Challenge 42 - Sunset

This was fun. . I actually took a UFO from my stash of them. The sunset I had done was when I first starting playing around with backgrounds. I never finished it because it was kind of blah - I had pieced 2 1/2 inch strips. So I took all the stripes - put in a tuck at 3/8 inch on each seam. Then I staggered the seams. First I tried doing so quilting it at the same time but then just made of a jumbled mess. Then I did the tucks on just the fabric. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to quilt this without losing the texture. I settled on just facing it with a batting and back. Then I thought I'd add some hand stitching but that didn't work - I tried some French knots on each of the tucks - so as for now I'm leaving it as is. I think next them - you know there will be a next time I'll quilt 1/8 inch from each tuck then flap the tucks.

Anyway - it wound up being kind of fun - plus I got to cross a UFO off my list. Final size is 13 inches by 31 inches.

Lisa
In Sunny Seattle

Challenge 42 - Landscape and Manipulated Fabric

Challenge # 42
Guest Hostess – Linda H. MacDonald of WY
Challenge Description: Create a piece emphasizing fabric manipulation in a landscape.
Nature Theme: Landscapes
This can be any interpretation of a landscape - coast, desert, mountains, plains, jungle, farmland, and even a cityscape. .
For cityscapes and abstractions one of my favorites is Ludmila Aristova: http://web.mac.com/ludmila.aristova/Ludmila_Aristova/Gallery/Gallery.html See her work published in Quilting Arts Magazine, August/Sept 2009, Issue 40 (page 30).
A few other landscape quilters found on Google are: http://www.doughtydesigns.com/index.php , Eileen Doughtyhttp://www.quiltedvalley.com/index4.html , Katherine Ferris Nicholsonhttp://www.labadiefiberart.com/ Denise Labadie’s work, is also on the cover of Machine Quilting Unlimited (July 2009)
Composition and Technique: Fabric Manipulation
Fabric manipulation is defined as using a technique that changes the look and feel of a piece of cloth with the assistance of a threaded needle. You can create puckers, folds, waves, puffs, projections, and openings with stitching by hand or machine to make a new surface on a flat piece of cloth.
Historic techniques include: gathers, pleats, tucks, smocking, cording, stuffing, and of course quilting. Use one, or a combination of techniques, to add texture to your landscape.
For a modern approach to shirring or smocking try the new shrinking threads http://www.shoppersrule.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SP-INCSRTHRD or try the new Texture Magic by Superior Threads.
A great reference is The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff (1996). While I couldn’t locate Colette Wolff on a website, see the Shibori Girl site for information about the book.
Folded Fabric Elegance (2007) and Quilted Elegance (2009) by Rami Kim also have good ideas, but are geared more toward clothing. If you want to make dimensional flowers in your landscape, a good book is Cindy Zlotnik Oravecz’s Into The Garden (1995). Here is a free tutorial on ruching: http://www.roserushbrooke.com/how-to-ruche.html from Rose Rushbrooke.
Additional Fabric Manipulation and Trapunto sites: http://www.cathyfranks.com/id17.html
http://www.miss-laurence.co.uk/Artwork/Textile_and_embroidery.htm
Textured fabric http://arleebarr.squarespace.comFabric origami http://www.instructables.com/id/Fabric-Origami-Quilt-Block/
Some examples of fabric manipulation found on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/fabricmanipulation/pool/
Have fun manipulating your fabric!
Linda H. MacDonaldhttp://macsplace.net/quilt.html mailto:lov2quilt@gmail.com

Fractured Flamingos

I started this quilt with another quilt I was working on..pink full moon..I had the moon too big and not enough sky so when I cut out the center of my pink moon I then sewed the blue circle back into the pink little strip and began to slice this piece up ...got out of my stash of flamingo fabric and cut and sewed more circles and strips of blue and flamingo fabrics....cut and sew...cut and sew...and here's my version of Fractured Flamingos!

Glorious Flight

This was a bit difficult to get my head round, but finally, after a busy week, I made a start. Half piecing some parts, half laying fabrics over one another. Then fusing sheer paperlike fabric over to change the value in some areas and to pull colours together in other areas. I used several layers of it in a variety of combinations to create the shape of a dragon wing. I was interested to see the previous dragonfly wing entry, as I had already embarked on a similar idea.

