Kayaking Boulder Bay

Just love this challenge - Gave me a chance to quilt my photo (last pic) that I took during one of my daily kayaking sojourns.  I not only love to kayak for the exercise, but the photos I can get right down on the water are just unbelievable.  I can get into areas so shallow that my husband and I cannot do with our boat.  Here in Big Bear Lake, there are many beautiful sights, several bays, lots of animal life, and the most beautiful Southern California days of sunshine.

I used two batiks, one for the water, one for the cement wall supporting the Big Bear Boulevard/Route 18 overpass where, as you can see, is a "portal" leading to another small part of Boulder Bay.  (I love to paddle through this into the small sanctuary of birds, dragonflies, ducks and boulders.)  Then I used dry brush technique with acrylic paints to create some of the details, followed with a few million yards of thread for more details.

                                                    detail one

                                                    detail two

                                          Inspiration photograph

Looking forward to your critiques.  Thank you for a wonderful challenge.
Sandi

The Storybook

Hope I am doing all this the right way, so here it is.

I started to make this small and simple but got carried away and now I have moved on to something a lot larger.  I have actually created a 3-dimensional quilted book with a full garden scene and many animals.  The animals and girl are photoprints on muslin, glued onto plastic sheet and cut out.  Dressed the girl in a flowing piece of fabric, made the well out of stone-printed fabric on texture magic with dmc thread for the rope (pulling up bucket), long-stranded yarn, silk and plastic plants/flowers for vines, etc.  Quilted the whole background as well as the "page" and "book cover."  Decided I had better stop and take a photo of the first half to submit before it got any later.  Hope to hear your comments and critiques.  Thank you for a great challenge.  I apologize for the poor photo.  Sandi

C'est moi

"C'est moi" is 10"w X 14"h.  The background is regular cotton quilted with pearl-colored thread, and all the applique and binding are batiks.  The primary colors associated with 6 and 7 are indigo and lavender and the secondary colors are orange/mustard, and magenta/pearl.  All the dots and letter "S" are turned-edge applique, while the yellow-orange highlights on the "S" were glued on with Roxanne Glue-Baste-It.  I tried to turn edge these last pieces but they are too small; they still frayed with fusible web and I didn't want to stitch them around the edges.  So I "painted" the pieces with Fray Check, cut them out when dry and glued them on.  In this way, I could keep the "S" puffed up completely when I quilted the pebbles in the background.  The "S" is for my first name, 6 and 7 dots are for the numbers I thought were my lucky numbers in my youth and twenties, respectively, and the total of 13 turned out to be my actual lucky number in later life and I found that my career changes (for the good) occured in 13-year cycles.  Interestingly, 6 and 7 are found in this challenge number as well.  Critiques and comments welcome.  Sandi Nehlsen-Cannarella

Spiral Galaxy M101

Hi Everyone, I took the suggestion from several of you to capture my galaxy  pieces (from the previous challenge, Turner effect) by overlaying black netting.  I was surprised to note how little I lost in the white areas.  I learned from this.  Thank you!!!  So then I was able to quilt it, using silver metallic thread in a spiral design that followed the galaxy image itself.  Really fun.   Sandi Nehlsen-Cannarella.

Lunch at the Lake

This challenge was soooo much fun!  I chose CONTINUITY for my quilt.  Hopefully I have achieved it - your eye should travel from fish, to the right and up, ending with the heron.  I decided to enter this now (I have yet to add the binding) since I will be busy for the next few days and not sure I will have it completed by Friday.

This is 29"x18" and most of it was done with cottons.  The water is overlayed with organza so that the fish looks like he is in the water, not on it.  The dragonfly wings are organza and the lily is cut from ribbon. (Hope the fish gets the dragonfly because it would be wasted on the frog since he is about to be nabbed by the heron.)  Your comments are welcome, and encouraged.  I have really enjoyed doing this one, thanks Cherie.    Sandi

Rembrandt at Sea

Snowfall on Christmas

Notan Trees

Spiral Galaxy M101

I have always been interested in space, so now with all the breathtaking photos coming from Hubble, I knew exactly what I wanted to portray in my challenge piece. I chose M101, one of my favorite galaxies, but creating it was another story! I chose a marbled cotton overlayed with a "party" organza to simulate stars in space. Then I layered several cutouts of dryer sheets to achieve the general outline and glowing center of light. These I "feathered" to soften the lines, and finally overlayed them with teased white fuzzy yarn. VOILA! However, I realized that there was no way for me to "use" it or quilt it. One sneeze and the galaxy would be gone. Overlaying tulle, white or darker, would spoil the effect, so I just took a picture of it as is. Anyone have a suggestion as to how I might preserve this? Comments and suggestions more than welcome. LOVED doing this challenge, Susan, thank you.

