Fast Friday Fabric Challenge 43

The theme of the challenge was underwater. I used an extant wallhanging which incorporates a number of thread embellishment techniques including pintucking on the whale's belly, bobbin work, couching and machine needle lace.

I also created a postcard from scratch which incorporates machine embroidery designs from Embroidery Library, and Lutrador used several different ways.

My Favorite Flower Child

Is my only granddaughter, of course! This is a small quilt and will remain unfinished for now since I had foot surgery two weeks ago requiring an incision on the sole of my right foot and I've found my left foot doesn't run to motor foot as well as the right so it will wait for another few weeks to be quilted.
I used a photo of my granddaughter, fused some old flower fabric and mushroom fabric to a practice piece of hand dyed cloth. I then cut petals from some orange fabric and pieced them around her face, fused them in place and then added the bud leaves and stem the same way. I'm thinking that maybe I can make it into a birthday card and give it to her when she turns 13 in June.

April May and June

#44 Flower Children "April, May, and June"

The children are dancing about in silk flower dresses on a quilted background. I rolled the edges to the back...mitered the corners and stitched from the back.

The dolls I had made for some doll pins and they were unfinished. So....I fashioned their dresses from silk flowers and beads...fabric markers for faces and shoes. I sewed the dolls onto the quilt. (16 1/2 X 12).

Presenting Ms. Daisy Gerber

Here is my flower child. Her body is the stem. Her sleeves are the leaves.

Her hair is french knots -- many, many french knots.

I asked my husband what he thought and he said "cute".

Flower Children

I love this challenge idea...it's right up my alley....I have even done a piece with flower ladies in it before..So I am sharing a little piece of that quilt until I get my new "flower children" done. Right now they are taking back seat, to my sea dragon which I am really enjoying too...Donna at The Sea Ranch

Rudbeckia - Brown Eyed Susan

I finished off challenge 43 and saw the new challenge. I had an idea straight away, so set to!

I thought I would base the child on one of my Sunday School children...all of them are from African countries. Then I remembered brown eyed susans, and it all came together.

I had just enough golden fabric for petals left from making a sunflower cushion some time ago. I also had some swatches of a fuzzy sort of fake leather, so used a brown to machine stitch and colour in a little face. I stuffed the middle and then mounted it on a wooden dowel.

detail

Challenge 44 - Flower Children

FFFC Challenge #44 - Flower Children April 2010 Hostess Ann E. Ruthsdottir

Intro: The idea started with an old book I have called, Bird Children by Elizabeth Gordon, copyright 1912. I have the forty-first edition. Ms Gordon is the author. In much smaller print is the artist, M. T. Ross. The book is nothing without the art work, so this surprised me when I finally noticed it. Because this is a book I have always enjoyed for the illustrations alone, I was very surprised that the artist got so little credit Just recently I read some of the verse. However, the big discovery came in the last six months when I noticed on the title page, “The Little Playmates of the Flower Children”. My interest peaked, I went on-line and found absolutely beautiful colored drawings. What other flowers could be 'children'.?

As a person 'of a certain age', I remember Woodstock and flower children. I was neither a child or a flower, but I did wear flowers in my hair. Because the book seemed too limiting, I thought to broaden the challenge.

The challenge theme: is Flower Children: either developing some new 'flower child' similar to the book OR relating to the 'flower children' of the 60's OR, better yet, some inspiration of your own which incorporates one of the basic ideas of the theme.

If you do not feel comfortable painting children, please try turning a fabric print into a flower. For example, a face could be the center of a daisy. In the same vein, a photo could have fabric added to become a flower child.

Colors should be cheerful. No dark, dismal colors, gray or grayed shades.

Techniques should be dimensional, either by inference or in reality. A 3-dimensional sculpture might be the outer limit; the inner limit being a shading to create depth.