It is meant represent a dragon wing and the joys of flying high in the bright sunshine, catching thermals and doing aeronautic twists and turns.

I guess you probably knew I'd do something dragonish if you wanted a wing.

It was a real stretch for me. I am not sure I will ever attempt this style again, but I did learn from it. I think you would have to enjoy piecing if you were to become good at this. Piecing is generally something I avoid. LOL

One of the things I decided to do in finishing it off was to leave the blocks and squares that poked out of the edge as is, rather than trim everything up square. I think it works well. Especially with that style.

The size is approximately 19"h x 21"w.

Challenge #41: Seraph

I first chose blue, green and yellow, but the analogous look bored me, so I switched the yellow to red, giving me more zing. I obviously pushed the green to a broader spectrum from yellow-green to blue-green as well. So maybe I broke the RULES.

As part of the fracturing, I included prints, solids, textures, cottons, and silks. Don't know whether I understood what a fracture really is, but I grouped the shapes by hues so that there would be an overall fracture, too.

I wasn’t thrilled with making a bird, bug, plane, or even the wing of a building--and I never thought of wingnuts--so I chose to do an angel, then focused in on just a portion of a wing, part of my new attraction to getting up close (developed from our microbiology challenge). And since I haven't seen an angel, I gave myself license to play with how the wing might reflect many colors of light.

I fused the shapes and used mostly blanket stitch machine appliqué and free motion quilting. If I had longer, I might have quilted more, using lots of different threads and stitches. I quickly satin stitched the outer edges (Sue Benner style), but then cropped to the size it will be when or if I get around to finishing it with facings. Maybe I should crop off to eliminate all of the shaded pink, which represented the "shoulder" of the angel on the left.

I'm trying to transition from realistic to abstract images, so I consider this sort of transitional. It's fine with me if you don't know what you're looking at!

By the way, a seraph is an angelic being of the highest order, associated with light, ardor, and purity. Mentioned only in the Book of Isaiah, the seraphim were in human form with six wings each, and they revealed Isaiah’s call to ministry.  An angel-artist-coach is helping me figure out my goals, so this has some special meaning to me.

Comments, critique, or suggestions are always welcome.
Chris Smith in Sea Ranch, CA
www.ReapAsYouSew.com

Dream Catcher

Not sure this one meets any of the challenge requirements, but this is where my nuse led me. I started with a mono print that I hand made that looked "fractured" and was hoping to just use it as the background. My intention was to but a beautiful black swan in front of the reddish background. While visiting my sister in Arizona, the challenge was announced, so I think I was influenced by the native american culture because my entry turned out resembling a dream catcher. Give your imagination a BIG stretch and think of the feathers at the bottom as wings. I'm really grasping at straws here to make this piece fit this challenge. I did accomplish the having fun part, and have really enjoyed all the creative wonderful works others have made for this challenge. Thank you Jan, I promise to do a more conventional fractured piece in the near future, it is a wonderful approach to creating an interesting piece. Comments at this late date are dreamed of.

Challenge 41 "Viewpoint" by Madalene Axford Murphy

Was going to skip this challenge but I've had an idea for a long time of making a quilt looking through a dragonfly's wings and I got an idea, thanks to some fancy organza I bought, of how to make the wings and had to try it out. I fractured the field below the dragonfly, but I lost track of the color requirements for the challenge. My original colors were just three: red, green, and yellow, but as I was working I decided I had to add some blue for our farmpond that the dragonflies love.

I haven't worked a lot with transparencies, but used Carol Taylor's method of satin stitching the edges although I did not fuse it. I have also been using pearl cotton more and more in my work and didn't have time to use it for all the quilting but did add some.

Would love to hear what you think of it.

