Test Pattern

When I showed this piece to my husband, he said it reminded him of a old-time tv test pattern that was shown prior to the start of the broadcasting day, hence the name. Although I didn't adhere strictly to this month's rules, this piece does consist of recycled and left over materials.

The background came from an old chambray sundress and was quilted from the backing side in spirals prior to adding the elements to the front. The compass point wedges came from the derriere of a now-too-small pair of my jeans. The other wedges are leftovers from another project, with the small center circle and binding cobbled from scraps of a coordinating print. The "piping" around the circle is a jacket zipper.

Finished size is 18x20" - it was supposed to be 20x20" but I had a cutting error and I think the new size is an improvement.

This is an extremely monochromatic piece, and it needs some help. Possibly beads. Any comments or suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated.

Marilyn Rose

Self-Portrait?

This one was fun! I started off with the background, which is a poorly done machine quilting sample piece, made out of scrap fabric to begin with. Except I decided to use the former back side (with all the eyelashing and bad tension) as the front - the other side looks much more normal. I turned the sides to the new back and stitched them in place for binding, trimmed the length and added leftover binding from a previous quilt to the top and bottom. I took thread snips from the wastebasket next to my machine and couched them in place around a previously stitched circle. Then I added all of the fabric covered buttons from the box given to me by a friend of my mother. The facial features are scraps from the floor, covered with a blue veggie net and zigzagged in place. And in place of hair, I added a tiara created from scrunched up aluminum foil and stitched down.

Finished size is 8.5x11". Everything in it was here in my sewing room.

It may not look exactly like me, but I certainly feel like this some days. If you think of anything else that it needs, let me know. It makes me smile!!

Marilyn Rose

Watch It Grow Bigger Every Day

Way too many spams in my other screen name, but I took the time to peruse the list of titles before deleting them. The one that caught my fancy was "Watch it grow bigger every day", referring to enhancing a body part that I don't have. I substituted graduated sizes of sunflowers in my interpretation. The bottom edge is almost a ruffle, quilted without batting, so it really is as limp as it looks. Finished size is 11x10".

Marilyn Rose

The Office

Since my original idea didn't work out, I started over and finally have finished with The Office, a view of the back of the black glass and pebbly concrete building where I work. Those windows were interesting to create - I used a navy blue lining fabric for an undertone of the reflected sky, and covered that, as well as the building reflection, with a black organza. It's all pieced, with no fusibles or raw edges anywhere. Yes, the sky really was that blue on the day I took my picture. I machine quilted the building and the glass panes. When I was done, I realized that the quilting on the back of my work was a mirror image of the front, like a line drawing of the same view. That's why there are 2 pictures of mine this month. Any comments would be appreciated.

What Would Mondrian Quilt?

Piet Mondrian immediately came to mind for this challenge. A late-night run to Walmart for supplies (I don't own any solid color fabrics), and the fabric is cheap 65/35 broadcloth for that reason. My machine does NOT like to sew that fabric, hence things tended to get a bit wonky when starting and stopping. How would the artist have done the quilting if he had worked in fabric? My decision was geometric, a simple square spiral, the width of my presser foot. Working with an 8.5x11" size in mind, the actual design is minimal in order to have enough room for quilting. It's straighter than it looks in the picture - but that broadcloth warps out of shape all too easily. Perhaps I will do another, of quality cotton fabric, and in a larger size. Certainly the next time I could be a bit more original in my choice of design. -Marilyn

Springtime

Okay, so I'm late, and it's not bound yet, but it's done and quilted. This was an experiment using Sharpie pens and alcohol. I drew in some designs with colored Sharpies, then used alcohol - either sprayed on or dripped on. On some layers, I sprinkled salt, which drew the color out of those spots. It's totally colorfast when it dries. Learned that yellow and orange sharpies don't do very well. Freemotion quilted with rayon threads. Size is 8.5x11" and I'd appreciate some suggestions on binding. - Marilyn

Burned Out

I've worked with organzas and transparent fabrics before, but I've never used a heat gun with them. I spray basted circles of fabric on a base, stitched/quilted them in place with a large spiral, then took the heat gun to the finished work. The raw edges curled up and feel like plastic. Some of the fabrics melted better than others. The edges are currently unfinished and I'd like some ideas on what might work best on this highly textured (and very stiff in places) piece. Other comments also welcomed. -Marilyn

Maters & Peppers

The first image is the posterized digital pic of my piece. The finished work is the other one. All comments appreciated. Sorry about the earlier problem - it seems that the problem may be with my other ISP.

Finished and only a day late. Maters & Peppers measures 10.5x7'5" and is raw edge fabric under a layer of illusion with minimal quilting (outlines of fruit and indentations in the peppers).

This was actually my second attempt at this piece. The original version had some design flaws and wasn't working well, so at noon yesterday, I decided to make another complete version. I'll keep the other one to use as a "what not to do" reference for the future.

The vines on my piece are heavy twine. The shadows are fused chiffon, which allowed the woodgrain table to show through. It's 1/2" shorter than I planned due to an ironing mishap (Note to self: irons and illusion do NOT mix). The entire piece was pillowcased and turned so that binding would not be needed. It will probably go in a frame under glass similar to Rhonda's coffee cup.

This was definitely a shift in style for me, and a challenge to complete.

Infinity

Infinity is based on the last line from Stephen King's book, The Stand: "And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again."

This is a stabilized 10 degree wedge ruler project using a striped commercial fabric, offset one step, and measures 26.5x41.5". It's actually 2 circles that connect and overlap. Yes, those are holes in the center of each circle. One binding is lime green and the other is a dark purple.

It hangs very straight, even though it's just pinned to my curtains right now. The holes in the center measure 3" diameter, and applying bias binding on that small sized inside curve wasn't fun. It's machine pieced, machine quilted in the ditch, with the binding turned by hand.

This is a very simplified version of a quilt by Nancy Ota that won a prize in Paducah last spring. Mine will be used as a sample for a class that I teach, although my son has already claimed it for later.

Any critiques or comments would be appreciated.

Marilyn Rose