References:

Links to Flower Children book drawings. http://tinyurl.com/2vsj3b2
http://tinyurl.com/35j9hdu http://tinyurl.com/325za8z

Photographer Anne Geddes: babies in flowers http://tinyurl.com/263cubw

60's flower children images [Please note that we didn't have color film then, so any color images were 'staged' later or colored later.] http://tinyurl.com/383gufl
http://tinyurl.com/327fmgv http://tinyurl.com/35s9anz

This outfit is soo weird. Yep, I had something similar. GAG! http://tinyurl.com/3958hly

For those of you too young to remember, a little history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie
http://www.laurelrose.com/FLOWERCHILDREN.HTM http://tinyurl.com/2g4zytq
http://www.zazzle.com/hippies+posters

Book by Maxine Swann might give you some ideas: “Sweet child of mine; In her lyrical new novel, Maxine Swann describes the highs and lows of a hippie childhood. ”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Swann

Want more images, check out fotosearch http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/flower-child.html

Merdragon

I am very late on the Fast Friday challenge again this month. But I have been planning to have this fit the Contemporary Quilt dragon Journal quilts, especially as it also included threadwork. I had been thinking to do a dragon based on a seahorse, so this works for the under the sea theme, too. The background print already represents coral, and I am playing with colours to find ways to get the bright fire look using colours other than  normal fire colours.

A simple description this time.

Merdragons are often mistaken for seahorses. However, they serve in the same capacity as watchdogs for the MerPeople. They hid amongst coral that is similar in colour to themselves in the same way that seahorses do. They have the capacity to breath fire under water.

Unlike seahorses, the males do not hatch the eggs in their pouch. Both parents guard the egg sack, taking turns to carry it.

Under the Sea Reflections

April Fools !! AKA …"Under the Sea Reflections"
I got started soon as the Challenge was announced…Today..Thursday before the new Challenge will be given I finished #43…Yes!! The beading...

For the water reflection I matched the flamingo's right side of fabric to the wrong side and sewed the pieces together …used fusible and then fussy cut the plants and birds ironing this to grasses on top and a under-water looking batik on the bottom plus several fish.

My stitching..fancy yarn for underwater plants, stitching around fish, birds and Plants. A couple rows of bobbin stitching with razzle- dazzle thread.  For my non traditional edge finish I used Terry Grant's zig-zag over cording… I used a wider zig-zag width and varigated thread. (I made the edges kind of wavey) I've used this method once before and I like the narrow zig-zag and solid thread.
Great finish for small art quilts!!

Update on Bubba.....

Our buddy Bubba, the subject of my Challenge 38, has passed over the Rainbow Bridge to be with the other furries we have loved in our lives. We think his cancer returned and he was declining quickly over the past 10 days. Yesterday, in the arms of his moms, we sent him on his way. He's had a good run, been loved and given boundless love in return. The quilt has been framed and hangs in a place of honor in the home he claimed as his own. Maybe now, he'll finally catch that squirrel....

In Profile

This is my contribution for the April Challenge. It is small, only 4"x8", but is packed with detail. I used an orange veggie bag, over-stitched with metallic thread for scales, and fused a sheer for the fin. All in all, this was fun. I have been out of the loop for the past few months due to a very demanding teaching schedule and this was just what I needed to get re-motivated.

California Kelp Forest

This is really the underwater piece for the March challenge. I love underwater...being part fish myself, so I posted an older underwater extravaganza while I worked on this one. I wanted to create the flow and texture of the kelp as the currents move it around. the red fish are Garabaldis that live in the kelp. I experimented on the kelp to test different methods of quilting.

Comments and critiques are very welcome because I am doing a series and want to improve.

Carol

Sea Ranch, CA

Golden Sacrifice

We've been a very sick household for the past three weeks, and I haven't even been able to make it into the studio, but I did have a piece I made some time ago that fits this challenge perfectly. The title is Golden Sacrifice, but I just call it "fish". The background is hand painted, the weeds are machine couched yarn and hand beaded. The fish is almost entirely hand done, except the fins that are machine embellished and then the shape has been burnt out of a larger piece of organza. The hardest part was the eye. I even visited the local taxidermist to get a "fish eye", but ended up going to goldwork embroidery techniques and using a tiny piece of padded kid leather.