Fractured Butterfly

I worked on this a bit at a time as I had energy and time available from buying a new TV, recovering from vacation and helping hubby repair a slew of things that broke all at once around the house. It is only 9 x 12 inches and currently not bound, but quilted (finally).
I think I did manage to fit in almost all the requirements of the challenge, while still focusing on my design. My colors are orange, blue and green, which I used in different values and patterns of fabric. I considered brown to be a very dark orange! I used several different types of fabrics in the butterfly-velvet for the body, dupioni silk, decorator fabric, and cottons for the wings. The background is all quilting cottons. Everything is fused or glued down. The butterfly wings were cut according to a pattern, but the background pieces were just free cut and plunked down on top of fusible web. I did end up replacing a blue and a green piece in the medium area today before photographing the piece. I like the movement that the different fabrics in the sky give and the mosaic effect in the butterfly. I'm sure I learned a new technique from this challenge!

Primary Fractured Waco Biplane

Well...I finished it and that's about all I can say. Doing the fractured part was very difficult for me and I'm still not sure I got it right. Yellow, Red and Blue were the three colors I chose.

I originally tried sewing pieces of the blue fabrics together for the background, but that looked icky. I then laid out bits and pieces, tacked them down then trapped them under a layer of black tule. The glittery stuff is supposed to be the propeller and is one of the iridescent tissue lames. The piece measure 13 3/4" high x 17 1/2" wide.

The image is of a Waco biplane. Waco (rhymes with taco) aircraft were made here in Troy, OH and were famous for being used as trainers and making HUGE gliders for WWII and the Korean wars. I had a little difficulty as I did it from a photo I took of a tied-down Waco at the annual Waco Fly-in....and it had a cover
over the cockpit, so I had to engineer a pilot and the cockpit. By the way....Waco stands for Weaver Aircraft Company.

I'd really like some suggestions on what to do when you are doing the 1/8" stitch line in facing when you have a variety of colors. I picked the thread for the majority, but I don't like the blue on the yellow. Any other comments, suggestions etc. are greatly appreciated.

Woven Bird

I had a tough time with this challenge; I just couldn't wrap my mind around all the variables. I have been wanting to try fabric weaving, though, so I went in that direction. I chose the colors blue, green, and orange.

I printed a photo of a bird I painted a while back onto fabric, then wove that with some hand-dyed orange fabric. I lightened/darkened various orange squares with fabric markers, and recolored the bird. I thread-painted the bird and zig-zag stitched the edges of the woven strips.

This piece is very small--6"x6"--since it will serve double-duty as my weekly 6x6 journal square:

Although I ended up liking the green "corner caps," I originally added them because I have a terrible time folding over fabric from the back to make a self-binding; I can never get the corners correct and always end up cutting too much fabric. If anyone has any tips on how to do that, I would appreciate it :-)

I'm not thrilled with the end result, but I did enjoy trying out the weaving technique and will do more of that.

Michele

#41 Fractured Cardinal

The cardinal at my birdfeeder was the inspiration for this. I fused some hand dyed and some batik and then did some tree branches in the quilting backgrouund which I thought looked kind of snowy. It is 9 1/2 by 11 inches. Elaine Koenig in snowy Nebraska.

Challenge 41 - Angel Banner

I needed a new sign for my booth for the art shows, so for this challenge I decided to fractured a label that I often use on my quilts. My colors were blue, purple and yellow. The banner is actually a crazy pieced fabric using whites/off-whites --- I needed some lighter area where my name will go. The whole thing is stitched to Timtex and it will be hung in my booth. It's approximately 8"x18". Looking at the picture on the screen, I realized the deep yellow piece in the lower right hand corner reads orange, not yellow. I may stitch something over that as it really sticks out. Thanks for your comments.

A whisper in the grasses

My colors are green, blue and yellow. I fractured the background but when I fractured the grasses they seemed to blend in way too much, so decided to try them layed on top, I now like how they look. I machine embroidered the butterfly. the butterfly body is the yellow, I used textured yarn wrapped on a pipe cleaner. The butterfly is pinned on right now, I am not sure placement of the butterfly is really complimenting the piece or a distraction.
As always your critique is most welcomed!
Jeanne Knudsen

Dragonfly

12 X 12
Green, Purple and Orange

After piecing a scrappy, fractured background in medium to dark greens, I realized the values were wrong as the dragonfly would blend in too much. Appliqueing the five lighter strips didn’t help so I added two layers of netting and let it pucker and fold. I really like the added texture. Not sure I like the three horizontal lines. The quilt is bound with cording made from three types of yarn and a strand of pearl cotton.

