Falling Leaves

This is a work in progress. Finished size is approximately 23" x 24". Commercial fabrics. Thread painting is mostly King Tut varigated threads.

I chose to work with fushia and lime green as my complementary fabrics. Design is diagonal with the background fabrics moving from left to right and the leaves falling from right to left.

The leaves are fused on and then thread painted using varigated threads. To complete this I will be using varigated threads to quilt leaves in the background and border.

Comments most welcome!

-- Joanna Strohn

Joanna Strohn's Southwestern Focus

25" x 28" - commercial cotton fabrics

I almost forgot about this month's challenge as my focus was on the quilting retreat I was going to be attending. Fortunately I remembered as I was about to dash out the door. I'd grabbed my stash of southwestern fabrics, planning to do other projects.

I had no idea what to do for this challenge. My inspiration came from June Davila and Elin Waterson's Art Quilt Workbook. I selected five fat quarters I thought would work well together, put the fabric with the horses on top of the pile, then began to slice and dice. Then came the fun of arranging them and pulling other fabrics to join the segments. I didn't finish anything at the retreat. Instead I stopped at the quilt shop on the way home to buy more fabric, including the great border fabric from Ricky Tims. I'd used black to join some of the segments. Decided it didn't work well so did some unsewing. I only had a little bit of the turquoise fabric but my roommate came to the rescue. She had her husband bring her southwestern fabrics and there was just enough for my needs. Serendipity!

The fun comes now in quilting this. I think I'll add some hand embroidery and maybe some beading or crystals for the gecko eyes.

I like this because it reflects a style I am evolving: pieces that draw a viewer in. The closer one gets to my work the more one sees in it. I think that's from having had eye problems and always wanting to look closely at art.

The best thing: I have four more pieces to complete! While similar, each is different and delightful.

Thanks so much for this wonderful challenge! As always, comments are most welcome.

Oops! I Goofed!

The quilt that I began with was from another challenge. The challenge was to use Gerry Baptist's Heat of the Afternoon painting (http://en.easyart.com/art-prints/Gerry-Baptist/Heat-of-the-afternoon-101877.html) as a starting point. From there we were to use a small viewing window to take a small section and turn it into a quilt. When I finished my piece I hated it. I was ready to throw it in the garbage!

I pulled it from the bone file for this challenge. Took my rotary cutter and had great pleasure cutting it up! Then I decided to try weaving the pieces together. Wasn't happy with the result. Grabbed a piece of batik that had similar colors and weaved again. Better. Still not happy. Decided to play with some threads to secure some of the edges. Decided I like it better. Had a scrap of fabric that looked like a border. Yuk. Needed somthing more. I'd just taught a class on "Getting Comfy with Color" where I'd mentioned some colors, like yellow, make great accents. Added the yellow eyelash border.

Finished machine quilting the center and wentto even the borders when I realized I had done an incredibly horrible "oops". So bad there was no way to correct it. Remembered I had told a student to follow Tim Gunn's advice: Make It Work.

So I did.

Unless someone spends a lot of time fondling the quilt the oops may never be discovered. I may confess one of these days. It will definitely make a great teaching sample for my classes!

What do you think about this deconstruction and reconstruction? Finished size is 18 1/2" x 19".

-- Joanna Strohn

Challenge 19 - Journal Cover by Joanna Strohn

Front cover: 8" x 10 1/2"
Fits a standard composition journal

I didn't think I'd be able to participate in this challenge as I'm busy making samples for classes I'll be teaching. However, Friday night (when all the shops were closed, of course) I discovered that I had mismarked one of the projects -- a journal cover. The inside was finished but the outside was just a tad too small ... I'd marked the wrong journal. Gnashed teeth!

I decided to make lemonade. Grabbed my container of scraps that had fusible on them. ("Always keep your scraps," I tell my students, but I'd decided I'd better do some clean-up in the studio and these were going to the garbage.) Looked for inspiration. Leaves, of course!

Started cutting leaves. Decided to make this a practice piece for some thread painting and free-motion quilting. Couched a yarn scrap for a stem.

The thread painting is inspired by Ann Fahl, the journal cover technique is from Jake Finch, and the leaf quilting motif was from a recent workshop by Frieda Anderson.

This was fun, educational, saved some scraps from the landfill, and will be more ammunition when I tell students to never throw anything away!

I always appreciate comments!

-- Joanna Strohn in Tucson, Arizona

From Fire Comes Life

With Tucson having our coldest nights of the winter (in the upper 20s .... brrrrrr!) I might have taken ice as the subject, but my thoughts went to fires ... the devastating fire we had on Mount Lemmon several years ago and the San Diego fires this fall. Fire consumes and then gives life.

One of my resolutions for 2007 was to get better at machine quilting (and I have the same resolution for 2008!). I've been working on some of the thread painting techniques taught by Ann Faul. The leaves were leftovers from a project for a class I'll be teaching in the new year. The background fabric suggested fire's intense heat.