Three Fishes

This week I've been camping in Asheville NC, and not able to make anything for this challenge. Upon returning today I realized that I have a quilt that I made a few years ago that fits this challenge, and hope you all will enjoy seeing it. I used fused applique and machine embroidered around each fish and around the seaweed. Fabrics from the William Morris collecton were used for the fish. It is really amazing to see the wonderful entries that have been posted for this challenge. Lots of talent in this group!

Under The Sea

I had so much fun doing this.

The fish on top, the sea weed, and treasure chest were machine embroidered

The other fish and the sea horse were thread painted.

The fuzzy things are beads that I made a long time ago just for fun.

Finished off with prairie points.

Challenge 43 - Tidal Pool

This piece called Tidal Pool. The finished size is about 18 inches by 15 inches.

The background is pieced to look like the sand ripples as the tide goes out. The stones are 2 layers of fabric plus batting to create a little dimension. The sea stars are needle felted and beaded to appliqué to the background.

Lisa
In Rainy, Windy Seattle

Postcard from Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles

Orange Cup Corals
5”X 7”

My original plan didn’t work out so in order to save some of the work of the cup corals, I decided to make a snapshot view of them in a postcard format for my challenge. The orange cup corals are made with water soluble stabilizer and thread with glass blobs sewn into the center. I used Peltex™ instead of batting for a more rigid basis to accommodate the extra weight of the glass blobs. Label is in postcard format.

Comments are appreciated.
Thanks,
Pam

Undersea Study

Have not had much time this week. I just read that Virginia Satir wrote "A substitute for time is focus." So here is my response to this month's challenge. A fish underwater on a background that I had started a long time ago for something else. The fish is machine appliqued, a technique I often use. However, this time I did the raw edge applique without using either fusible web or glue. I am reasonably happy with the result and like that it is not so stiff. I have free motion stitched around the fish practicing that feathery stuff using free motion zig zag. Have couched some yarns, some before the applique and some after. They look a bit dull and uninteresting to me. I probaby should have worked harder to get more width and more movement. It is not really complete needs some quilting and binding. When I have more time I might add some bobbin work coral.

Thanks very much for this challenge. It was fun to do and I learned a couple of things from the effort.

Under the Sea

This was a real challenge since the sea is far removed from Nebraska. While cleaning house on Saturday I found a book on the sea I had forgotten I owned! It's at least 20 yrs. old. I found a picture of starfish that I copied and printed onto fabric. They weren't very bright so I used Prismacolor pencils wetted to brighten them. I then found some batik that had ocean like colors to put on a border. I thread painted the background of the rocks out onto the borders to tie it all together. I also printed out the seahorse and the purple coral in the lower right corner. I used the Prismacolor pencils on those, too. I did thread painted over the stars and added pink sea urchins. The purple plant/coral in the lower right was added with thread. My great mistake was trying to thread paint white lace coral coming in from the right. It got lost in the picture. So I redid it, leaving the old underneath by using Sulky Solvy and then just taking it down to give a dimensional appearance. The plants on the left were added to give more depth to the view and a place for the seahorse to hang onto. The edge finish is one from a Sue Benner class. As mentioned by someone else, this type of edge is hard to get to lay flat. I think it works for Sue since she has so much Wunder Under in her quilts making them stiffer. This quilt is 12" x 12".

Old Souls

Old Souls measures 12"x12". The background is a hand dyed by me fabric, overlaid with cottons and organzas to suggest reefs. I added various fibers and a lot of thread painting for corals and seaweeds and the tiniest seed beads I have ever seen on the white coral on the left. A real exercise in patience! I finished this part of the quilt using the 'escape hatch' method a la Melody Johnson. Next I made the turtles, individual parts fused to fusible fleece and thread painted. I actually made 3 pairs of turtles before I got the look I was after. (anyone need some turtles...LOL)

The last step was to assemble the turtles as I appliqued them in place using white silk satin stitch.

