stones in the landscape:
http://www.labadiefiberart.com/Galleries/Dolmens/Dolmens.html

Brenda H. Smith lives in the Southwest, here are some of her quilts inspired by the region she lives in http://www.brendasmithquilts.com/galleries/southwest.html
A Quilt inspired by a trip on the Colorado River by Donna June Katz A page from Art Quilts a Celebration by Lark Books
http://books.google.com/books?id=du70qFhVwgwC&lpg=PA360&ots=TxhfVXK4Ry&dq=geology%20quilts&pg=PA360#v=onepage&q&f=false

More of Donna’s quilts, scroll down they are at the bottom of the page.
http://www.fiberarts.com/article_archive/gallery/flora_fauna.asp

Handwerk by Bonnie M. Bucknam http://www.handwerktextiles.com/quiltgeology.html

Two quilts of Katie Pasquini Masopust, note her use of colors
http://www.katiepm.com/slotlarge.html
http://www.katiepm.com/antelopelarge.html

Some images to inspire:
National Geographic did an article on the Giant Crystals in the Cave of Crystals in Mexico
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/photogalleries/giant-crystals-cave/

Not quilts but Lapidary, Susan Judy a Geologist who uses cut stone the way quilters use fabric, for inspiration only. http://www.stonequiltdesign.com/portfolio.aspx