Floating

Fast Friday Fabric Challenge 59

The topic of this month challenge is "to create a piece of fiber art that demonstrates solitude in a representational abstract model." When I think of solitude my favorite place to be alone, is on a raft floating preferably in the ocean or any other body of water. The same solitude can be found in a swimming pool.. Close your eyes and imagine:)

Size 25" by 28" 100% cotton fabric, loosely spun hand dyed yarn

Sudoku

13" X 13"

I enjoy working all sorts of puzzles so chose a Sudoku as my solitude. Fabrics are all fused, hand dyes.

Solace

When I read about this challenge, I had just returned from an Adirondack vacation. For me, solitude is peaceful, calm and comfortable. The "abstract" portion of this challenge was really hard for me. This piece is 25" x 15".

Solitude

Here it is. I think I got the solitude o.k. but abstract on purpose is still something I struggle with.

Solitude

Here's my piece for Challenge 59. When I want solitude, I either crawl into bed with a good book or go out into nature to look at birds, plants and whatever wildlife is around. The nature watching way is the best!

FINALLY! Solitude

The ultimate solitude seemed somehow appropriate to me. Seems its the only way solitude may be attained for some of us. I guess I am just in a bazaar mood or something. This piece is fused,satin stitched and quilted. What a blast!

Pat Havey

Forest Light

Part of my personal challenge is to always use what's on hand for the FFC adventure!  These are the same colors I dyed for my St. Omer Labyrinth (American Quilter, May issue, and soon to be a pattern for AQ! -- end of shameless self promotion!).  I'm doing a mystery quilt with my guild and had enough leftover to use the same colors for that quilt as well.  And the scraps were just laying on the cutting table anyway, so why not?

I love walking in the forest and every once in a while, a solitary beam of sunshine will peak thru the canopy of trees.  It's always a magic moment!  As I read the challenge that was my very first thought!  So then how to depict it?  I just used the leftover 1" strips from the piped binding.  I wanted it subtle and abstract... and I'm happy with the results!

Click on the pic to enlarge and see the sunbeam quilting.  It's a little one... 6.5 x 17.5."  Thanks for a great challenge, Ann!  Comments, of course, are welcome!

Fallen Leaf

My inspiration, a fallen leaf. The wind blows and a leaf falls from the tree and into the water below. It stays there floating alone and in peaceful quietness.

The quilt is 14"X14". The leaf is real, found one day while at Laguna Beach, CA. It was a brown, dry, dead leaf. I painted it to look more like an Autumn Leaf, then coated it with a hardener. I chose the background fabric, because of the shadows from overhanging branches. There is another piece the shape of the leaf to act as a shadow underneath the leaf.

SOLITARY BEACON

This is a lighthouse I took a photo of in Newfoundland. It is actually red and white, diagonally striped (like a giant barber pole). I used a black suede cloth and a fabric that looks like shiny leather for the stripes. The 'light' is a holographic fabric. The background is a piece I Mandala folded and dyed in a bucket with other fabrics Parfait style. The light 'rays' are stitched with holo-gold thread. All pieces are satin stitched in black.

This piece measures 29 1/2"x39 1/2"

Fun challenge Ann !

Cherie

Your comments are appreciated as always

Lost in the Music

I haven't been able to participate in the last two or three challenges. When I saw this one come up Friday I felt that I just had to make time for this one.

The photograph of my granddaughter was taken in a low light setting and it looks as if she were outlined two or three times. I tried to capture the solitude of a performer on stage or an athlete getting ready to compete.

The size is 22"x27" and is not quilted, that will have to wait. I am writing more details on my blog tonight, I hope. Any comments would be appreciated. I hope I
captured the representational/abstract that I was aiming for.

I had quite a few people ask me to post this piece again when I finished the quilting. I decided to echo around the figure giving it the illusion of movement.

Closeup of "Lost in the Music".