Thanks Jan for a fun and challenging challenge!

Comments welcomed.

Fractured Angels

Only a day late. Maybe by next month I'll get some of my energy and creativity back.

I really don't know what to say about it except it is a much better rectangle than the picture shows. I have no good place to take a picture.

Challenge 41 - Transformations

I've posted my Transformations quilt about 14 inches by 21 inches.

Honestly the fractured background was the hardest part - I pieced together and cut a few times an abstract tree bark. I then beaded a caterpillar in the lower right corner and a moth in the upper right corner for my winged creature. I picked this moth because of it's complimentary colors of orange and blue.

As always lots of fun

Lisa
In Overcast Seattle

Dragonfly pond

I had such difficulty understanding this challenge, but decided to make an attempt. Using a turquoise print cotton as background for my composition I constructed what I hoped was two diagonal wavy lines through the lower third and top third of the picture plane. Attempting to keep the colors split, I used fabrics I had either hand-dyed, batiked, silk painted or painted with stamped and foiled embellishments to create the elements of the composition. I am very pleased with the result, unfortunately, I don't think I acheived the stated goal of this challenge.
Jane Stricker

Rhoda Ch #41

First off, thank you Jan for a wonderful challenge. You provided lot's of examples for us, and it certainly was out of my comfort zone. I am posting my finish, and really want to persue the idea of fracturing.
I struggled big time with this, but finished and am not too disappointed. I used all three primary colors with varying hues. The raven, my favorite, does have a crystal for his eye. I put a layer of tulle over the whole piece just to tone down the colors.
My plan was a dark wall with the rays of light coming through from above, not sure I full achieved that, and I did a still life, as the raven likes to sneak into them. I still have the binding too put on, which will be black. I look forward to your critique.

Wings

I decided on orange, green and blue as my colors and a winged maple tree seed "posed" against a maple tree leaf as my subject. I've wanted to try fracturing for a long time, so it was good to have incentive to actually do this. I've learned a lot, chiefly that this would have been more successful if I had paid more attention to value in addition to color. It was fun, however. Thanks for a great challenge!

fractured existance

I feel the life of the penguin is in a state of being fractured by the climate change therefor the title. This quilt is 18"x24". I used cotton silk, velvet and sheers to create this piece. I was very frightened of the challange and had decided not to do it because I was so confused. Now I am so glad I decided to give it a go. My colors are yellow, orange and purple. I'm afraid my camera doesn't see colors quite true. His head is really all black not black and green and his wings are lavender and purple not blue. Great challenge - Thak you.
All comments are welcome and appreciated.

Pat Havey

Crow in Snow by Cynthia Ann Morgan

My winged thing is a crow perched on a snowy branch, in a fractured background of blue, orange and purple. Fun challenge, thanks Jan!

Comments welcome

Cynthia

Ch 41- Hopi-Thunderbird

Hopi Thunderbird is my first try at Fractured art. My colors are green, red, and yellow. I wish I had better lighting for the photo as the dark green came out darker than it is, and the quilting does not show in the photo. The size is 11" x 14", in commercial fabrics, with hand-dyed silk ribbon and beading embellishments.
Thank you for this great challenge Jan. I look forward to comments as I learn a lot from them. LindaMac in WY

Waggle Dance

 Whilst experimenting with painting batting and the fracture challenge cogitating in the sub-concious, I was reminded of our bee-keeping days in the latter years of the last century. I started sewing strata in the colors I chose, yellow, purple and green. As I moved from one thing to another, I thought.... hmmmm... why couldn't I 'paint' batting with thread. So, there there are multiple techniques in this piece.
Besides thread and paint and the obvious commercial cotton, I used wool roving and silk hankie shreds.
I used my favorite thread.... all rayon by the way...
Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with the hive information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen. Color is also a discrimination.

I look forward to your comments.

P.S. My neighbor from San Francisco loves this piece, says it reminds him of Haight-Ashbury. Maybe I should call it Graffiti.

Fractured Egret as a mobile = fabric art on the move

You have to be over 'a certain age' to remember Frank Sinatra belting out “My Way”. I remember it well. As this project morphed from one thing to another the words, “I did it my way” kept floating through my mind.

