Haiku, Challenge #50

My Haiku was written by Maya Lyubenoua

Flight School

pushing the fledglings

out of the nest

Certainly late getting this done but Kathy it was lots

of fun.  The bird is machine embroidered, the green

leaves and tree branch are raw edge applique.

Jeanne Knudsen

Crucified

First a little foreword: a week ago I went at a national quilters meeting, in a maritime city. Our national quilter association staged a quilt show in the convention center and I had a quilt shown there.
The sad thing was that the quilts were hung with nails. I was orrified but when I pointed out the fact the organizers replied to me that they were doing it right, that a famous quilter told them to do that, that nails were small and so on. No way for a new hanging method.

I asked for an opinion in the QuiltArt mailing list and someone told me "life is short and you have to decide whether to spend it fighting or making art!"
This made me think that I can also fighting making art, and so my quilt for challenge 50 was born.

The haiku is:
The grey sea sadly foams
Where the quilts are crucified
At ignorance walls
(hope the syllables count is correct)

And here is my quilt:

The photo is one of those I took on the beach during the meeting, printed on fabric and quilted, the "wall" is fused, the little quilt is a recycle, I made this little quilt to try a new technique months ago and then I left it unfinished. I've finished it with back and binding, I've sewed it to the other pieces then I've ripped it to insert the big nail. Finally came the bloody drops.


In this quilt I've tried 2 techniques new to me: I've attached the binding with blanket stitch (don't like it too much), and I've used satin stitch to close part of the quilt (but it came out wavy, any hint about that?).

Every coment and hint will be appreciated.

Challenge 50 - Ladybug Munch

I'm so late, I was rather stuck on the first part writing the Haiku.

Summer sunshine black
polka dots. Time to munch. Red
and green afternoon

The piece is somewhat based on another old one. I pieced the leave and used the quilting as the extra thread work. The light green is more box shaped. Then there are three red beads for lady bugs and three varied size black beads for aphids. The varied aphids are because when I think of polka dots they are different sized.

Fun challenge and a playful piece. Measures 10 x 17 inches.

Lisa
In Sunny but freezing Seattle

Leaves Tumble Gold Appears

Leaves Tumble Gold Appears

Souls That Left Us behind. Rest

Lest I've Come To You

Attending a wool festival in Asheville, NC I noticed a tiny cemetery tucked within the Smokey Mountains. I had just a clue about the Challenge. My mind runs in different directions So my tentative plan was autumn, leaves, cemetery and an old poem "Dear Ancestor" one of the lines is "I wonder if you knew, someday I would come to visit you ". My inspiration was born.

My Size is small 9 1/2 by 12 inches. Materials used - cotton batik fabrics, shorn/dyed wool, threads pulled from upholstery fabrics. Method free motion embroidery and quilting, needle punch

Susan Ward

Fort Mitchell, KY

Grandma Rides Old Blaze

Grandma rides Old Blaze

New Mexico adventure

Many years ago.

Woodpecker

"The rat a tat tat

of the evening drum

Even the woodpecker

stops to listen."

This is haiku by Issa, a Japanese poet from over 200 years ago. As is often the case for me, I was able to combine two challenges; our Haiku challenge and the metal r rust challenge from my art quilt group. After a great lesson on rusting fabric I went home and wrapped some PFD around an old barrel hoop. While I didn't get the shibori-style markings I had hoped for, I did get some intriguing striations that reminded me of bark. That worked well because the Haiku I had selected was about a wood- pecker. What luck! Next step was to layer sections of rusted fabric over the bark-like area to add a little more depth. So as usual, I am way late, but wow, was this fun!

Ann In Walnut, CA

Challenge 50, Haiku - Wyoming winds

Wyoming winds blow
whether clear skies, rain or snow
Snow birds wave good-bye

I wasn't able to work on this last week, so did it this week (still within a one-week time-frame).  It is 18" x 22", commerical fabrics, the foreground fabric is overdyed; embroidery; hand needle-felting, and applique.