Size is 9" x 19 3/4". Fabrics are batik. Thread painting and quilting were done with varigated King Tut threads by Superior Threads.

Comments most welcome!

-- Joanna Strohn in Tucson, Arizona

Never Say Never!

9" x 12"
Bleach Gel Discharged Batik
Machine Quilting with Varigated Thread
Backing is two pieces of black felt


Just before this challenge was issued I was reading Lesley Riley's book Quilted Memories. She covers a number of techniques including subtracting color with bleach. I read and mentally thought "Nah, not for me."

Then came the challenge. I read about black being a mixture of colors. The result can be "surprising" according to Leslie. So when I was at my LQS and saw a black batik that looked solid except for some barely discernable brown I decided to buy some yardage. Still hadn't decided what to to but when I saw "Bab-O Gel with Bleach" at the dollar store I figured, "why not?"

Leslie said the bleaching process would take 2-8 minutes. Per her instructions, I clipped about an inch square to test. No results. Hm. I experimented further and put a length in a cookie pan. Covered with gel. It took about two hours, but the result was a lovely tan batik.

I decided my piece would be a process piece. One of my goals for this year is to really learn to do machine quilting. Earlier this month I took a class from Robbi Joy Elkow where she recommended practicing on two pieces of felt. I grabbed a couple pieces of felt, tore off a section of fabric, used small squares of fusible to secure the fabric to the felt, threaded some varigated thread, and started quilting.

The result is a process piece that was a great learning experience. I still have more of the untreated batik (if I photographed it all you would see if black) and some of the treated fabric. I'll look for more Bab-O as well. For a buck a bottle it's a pretty good deal!

Comments are most welcome!

-- Joanna Strohn in Tucson

http://www.dreamrunner.com

One Zen Moment

16" x 17 1/2"

Cotton and cotton batik fabric
Fused and quilted; echo quilting
Beads/beading around center bead

I'm fortunate to have Ann Johnston's book. I refreshed my memory of some of the design principles she covers before taking book and some favorite photos to the Girls Night Out at the local quilt store where I teach.

I didn't like my efforts with the first two photos I tried. Success quickly came when I starting sketching from the photo of my 1893 Singer treadle. The drawer decorations reminded me of windows.

There's nothing like having an entire quilt store as "stash"! I had been thinking solids but when I saw the batik with the multi-colored squares, I fell in love with it. Then I spotted the turquoise batik. The black has subtle circles on it.

My original concept was to use beads to highlight the colors on the turquoise fabric. However, when I saw the turquoise donut it seemed perfect. I am studying Larkin Van Horn's Beading on Fabric book so decided to try the cabachon capture technique (something new to me). I experimented with bleeding the turquise fabric through the binding and like the effect. I did not feel any additional beading was needed after adding the center stones.

I like the simplicity of this piece. Like much of my work there is more to see the more closely one gets to the piece. It has a complex peacefulness; thus the title.
My inspiration photo, sketch and close-ups are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shimmers411/ChallengeQuilts
That folder also includes the final version of my "Everybody has blue days (and your cat may hallucinate)" challenge quilt.

Comments are most welcome!

Everybody Has Blue Days

The Blue Day Book
by Bradley Trevor Greive
"Everybody has blue days."

This is a small book that was given to me by my daughter-in-law after my mother died. It has a lot of good thoughts in it! I pulled blue fabrics while wondering how I could express the value/contrast theme and blue days in a quilt.

Then life interrupted. I had to pick up Miz Paws, my kitten who is usually in the middle of my quilting. Instead she was getting "the big snip" to celebrate her coming of age. As I read the post-operative instructions one line sparked the quilt:

"Your cat may hallucinate..."

Everything came together then. I found a perfect cat silhouette in my PrintMaster 16 clip art. My blue stash yielded a great batik that could represent hallucinations. Although they don't show well in the photo, the words "blue" and "days" are quilted throughout the sky. "Everybody has blue days" is quilted on the bottom. Size is 14" x 22".

I'm considering adding some puff paint, beads, glitter, and other embellishments to the hallucinations ... what do you think? Comments are most welcome!

-- Joanna Strohn in Tucson

Fall by Joanna Strohn

I would very much appreciate comments on my quiltlet "Fall". I am new to art/abstract quilting and eager to learn. I'm mostly self-taught between books, QuiltUniversity.com and a few classes. I have not had any art training since high school though I had a career where I had overall responsibility for the advertising materials I created. But quilting is a bit different that having a large art staff at my command!

My construction steps are here.

Please see the comments below the photos for my thoughts as I did this project.

I'm considering adding a few beads at the tops of the leaves. Thoughts on that?

Thank you so very much for sharing your thoughts.

-- Joanna in Tucson