Dame Firenza

I was inspired by Georgia O'Keefe's beautiful painting, The Poppies. What an inspiration. I used fused raw-edge applique with thread painting for the scales, and gold foil for the eye. Dame Firenza is actually a sweet little dragon (in my imagination), but something got her irritated at this time - probably me trying to picture her. Interestingly, the batik I used for her head is called "Volcano!" I was in a "fairy tale mood" after finishing my challenge-60 piece, so I just sort of slid into this one with ease. It is great being pushed to work FAST and on subjects I would never have approached including raw-edge which I used to hate. Sure is a wonderful group, lots of inspirations from the other members, and I have enjoyed the challenges put forward by each of our hosts. Thank you to all of you, and I would enjoy each and every comment you have to offer. Sandi

Titled - Dame Firenza

Loss

This scene came to me as a result of all the forest fires occurring in the southwest U.S. including here in SoCal due to lightning. I used fused raw-edge applique, glitter glue for sparkle, angelina for forest fairy's hair and dryer sheets and tulle with circular quilting to create smoke. Please tell me if I accomplished my goal -- sadness as a result of the terrible loss of woodlands from fire. 17"x22"

Garden Shower

My personal solitude has always been triggered by water and beautiful gardens. This quilt is taken from a photograph of my garden bench where I spent many hours enjoying the sight and sound of a fountain, birds, and multiple types of hostas. I have used the photo for a full page in my scrapbook, which I had titled Serenity, clearly one of the positive aspects of the Solitude that Ann has offered as our challenge. The quilt is 10" x 7.5" and I have used fusible raw-edge appliqué to achieve a similar appearance as the photo. Although the photo was taken during a clear day, I have added rain by quilting with silver metallic thread. All of my life, I have been the most creative when it is raining, especially when there is lightning and thunder. Interestingly it almost rained today as I was working on this, so I just played one of my "Solitude Series" CD that was rain and thunder to accompany me. I will add scrapbook page and quilt detail. Comments welcome. Sandi

Celtic Leo

My quilt is not original like all the others posted before me. Instead, I had found this design in one of the Celtic Designs listed in the Dover Publications that caught my attention because my husband's birth sign is Leo. I have really made this for him as well as our challenge, since his birthday is coming up in August. I drew the images onto freezer paper and made templates for creating the dozens of applique pieces. My biggest struggle was deciding how to twist and weave all the pieces together. Once I had all that figured out, I realized that the only way to get the background quilted in detail was to quilt it first - no way was I going to quilt around all the small spaces. After appliqueing the lions and initials, I heard the quilt screaming for some color in the border. Using Ricky Tims' piped binding method, I tried a new one using two colors of piping rather than one. I think it works but I will let you decide. At least I did a lot more quilting in this one, not like my Art Deco piece. Thanking you in advance for any comments and suggestions. Sandi

Art Deco No. 1 Bird

Thank you for this wonderful challenge. What a thrill to have this exciting subject for my very first one. Art Deco architectural design is represented with the bird cage. For the machine age, metal, and vertical design, I did a silver bird cage. Glitz and glam of that opulent period are emphasized with glitter in the bird's outline and cage base. I used sunburst rays for quilting and kept to clean, brilliant colors of the period. At first I thought of doing a cityscape or theater facade but our Blue and Gold Macaw kept calling "Mama" for me to let her out of her cage to sit with me while I worked. Voila! - the Ah-ha moment. So I drew an Art Deco parrot like Bo Jangles and appliqued her to the background. I managed the cage-building with quilling paper strips painted silver with a Krylon silver leafing pen, and the base with spray paint overlayed with glitter. I outline Bo with matching glitter glues, then glued on the cage strips. Then I used Art Deco numerals to add the challenge year and number for an address for No. 1 Bird. 21"x25" All critiques, comments and suggestions are very welcome. Sandi