As I began to look at the suggestions for fractured things, mosaics appealed to me. Thinking on a grand scale I thought I would do a fractured water lily with an overlay of a dragonfly. I had some sheer fabric just waiting to be used. I found several dragonfly photos, blew one up to a size I thought I could stitch, ~20” long for a single wing. I'm thinking maybe I'll just do the wings as a mobile. By Sunday night I had finished tracing both parts of a single wing onto a sheer paper so that I could just turn it over to get the other side. Taking a break, I got something to eat. When I picked up the spoon to eat my soup, a horrible pain went through my fingers, hand and arm. I could not pick up a spoon without horrible pain. I took some Ibuprofen and sat down at the computer to read; just rocking and holding the arm I had stupidly injured myself. I definitely was not going to trace these again. Of course I was able to eat using my left hand. Not much keeps me from putting food into my mouth.

The next day I took my drawings to a copy place. 4 to 5 hour wait. Nope. I just could not do that. Luckily I didn't do that because when I tried to stitch my sheer fabric over the paper, I could not get the paper out of those little bitty spaces. HMMM.

More research for a winged thing. I was now loving the idea of a mobile. As I surfed, I saw a GREAT plane with a man inside running across the ground. The wings were 3 high and the tail had lots of interesting pieces. I can now imagine this could really have a lot of movement. As I started drawing and planning, I realize I really didn't want a plane. How about a butterfly; hours later that was not working for me. I started looking at birds and mobiles. I did not want a flock of birds. Rather, my vision, was for one bird that I would fracture.

I used one fabric on one side and another on the opposite side. I sewed with a clear polyester in the bobbin and a silver thread on top. As I researched fabrics, polyester is the most resistant to sun and age deterioration. This is what influenced my fabric and thread choices.
Finally, I have something I really like. Luckily, I decided to do a small study instead of a LARGE piece. Balancing the pieces was tricky for me. I used thin black wire and bent my shapes and attaching rings. Because normally these things are done using heavier materials then soldering a ring at the balance point, I added weight [extra wire] when I did my balancing. The beak is really lots of wire, wrapped, then painted. I sewed a layer of sheer fabric to each side, stopped the fray with liquid stitch, then purposefully frayed the edges, ie feathers.

Remembering the goals of this group: “it is through doing that we will learn.” Yes, I learned a lot. Plus, the end of the challenge always states something similar to , “remember to have fun”. Please note it is the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge; not a quilting challenge.

I earned a lot [by doing] + + + I had FUN! I must have inadvertently or subconsciously had the rules in mind all along.

Egret flat

Egret in flight as seen from dining [studio area]

Egret in flight; view from kitchen

Yes, “I did it my way. . .” Ann E. Ruthsdottir aka designerann

Magpie

I was pretty certain I was not going to participate this month, especially since I was traveling out of the country when the challenge was announced. Then I saw the description and I really wanted to play - in part because of the subject matter and in part because of the chance to try the fracturing technique, something I have always admired but never attempted. So I started sketching a magpie on the way home on the airplane on Tuesday. Wednesday I created the design and figured out my piecing strategy and Thursday and today were sewing days. I am really glad I participated even though there are definitely things I would change if I had more time. It is a technique I will try again for sure. He is unquilted at this point but I will tackle that job tomorrow. My colors are blue, green and red with ecru added for the background. The bird fabrics are all my hand dyes and the background fabrics are commercial cottons. He is 25" x 16".

Challenge #41

Here's my entry for challenge #41. Its a butterfly, fractured or broken apart, done in primary colors & quilted in a butterfly design. I may have made the fractures too far apart. My inspiration for this piece is a crayon picture my granddaughter made at school & brought home.

Under the Bridge

I used a photo I had taken under a bridge by the bay here in Florida and

fractured it, then used green, purple, and orange colors. Added the heron. I created the ray of light to shine on the heron. There's three areas: the bridge, the water, and the sandy/grassy area, the quilting follows those themes in the different spaces. It measures 13 by 14 inches or so. Didn't show the wings, but he's got them! Lots of small pieces, it is fused.

thanks for commenting if you have a chance. Chris Predd

My Little Angel

This was really a challenge for me.   I tried the fracture technique once in a class with Katie P. Mostly the class bit off a lot more than they could handle including me. I did not like the technique so I abandoned all thoughts. So I had to overcome some mind things. I decided to go very simple. Something with "wings". Hmmmm. I discarded many ideas including the West Wing of the White House and went with a crazy little angelfish who thinks he can fly. I think I need more contrast with the coral.