Thanks Pam for a really fun challenge!

All comments gratefully received :-)

Cherie

Jelly Ballet

For this challange I decided to try the impossible task of duplicating jelly fish. It was quite a vhallange for sure! The background is hand painted silk. The fish are chiffon over hand dyed silk bodies with thread painted lower body on one fish and lace tenacles on the other one. The bodies are beaded with sequins for the bubbles. I wanted to show the sun rays in the water so I quilted those in. The background is quilted with more jelly fish. The tenacles are all thread painted with Superior Glitter thread. Thannk you for a great challange. All comments are more than welcome.

Pat Havey

Fun Fiber Fish

I've been busy getting ready for surgery tomorrow and the subsequent hospital stay (the important tasks, you know: preparing and packing hand-stitching work and my drawing supplies), so I won't be able to make a new piece for FFFC #43. I do have something on hand, though, that I'm submitting:

This is one of the first mixed-fiber, embellished pieces I ever made when I started working with fabric about 3 years ago. I had painted and quilted the background fabric as a way to practice both, and I hate the thought of wasting anything, so I started covering the fabric up. The piece is 9"h x 11"w.

The fish was stamped with paint onto fabric using a hand-carved stamp, stitched, then cut out as an appique and applied to the background. Beads were stitched over the fish and onto the background fabric as "bubbles."

The seawood is free-form cut fabric strips stitched down the center, and fun-fiber yarns are couched over the bottom area and through the top as seawood.

White coral (left) is made from beads stitched onto the background. Purple coral (right) is thread lace created by stitching on water-soluble stabilizer.

The jellyfish is loose strands of yarn with fabric stitched over the top to hold them down.

The edges are finished with zig-zag stitching; I think I could probably block this to get the bottom to lay straighter, but it just hangs in my craft room to make me happy.

I had done a silk painting and wasn't quite as pleased with it as I though I would be. So off to the fusing basket for the seaweed, shells and sand. Freemotion stitching covered the background and I "cheated" with fabric markers to enhance the fish. Now I'm happy!!!!!

Jane Stricker

Challenge 43 - Under the Sea

This was a great challenge! I love it when I get pushed out of my comfort zone. Although I have done many fishy quilts, I have never tried the "pillowcase" finish. I was amazed at how easy it was, and at how well it turned out.

I fused the fish down, and then did machine embroidery for the scales and texture. I used yarn with sequins and some "hairy" yarn for seaweed. I also cut some wavy strips, and fused them down, but their tops are not attached.

The fish bubbles are holographic sequins, and his eye is a copper washer and a black bead.

I will probably add some more beads, and I'm trying to think of something I can add to the fish, too.

The shape is a trapezoid, and the top measures about 18", the bottom about 16", and the height is 11"

I had so much fun doing this!

Marilyn Foulke

Louisville, KY

Five Fancy Fish

I made this quilt in 2005. I made this to fit in the space above the window in our bathroom. I have since been commissioned to make more. You can see them on my website, here. This piece is 11” h x 42” w I used fun fabrics to make the fish with drawings of fish that I found on line and in coloring books. These are not fish that were cut from fishy fabric!!! Click on the quilt to see a larger photo. There is lots of beading and embellishment with fancy threads and stitching. Here is a detail shot.

I hope you all enjoy making an undersea scene as much as I did.

Challenge #43 - Under the Sea, Threadwork, & Edge Finish

FFFC Challenge #43 –Under the Sea
March 2010
Hostess: Pam Harris

It’s time to take a trip UNDER THE SEA.

Here’s your chance to explore the mysterious and fascinating under water world, real or imaginary and the vast variety of color, shape and texture it offers. Just about anything goes so have fun exploring.