Great challenge Kathy.  Thank you.

Challenge #50 "Out My Office Window" by Pam Clark

This little quilt measures 8.5 inches by 11 inches. I embroidered the haiku on the back. It reads:

Outside, bare branches.

Inside, sunny windowsill,

Green, blooming houseplants.

To make the quilt, I took a picture looking out my office window, hence the title. I used the photo to attain the proportions. I bleached the lower portion of a blue batik to acheive a lighter area at the bottom. I used textile paints to add a little green color and then drew the stark, bare branches. I fussy cut the pots and the flowers and machine appliqued them onto the background. I machine-pieced the window frame and sill. I drew in (with a sharpie) the shadow of the plant on the right side of the photo. This was a fun challenge. I wrote several haiku before selecting the one above.

Zentangle Haiku

I have written two haiku for this piece.

#1:

Stark tranquil beauty

frozen patterns, black on white:

Nature sets her stage

#2:

Calming mind and soul

a string with five, seven, five:

Zentangle Haiku

This has been one of my favorite challenges out of the 50 so far. I love Haiku poetry, and have written several over the last week and a half that I plan to use for inspiration in future quilts. I was sitting all day with my daughter after her back fusion surgery, so had lots of quiet time!

I am also in love with drawing Zentangles, it is a perfect way for me to meditate and relax...sort of a physical 'ohm'. I have created a Zentangle haiku...devided into 3 sections ( upper left- first 'verse' five repeats of pattern; mid section- seven different patterns ; right side and bottom-five feather patterns.) I drew the patterns on white silk dupioni using a pigma pen, then the patterns are all hand embroidered quilting to batting as I stitched, using single ply's of cotton, metallic, rayon,

and feathers are machine quilted. This was a lot more labor intense than I thought it would be, but I loved doing it. Hand appliqued entire piece to black velvet and quilted, beaded.

This is a real departure from my usual...although, I'm not sure what my 'usual' would be...LOL I love trying new stuff :-)

Thanks Kathy for a terrific challenge!

I would love to have any comments, as always...thanks in advance

Cherie

Louise's Autumn's Farewell

I am posting my piece for Challenge 50 entitled 'Autumns' Farewell'. I began by taking a picture of fall leaves and manipulating and enhancing it in Photoshop Elements until I was happy with it. I then added another layer of branches in PSE made to look like a stamp. The top layer was of the haiku I wrote. I then merged all the layers together and printed them out on white fabric treated with Digital Grounds by Golden. (I am a firm believer in using the Digital Grounds to treat the fabric because it really enables the print to be much brighter and clearer.) The bottom piece was done by layering pressed, dried leaves between two layers of fusible web. I placed this sandwich onto of black fabric, layed netting over the top, and fused all three layers together. After joining the two pieces I highlighted three of the leaves with inks and then threadpainted and quilted it. I was even able to complete it within the week, so I am very happy about that!

Louise

Ice, by Sharon Robinson

sky painfully blue  

icicle piercing my heart

his disdain for me

This piece is 12" x 16."  I like my haiku, and I sort of like the quilt, but I'm not sure that it illustrates the poem.   The poem is about emotional coldness as well as seasonal cold.  I think that the icicle might not have been the best metaphor to represent that, because mental images of happy "winter wonderlands" are evoked by the icicle image.   

I really enjoyed thinking up haiku.  As others have said, I'd like to do more of these interpretations.  I started out wanting to work more abstractly, but I didn't like where that took me, so I cut out some realistic icicles.  Then it really seemed to want a horizon line.  Something was still missing, so I added the moon. That was the first thing I quilted, in a radial pattern.  It looked like a big blue grapefruit slice, so that had to go!  This was my first attempt at using metallic thread and I had a lot of fun using it for the free-motion quilting on the icicles.  I thought it would add perspective to have some horizontal lines on the snow, but the thread and I stopped getting along at that point.   So I reverted back to straight lines for the sky area.  Now I wish I'd just left it plain, but I thought they would help with the vertical emphasis of the icicles.  There were a few other technical glitches, but overall I am glad that I was able to finish it this weekend. (Except binding, which will happen this afternoon during the football game!)