I used fusing for all of it. Sometimes fusing was not so easy. Comments and suggestions are very welcome. I did enjoy this challenge and possibly I will try this again.

Carol Tackett

Sea Ranch, California

Squadron On Patrol

I have chosen blue, green and violet for my colors. The fractured background uses many different types of fabrics including lame, holographics, velvets, silks, cottons etc. It was done from a smll section of a photo of a leaf magnified many times then fractured. It makes me think of a high mountain pass.

My theme is a squadron of wingnuts on patrol. The challenge did say "anything with wings" right? (ha ha). The wingnuts are freely floating, attached only across the tops of their wings creating shadows as they "fly the mountain passes". They are constructed using Timtex with a deep charcoal lame covering both sides, accents of silver lame and satin stiched edges using dark silver Glitter (Superior Threads).

It measures 19"x28"

A terrific challenge Jan, so much fun!

Comments / critiques gratefully received

Cherie

Challenge 41 "In the Sun" by Silvia Dell'Aere

Ok, here's my work for this challenge.
But before I've to admit that I've misunderstood the guide-line, due to a translation mistake. When I read "quilt theme" I've understood "the theme of quilting motif", and when I've realized that wasn't right, the design was yet done.
And I loved it so I went on with it. :)

My colour choice is yellow/purple/green... but then I've lost control and added also oranges and pink.
The design jumped in my mind when I've seen a photo of a bunch of flowers. That bunch really looks like a sitting cat. Silly isn't it?
So I've drawn an oval, and a stylized cat, made of circles, in it. Then I've added more circles, to close the lines of the cat contour.
Finally I've added 3 stright lines that would looks like sunbeams. I've taken these lines as a guide to place colours: light in center beam, the 2nd from top, medium tones in 1st and 3rd ray, and finally darker tones in the last ray.

size: 24"x16"
(you can click on image to enlarge)



PS: can you see the butterfly? ^_*

of course I'd like to see what do you think about it :)

Challenge #41- The Source

My little quilt this month is kind of a disappointment. I love the quilt, but don't feel I really got the fractured part. I tried for several hours to make the fractures make sense to me and could not produce a good result to my design sense. Gave up and went with the sheer bubbles to give a "kind of" fractured appearance.

My intension was to get the center portion to be a lighter value to depict light radiating from the "Source" I free cut the fabrics and auditioned onto different grounds but couldn't get the composition to make sense to me. I must be missing some element. I think next time I will use a black and white patterned design with no real subject with color in the fractures to see if I can get it to make sense to me.  Finished size is 11.5" x 17"

Fairy Blues

Ha! I surprised all of you by NOT doing a bird! Besides, I needed to challenge myself more, too.

First I drew the picture of the fairies and mushrooms on a piece of drawing paper. Then, using light lines I tried fracturing it in different ways until I settled on one diagonal line, one vertical line and a circle behind each fairy. I then chose the analogous colors of blue, green, and yellow. The background sky and ground were divided into lights and darks. The circles I chose to do in medium blues. Where ever the lines crossed from one section to the next I used that value of color. The fairies I had intended to do in lights and darks but decided it best to do them in all values and put them on top of the circles. This way the eye was drawn to them more. It measures 14 1/2" x 17".

I have wanted to attempt a fractured piece for quite some time and felt being hostess for this challenge was my push to do so. And now that I've tried this I intend to do more pieces using this technique.

Of course, now you have to comment on mine first!

Challenge 41

FFFC Challenge #41 – January 2010 Hostess: Jan Johnson

Too often we get ‘stuck’ using certain colors in our work and our choices tell a lot about us. Think back to Rhoda’s December challenge and the meaning of the colors in advertising. This month we will be restricted to using only certain colors and subjects.