Keoki and Yuko Stender: http://www.marinelifephotography.com/
Reinhard Dirscherl: http://www.ocean-photo.com/
David Hall: http://www.seaphotos.com/


TECHNIQUES

Thread Work
Free Motion Embroidery/Thread Play
Nancy Prince: http://www.nancyprince.com/
Marilyn Nepper/Fiber Antics: http://www3.telus.net/mnepper/tutorial_thread_painting.html
Ellen Ann Eddy (Scrolldown to January 22, 2010) http://tinyurl.com/ygnblpq
Carol Taylor, Gallery/Coral Reefs: http://www.caroltaylorquilts.com/
Thread Trash
As defined by Connie Fahrion in the June/July 2008, Issue 33 page 45 of Quilting Arts Magazine: “It is that knotted, lumpy “stuff” you rip off of washed and dried fabric after it comes out of the dryer.”
Bobbin Drawing
http://www.mesew.com/bobbindrawing.html

Non-Traditional Edging: Finish your quilt with something other than the traditional binding. Here are a few suggestions:

Brenda Gael Smith/Serendipity: http://tinyurl.com/2clqht

Challenge is due April 3, noon Eastern Time Zone or whenever your schedule permits.

High Water Mark

20½" x 16"

4/22/10 - Julia was right, it wasn't quite finished. Here it is with a bit of additional work done on it, mostly on the top portion.

3/30/10
This is actually for the February challenge, just finished now, so call it a Slow FFC. I didn't really like it much until almost the final step, but it wanted to be completed, and since I haven't done the last few challenges, I felt I had to put this one up.

I began first by using Tsukineko inks and a shaving cream marbling technique to make the uneven blue, brown and green sections, then used beads to hold an irregular bunching pattern for the waves, pebble beads for the beach, and a combination of seed beads and bugle beads for the land, and the beads got me involved in sorting them so I could get the colors I wanted. I took one strand of rather funky yarn to make the high water line, and then I began to like it. I added just a few strokes with a felt pen and green ink for the final palm tree.

This is the only piece I've done that has not had a single bit of machine sewing! I'd appreciate your comments -- and now I feel free to look at everyone else's work!

Moon Song

This was my challenge quilt for Challenge #38....I know...I just never got it posted because I was away and then ill. Enough excuses...I just wanted to share it. I really enjoyed this challenge. I used metallic hand-dyes and commercial fabrics. I used trapunto and reverse applique as well as regular applique. It has angelina fibers and hand beading. Thank you so much for creating these great challenges. My goal is to do one in the one week window...Donna from Sea Ranch

Cabernet Oak Hills

This is my landscape for Challenge #42. This was a real stretch for me. I am so happy that I got it done. (Its 14" X 16") With a little encouragement from my friends I even got my "manipulated" oak tree bumps included in the composition ( see detail close up). I used some hand-dyes and some commercial fabrics that were already folded. The foothills on the way to wine country are the most beautiful shade at sunset time. Its nice to be back.

Prevent Forest Fires

Today I posted my #42 FFFC...not too fast or on scheduel..I did make it all today..my photo does

not show the "real quilt".I could not pick up the black sparkled net "smoke" over the forest fire.

We went to Florida the day before this challenge was set...I had been snow dyeing black and red

acrylic paints for another project. I did not have time to finish the snow dye before we left home ...

so..I just poured off the melted snow and let the container sit in my laundry room.

I had crinkled up the fabric before dyeing and when I checked it when we got home the fabric was crinkled

and dyed black & red.

Perfect for manipulated fabric fire!!!With fabric glue and red metalic pieces I added

little strikes of fire... and sewed on some deer in the burned forest. The top blue skies and misty &

black trees. (My second thought was to make the sky bigger and put the fire into the blue and not

streight across)Too late!! Any way I quilted vertical lines and next added the sparkled black net for

smoke...hand stitched with embrodery thread. I cut the net bigger than the top and let it puff and

pleat as I sewed it on....I can't get the smoke to show on my photo.