Here's a detail shot:

I learned a lot on this challenge, and I'm eager to hear your comments.  

Thanks for a fun challenge, Kathy!

Oceans of Notions

 I have done some editing on my "Oceans of Notions" quilt so I wanted to enter the updated picture. 

I added more sayings and colored some of them to add more color interest. Sorry about the shadow. It really isn't there.

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While cleaning out my notions drawer I came up with the idea of making a quilt out of notions. When the haiku challenge came about the idea grew and this is what resulted. I used purchased fabric for the background (water). The fish is hand painted, fused and stitched down, and decorated with snaps. The fish line is elastic, the scissors are lame and the eel is half a zipper tape. The border on two sides is a measuring tape. I tried to think of all the old saws that deal with sewing notions. Even the word notion has two meanings - as in "I have half a notion". I"m afraid my machine didn't do a very good job with the words so I may have to try some of them again. Thank you for a very fun challenge. My Haiku

Oceans of notions
Names used in unusual ways
Many are a stretch


Pat Havey

Flamingo

In mute solitude

veiled by swirling morning mists

patient flamingo

This still needs the border, which is going to be a 2" dark bright pink, followed by a 1.5" black one, so it looks like it's been matted and framed. The 2 borders will bring this to 12.5 x 15.5". I also plan on writing the Haiku in the pink border.
The flamingo is fused applique, the mist is pulled, stretched cotton filling, used some colored pencils in spots for shading, though you can't really see it well since it is veiled by the mist...LOL
Wondering if I should have used a "water" fabric instead of the one I chose for the background, but I wanted a muted, very early morning appearance, so hoping this background works well for that.
I'm not sure if it needs more "mist" or not, also not sure if I will be doing any sewing on this, I have iron on clear vinyl which I am considering applying to this piece before adding the borders, so that it looks a little like a "glossy" photo that's been matted and framed, what do you think?
I probably should have waited until it was finished to post a picture but I am just so excited to have actually done a challenge after not doing anything with fabric since FEBRUARY that I couldn't wait :-)
I will change the photo to the finished one when it's done though.

Trees Ablaze

'Tis lovely to be
at my window in Autumn
with the trees ablaze. All I had to do was look out my studio window to know what I wanted to do. Both the haiku (my first!!) and the quilt just seemed to appear. I titled my quilt “Trees Ablaze” but was very tempted to name it “Tree-o”. I love play on words and that kept talking to me.

The quilt is 13” x 17”---and is not yet bound. It will have a narrow binding of the background fabric. We spent the day looking at and buying a new pickup truck!

All the pieces of this quilt are WonderUndered and quilted. Had a lot of popping sounds from the needle as it went through as many as six layers in some spots.

I had a good time with this and would be delighted to have comments.

Hide the Moom

misty mountain morn

autumn leaves against the sky

the clouds hide the moon

We've had a foggy fall here. Rainy and mornings where the clouds are just hanging out on mountains. As I drive to work in the mist, the rapidly changing leaves have stood out against the grey skies. The aspen and fire maples provided such a dramatic contrast that I wanted to try to capture that in a quilt.
I also wanted to move away from the pictorial themes we've had this year and move to a more abstract / representational style for the challenges. These are simply rectangles, placed for color instead of shape. I know the challenge talked about using the stitch as an element but this seems to need more simple stitching that moved to the background. So that's what I did.
It measures 18 x 26." Still needs a binding, and I know I'm late... the not-so-fast completion delayed by a crazy busy week at work.
Comments, of course, are welcome!