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

Challenge 59 - Solitude

July 2011 Challenge 59 – Solitude Host: Ann Turley Due: July 30^th noon ET

What comes to mind when you hear the word “solitude”? Do you think of the state of being alone, yet not really lonely? Solitude and loneliness are often thought of as being similar, yet there is a definite difference. Loneliness is accompanied by a sense of isolation and separation, and a feeling that something is missing. Solitude is a state of being alone without being lonely. It is a desirable state, one that can be used as a time of reflection and personal growth or enjoyment. A great example is reading, a very solitary activity. And for our own purposes here at Fast Friday, when we engage in the creative process of developing an idea, we work in happy solitude. I’ve included a link to an article from “Psychology Today” that I found to be useful in writing this month’s challenge: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/what-is-solitude

Your challenge is to create a piece of fiber art that demonstrates solitude in a representational abstract manner.

Representational Abstraction portrays objects that have been "abstracted" (taken) from nature. Although what you see may not look realistic, it is close enough that you can at least, get an idea of what you are looking at. Picasso’s paintings of women immediately come to mind. Here is a link to one of his “Weeping Women”: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/picasso/education/ed_JTE_WWS.html

For comparison, “pure” abstraction bears no resemblance to reality – Jackson Pollock’s work for example: http://www.kaliweb.com/jacksonpollock/art.htm

For more on representational abstraction visit this website:

http://a-1-paintings.blogspot.com/2005/03/representational-abstract-art.html

A few images that depict solitude:

http://tinyurl.com/43p26gy

http://www.lodestar2.com/people/lyork/gallery/inukshuk_solitude.html

http://tinyurl.com/3swcdfz This is Kathy McNeil’s “Natural Wonders”, best of show at Road to California 2011.

http://www.janesquilts.com/gallery_pub_ex_pages/gallery_lg_solitude_ex.htm Jane E. Hamilton, part of a traveling exhibit called “Tactile Architecture”.

http://tinyurl.com/43upyxq

How will you take your idea for Solitude and portray it in representational abstraction?

The only requirements here are to have fun, and not over think this!

Ann Turley

Reliquary Box or the Slow Friday Fabric Challenge

In 2009, the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network of greater Dayton hosted a challenge to design quilts based on Celtic works, particularly the Book of Kells. The Centerville/Washington library owns a facsimile copy of the Book of Kells and as a part of the celebration of the donation of the book, we did pieces either drawn from the Book of Kells or Celtic imagery.

At the time, I did quite a bit of research and found that the Book of Kells had been carried into battle, a monk carrying it, holding it high in a special box which had been made for it.

During the middle ages, boxes which held sacred artifacts, such as bits of the true cross, saint's bones, or sacred texts were kept in special boxes called reliquaries. I pictured some of on display at the Cloisters in New York on my blog,

When this challenge came up, I decided now was the time to give this concept of making a reliquary box to hold a fiber version of the Magnificat. How hard could it be? I was particularly interested as I wanted to make a fully three dimensional piece of work. (the first two pictures here are of enameled reliquaries of the type I was interested in.)

Monymusk Reliquary

I was particularly taken by the Monymusk Reliquary which you see here. Although fairly simple, I loved the shape. You can read more about the Monymusk reliquary here.

I have to say, that although my idea didn't work very well..I learned a lot. It did require me to do some thinking as to how to accomplish this and in some cases my way was the hard way.

You can see that my general shape is ok..but the "flappy" parts just below the handles are too small.

I created this by taking a piece of Peltex, laying a piece of batting over the top of it and then a piece of fabric. Since I didn't have the gold I wanted, I just took a piece of fabric I had and didn't like and used that. I quilted the general shapes, then painted the whole thing with Jaquard metallic paints.

On the two side panels, I painted the images, sort of icons, directly on the sides of the box. I then quilted around the rough shapes so that they would look a little like enameled images. Within the circles I glued pendants and buttons with the shanks cut off to look like the embossed bits on the Monymusk reliquary.

Each of the pieces were done free hand and individually. Life was made more interesting because my Bernina 440 decided that the upper tension was going to be TIGHT and even though I had it set at the lowest tension, it was still pulling the bobbin thread up to the top when I was doing satin stitching. Shredding the metallic thread was also an issue (shredding was happening in the upper tension discs).

The images of Mary are mine but I developed them from medieval examples. These were painted with Jaquard paints as well.

On the bottom edge, I used a piece of Tyvek which I had painted gold, stitched over, melted, then ironed it. I was trying to go for some of the wonderful work that Jan Beaney and others do which look like antiqued and distressed pieces. I love the richness and the texture. Only...it's as lot harder to do than they make it sound...I'm going to have to play with this more to get the look I intended. I thought that the stitching would help guide the melting...NOT.