Curacao Landscape

11” X 15.5”

I was on a dive trip to Curacao during the challenge period so thought it appropriate that my landscape be an underwater one. One of the more famous Curacao dive sites is Mushroom Forest and that is depicted in the back with the green manipulated fabric. The green and orange manipulated fabrics are class samples from Larkin Van Horn’s embellishment class. We pushed fabric through a mess screen with chopsticks and then ironed on fusible interfacing or adhesive. The brain coral (yellow) is ruching. The dimensional orange corals and stem of the fan were made in a hoop with water soluble stabilizer and thread. Fan is painted gauze and the purple tube sponges are painted batting. Thanks Linda for a fun project.

Comments are welcome and appreciated.

Pam Harris

Flower Fields of Carlsbad

My landscape is the giant ranuncula flower fields of Carlsbad, Ca. It is 55 acres of glorious color every spring. I used this photo for inspiration (I don't know why the top two rows got cropped off the picture?). When I first decided to do this, my intentions were to do an abstract, loose interpretation, but the quilt had a mind of its own and I wound up doing a far more labor intense piece...

I painted the whole cloth base then heavily quilted it before adding any embellishments. I made more than 100 Victorian rusched flowers using a variety of silks, sheers, and even some suede cloth. They range in size from 1/2" to less than 1". Next I did hundreds of french knots, then beaded with many different types of beads and crystals. The final step was to make a second quilt sandwich using an extra loft batting and hand quilted the wavy divisions between the rows of flowers to create the dimension of the fields.

It measures 20 1/2"x 29"

This was a real challenge...

Comments most appreciated as always...thanks

Cherie

I changed the blue stripe on the top to a differnet color and gave it a cirvy shape like the other borders so it wouldn't be s0 jarring. Let me know what you think

Pat Havey

Stormy Seas

I thought for sometime about landscape possibilities, but decided I hadn't enough time to do it justice.

So, today, I dug around in my texturised fabrics from the workshop I did some time back. This grey taffeta was a part of a piece that was not textured as much as I would like. So, I pulled up some sections from the fusible interfacing it was attached to. Then sat and manipulated it by hand, pinning waves in various ways.

Then I thought. What does it look like?

Stormy Seas.

12"x12"

So I found a fabric with a ship in my stash. I found it wanted a cluster of rocks at the top. and then it wanted a lighthouse. I decided to leave the organic shape of the piece and mounted it onto black linen. Then I sandwiched it and added the silver cord which I couched down for waves. I quilted it further with waves and clouds at the top! Satin stitch round the sides and Voila a seascape!

One of the quickest pieces I have made in sometime.

Lavender field

I did a sampler of different techniques. The mountains are Vikki Pignatelli's zigzag tube method, with a fold in the centre to give the two tones. The ploughed field is texture magic, which I hated - the stitch tension was all over the place and I don't like using plastic. The hedges are ruching, one in the centre, single layer, and one at the edge, doubled. The lavender field is chenille method. I don't think I will take this any further. Batting and quilting would only flatten out the textures.

Ice field at Twilight

Here is my small piece called Ice Field at Twilight. I recognize that twilight can occur any time of day in some places . The background is a hand painted whole cloth piece. I fused a pleated and folded piece of white cotton on top and then machine quilted it, adding accents of silver on the folds. I accented the colour in the sky a bit with with a peach-y cololured chalk pastel, and did a tiny bit of the same colour on the folds of the "ice". The mountain and shore are hand dyed cotton. Over all I'm pleased with it. It is about 13" by 18"

Pat F in Winnipeg
aka fndlmous

Wildfire

Wildfire is a year old.   Made with Tissue-tex, glue and muslin.  The paper becomes wrinkly and lumpy when glued down to the muslin.  It is then dyed by painting on the various colors of dyes and allowed to dry.  I used the big piece as a background for the trees, showing the raging wild fire.

Carol tackett
Sea Ranch, California