Color Scheme: Primary Colors and their Complements
· Choose any 3 of the 6 primary and complementary colors. (Red, Blue, Yellow are primary, Green, Orange, and Purple are their complementary colors).
· Use a variety of values to achieve contrast and interest.
· Use their shades, tints, and tones. Shades are blackened hues, Tints are whitened hues and Tones are grayed hues. An example using Orange: the pure hue is the saturated intense Orange, the shade would be Rust, the tint would be Peach, and the tone would be Pumpkin.

Technique: Fracture
Create a series of lines that complement your subject and fracture or break up the surface creating additional shapes. Use fabrics rich in texture and/or pattern, combining solids, calicos, tie-dyes, small print, wild prints, satins, velveteens, etc.

· The Merriam-Webster’s definition of fracture is the act or process of breaking or the state of being broken.
· Try breaking up, or fracturing, your piece into 3 or more areas.
· Use the different colors in each area of fracture. Study how this will change the feeling of your piece and the vibrancy obtained by using just these 3 colors.
· Different patterned fabric will add to your piece.

Quilt Theme: Winged Things either Natural or Man-made
· Choose an animal, plant, or man-made object that possesses wings.
· Use all of the object or part of this object.

Resources:
· Color values and intensity: http://studiochalkboard.evansville.edu/c-saturate.html
· Since mosaics were the first type of fractured art you can compare these to the following modern day fractured surface: http://www.fracturedartmosaics.com/WallPiecesMain.html
· Not textile art, but painted in a way that the entire piece is fractured: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/fractured-heart-brenda-adams.html
· A master of fractured landscape quilts is Katie Pasquini Masopaust. Following are several of her fractured quilts that use pretty vibrant colors which use the fabric design to add texture to the different areas: http://www.katiepm.com/riohondolarge.html http://www.katiepm.com/stairslarge.html http://www.katiepm.com/paintvillagelarge.html http://www.katiepm.com/greenleaveslarge.html http://www.katiepm.com/redwoodslarge.html
· Robbie Joy Eklow has also created several fractured quilts.
http://www.robbieklow.com/Gallery.asp
· These two artists also use fracture in their work to give a different dimension to their work: http://www.acustomquilt.net/ffracturedlandscapes.htm http://www.priscillabianchi.com/po_70.html
· And of course, the original fractured art was of the Cubism school of art…Picasso, George Braque, Juan Gris, et al
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/cubism/ http://tinyurl.com/y9ok4mu http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gris/

Remember to have fun!

Challenge 40

I actually finally finished a challenge - late, but done. I liked the raisin bag - it was colorful and then when I walked into my studio, I spotted the watercolor (picture on the right) I'd done of the caladiums - many of the same colors - so there was my still life. Finished piece is much darker than the package and the watercolor. I'm going to do this piece again with a different background and another hand-dyed fabric for the caladiums to see if I can lighten it up a bit.

Challenge 40 Done!

Well, I'm finally trying to get back into doing the challenges... I did this yesterday, and thought I would have it done and posted before the next challenge was announced, but... yesterday was the 4th Friday.... Maybe I'll get that one done on time??? Anyway, here is what I ended up with for #40. Posted on January 23, but dated the 20th to stay with the proper group.
I drink hot chocolate every morning (my coffee), so I decided to use this box. I love the color blue, and even though the packaging wasn't what made me buy this particular brand, I can see why the colors were used after reading the information about colors and marketing. The blue is used to give the feeling of cold, which is when you would normally be wanting a hot drink. The gold "ribbon" attracts attention to a benefit of the product, and the brown chocolate.... speaks to me.... a chocoholic.
Here it is.... I have a little collection of cobalt blue bottles that I took photos of and printed onto cotton fabric for appliques. I almost didn't remember that plants were to be a main theme, and began this a little differently, but ended up with the right bottle being a vase for a stem of daisies and the eye wash cup made another container for more flowers. The leaves are from a stem of silk ones that just happened to be the color of the center banner on the box. White flowers are also laying on the white lace.

The piece is 12"x12" in size. For the sake of this post this is finished, but I really think it needs something.... I think I will add some beads to the flower centers. I also may experiment with adding some diluted gloss medium over the bottles to possibly deepen the color and maybe add some shimmer?? I also may want to do something to make the white lace show up better??