So Cold This Morning

This haiku was written my mother's lifetime friend, who just turned 100. She sent me a book that she wrote for her 100th birthday, and I chose this haiku for the challenge.
I used a photo of me on my 7th birthday for the silhouette. The blue chair lived in my room until I was in college. I tried to make the picture look cold, except for the shimmery gold moon and moonbeams. The quilt measures about 14" x 12".
I didn't do much with the stitching part of the challenge. I would have made it much more abstract, but I am going to send the little quilt to my mother's friend, with my photo on the label on the back. Of course Marguerite knew me when I was 7. The quilt is an oval shape both for an old-fashioned feel and because there was nothing interesting to look at in any of the corners!
Critiques are always welcome.

Earth as Haiku

Update September 2011
The earth needed more stitching and a hanging device. I painted the edges of a canvas to match the fabrics and now I'm finally ready to call it "finished." I'm just working on clearing out some WIPs and putting them in the upcoming sale.



I believe I like it hanging on point rather than square. The quilting is not done to perfection but with the layer of sealer on it the holes would have been more ugly than just poorly controlled stitching in my opinion.




earth circles around
rotating through the seasons
slowly years fly by

Still a work in progress, stitching yet to be done.
This was a great challenge. I've enjoyed looking at everyone's photos and reading the poems. Hope to go through again tomorrow and make a few comments. Even though it's Halloween, I won't be witch-y!!! :o)

:Diane - yarngoddess

Challenge #50

Golden leaves shimmer
Posed against an azure sky
Rot and make new life


I took a class with Pat Mink in July that concentrated on working in PhotoShop to enhance and blend photographs. The class also concentrated on printing on fabrics. I was interested to see that Louise chose this technique for her challenge as well.

I chose this method to carry out the theme of my Haiku. I decided to use white sateen fabric to give the illusion of shimmer on the leaves. I blending two photographs. One is a maple tree just beginning to leaf out in the Spring. The other is a close-up a golden maple leaf. As I began to quilt the piece I felt the branches of the tree looked as if they followed the veins in the leaf.

This is small for me, it measures about 7" x 7". As with most of my small pieces I decided to frame it and write my Haiku on the mat. I would do it differently next time. My writing is not the prettiest in the world so I would have printed it on paper stock and had a small cut made in the mat.

This was a real challenge for me since I had never written a Haiki or any other poetry. I think that I enjoyed composing the poem more than making the art work. So thanks for introducing me to Haiku. I have not posted on the other site yet as I'm having trouble remembering how to do so and I wanted to get this posted. I will do that later when I have more time.

As always I would appreciate comments.

Boy in the Forest - 10" H x 12" W

"Boy in the forest
Autumn is here yet again
Quickly a year passed."

Hand painted, machine quilted. Since I painted this fabric - sketchy trees and blurry leaves - I envisioned a progression of hazy figures through the woods. Who knew this challenge would provide the opportunity. The silhouetted figure is from a photo of mine that I manipulated in Adobe Photoshop Elements.

A really fun challenge. Thanks so much, Kathy.

I do see a bit of light in the middle of the piece that I need to darken. Any comments, criticisms are as always, welcome.

Betty Warner

Beneath clear, blue seas
Diving on a brief visit
Among colorful fish

I finished quilting and thread painting this quilt on Friday. Lots of practice with my new Horizon that worked perfectly. The white "heart" in the original photo was thread painted with pink thread to make it look like a fan coral. I also added a second, smaller fan coral and a second long-tailed fish. I added a lot of thread painting to the maroon coral on the far right. The fish were not quilted-just outlined stitched and then lightly brushed with gel sparkle paint. Black sea urchins were thread painted on the sand at the bottom plus real shells were added. The coral and the water were extensively quilted and if you enlarge the photo (click on the photo, then click on the enlarged one), you should see these details. I also added several lines of silver thread to mimic the sun coming through the water. The finished size is 25" X 30". This was definitely not a fast project but it was an enjoyable one even if I was pushing myself to complete it. I've wanted to do an ocean quilt for ages so thanks for the challenge that encouraged me to get to it.

Just a note-in real life, seeing the fish and coral while diving is not nearly as colorful as this quilt. You need a light or a camera with a filter to get the true color. But it is a fascinating world to visit if only for a brief time.

Nancy Schlegel in Albany NY