I posted about the process of this on My Blog.
Any and all comments and critiques would be very much appreciated.

My goal this year is to at least attempt something for each of the challenges, and try to do some of the many I missed.

Wild Rose

I learned a lot about the effect of color on me during this challenge. I always buy the same bag of corn chips. However, I bought 'the other one' recently so that I would know which was the freshest. It stunned me. I do NOT like or am at all attracted to the dull yellow and green package. I really love the blue! As the colors began to change, I went through my cupboards and freezer in search of some color package that would match my 'new colors'. None did. I also noticed that all of my impulse purchases had this electric blue color with some shade of yellow. WOW! I never knew I was being influenced before this challenge. I am the type of person that reads the ingredients, the nutritional value, the fiber and salt content. I consider myself an informed, careful buyer. I didn't know that the simple use of color was such a big influence. Quite an awakening.

I really love these challenges. I learn so much. I don't think I could have made this much progress without them. I started sketching a yellow rose in a vase, then gradually I eliminated the vase and blew the rose up. I only had this tiny bottle of yellow dye, so the colors changed during the development.

I used a piece of white sheeting, dyes, and paints. My original thought was to just paint the yellow tones of the rose and leave the white for the highlights. That didn't have enough depth for me. So I just kept painting until I got some shapes I liked. I found the painting so relaxing and exhilarating and challenging all at the same time. Obviously it was fun!

The background seemed rather uninteresting so I remembered the month we experimented with stamping and mark making. I scoured the house for things that would leave some texture. My problem was stopping because I was having so much fun.

Although my yellow rose gained a lot of other colors during the process so that it doesn't exactly match the predominately blue and yellow of my chips package, I'm thrilled with the result. It is the most colorful thing I've ever done.

I've also been admiring those interesting borders that many folks use on their quilts. Mine never really called for that. However, as I made the rose larger, I realized it might be more dramatic with the bottom border following the lines of the rose and leaves. It does! I struggled with this border for over a week. Finally I stitched it by hand on the back to hold the facing in place. Any and all advice about doing this would be appreciated. I got it done, but it did involve a lot of angst.

Challenge 40: Milk--It Does a Quilter Good

What a fun challenge! I knew right away that I wanted to use this milk carton, since I love the colors:

The red, white, and blue colors were easy to work in, but I wasn’t sure how to work in the white & black of the cow “print.” Anyway, here is the result:

I like the finished result, but my vertical and horizontal lines are off somewhat, I guess because of the stitching; I definitely learned something about when to use extra stabilizer. I may go back and do some quilting to the piece, especially on the red “tablecloth.” This piece is 14"x15".

Chalenge 40 "ugly flowers" by Silvia Dell'Aere

Hi :) here is my quilt for the challenge 40.
My inspiration came from the "nidra latte miele" (nidra milk honey) bath gel bottle.
The bottle is all white, I think because it want to give the idea of clean, purity and a product that doesn't set upon the skin.
Then there is the "nivea" word in dark pink. I think that the pink is asreadable as the red, on white background, but don't give the "attention" or "danger" message that the red would give. Again the pink may be more attractive for women.
There is a yellow/orange drop. The colour is really close to the colour of the gel and wants to refer to the idea of the colour of honey mixed with milk.
The "palmolive" logo is white and green. This is because the storic logo is green, I don't think there is a specific purpose, is just something that "have to be".
Finally other words are in blue. The blue is very clear readable on white, but is not as "funereal" as black.



I've done a little quilt (8x9") with two flowers.
I wanted to try what happens reversing the predominance of the colours. The bottle has a lot of white, so I've decided to use very little of it, just for binding and beads, using more the colours that are less used in the bottle: blue, pink, yellow and green.
I've tried to use watersoluble pencils on silk; I've tried soaking the silk in a soda solution. It didn't help for colour spreading, but I hope it will help for colour resistance.
I've quilted and tried a sort of thread painting (my first time)
Well, this is the first time I do something different from "take the design - follow instructions", this time I've "just done it".
I'd like to hear comments, constructive critics and suggestions :)



Made by Silvia "OrkaLoca" Dell'Aere