The ends (here you see the annunciation) were quilted first, then painted, then I painted the images on pieces of Cindy Walter's stabilized fabrics. I then quilted them over batting and then satin stitched them to the ends.

This one, I goofed on. My hands are so numb from the chemo that I couldn't feel that I was painting on the paper side, NOT the fabric side. I discovered this when I soaked the piece in order to remove the paper and started to remove the image. Ooops...so I quickly dried it off, cut the image into an oval, quilted it and stitched it on.

I then used a very wide zigzag stitch to connect all my bits and pieces together. I'm not sure I'd do it this way again....in fact, I'm not sure I'd do this again. At least I tried it. The only other thing I was thinking about was rendering one of my niece's photos of Iona...only Iona is a Scottish Island, Not an Irish one. :(

Sorry guys...hopefully the next one will be done much more quickly than this one...believe me...I had NOOOOOOO idea.

Circle of Life

This is coming very, very late, but I feel better late than never and I got it in before the next challenge. Barely! This Thistle goes from new born bud to one that has lived out it's life, ergo "Cirlce of Life". The Thistle is Scotland's national flower. The noble plant is the namesake of Scotland's ancient order of chivalry known as "The Order of the Thistle". I thoroughly enjoyed doing this quilt and yes each petal was sewn down individually.

FIVE FOLD TREE OF LIFE

I got so drawn in to the whole Celtic idea that I combined a few different symbols for my Five Fold Tree of Life. The Five Fold Symbol has many interpretations. " Druids hinted of an all-encompassing illumination when the five aspects of nature were balanced within human understanding"....the one I chose to present is Seasons: the Four being Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, and the Fifth element is Transitioning (the center circle). I used a Tree of life 'transitioning' from season to season, the roots of the trees represented by the Celtic knot twined in the center.

I drew the full size pattern on parchment paper then layered my batting, white silk dupioni and pinned the pattern on top. I stitched all the trees with black thread, and the Celtic Knot with gold holo thread, and the circles with silver holo. It took me 8 hours, a pair of tweezers, and LOTS of patience to get all the paper out LOL.

I painted the trees using Dyna Flo and Inktense Pencils. The flowers and leaves are all made from various painted mixed media...Lutradur, paper fabric etc. Every flower and leaf was fussy cut and stitched on the trees one at a time. The knot is painted in gold metallic. Quilted with white silk thread.

25" x 25"

Thanks Pam for a great challenge!

Cherie

As always, your comments and suggestions are appreciated

Irish Words

Irish Words


This quilt is made up of Irish quotes, sayings and slang. The flower I found under Irish flowers ( sorry I do not have a name) the . It grows low to the ground and than the bloom pops up a bit like a crownf. The flower was fused on to the quilt and thread painted. I add a few beads and some dried foliage for effects. The Irish words were hand printed with a fabric marker. Machine quilting brought it together. Size is 24 inches by 24 inches.

I was apprehensive about the Irish theme in June. Being a free spirit I went into create mode. It was great fun looking everything up. There is is even a quote from Sandra Bullock and one from Gregory Peck. I totally enjoyed this challenge. I have never been to Ireland, however my Great Grandfather was born there.:)
SusanPI Ward
Quilting in Kentucky
http://artquiltssusanpi.blogspot.com/

Celtic Knot

Here is my piece for the Celtic Quilt challenge. It's about 14" x 14". I've always been fascinated by Celtic knots, so I was happy to have this chance to study one closely enough to replicate it. I'd thought I might be able to do this with bias tape, but soon learned that wasn't possible, so I cut out and fused the pieces to the background. The knot pattern was hard to see in the dark fabric, so I decided to quilt the outline in light lavender thread (Lots of starts and stops!). I've quilted in the ditch of the border, but I think I might try to do a small Celtic motif in each corner before I bind it. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to put this fun little piece together!

Sharon

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

Shamrocks

18" X 18"

Since I have done several Celtic pieces, I went with the Irish portion of the challenge using Notan/Expanding the Square, a Japanese design concept using positive and negative space. Background fabric is snow dyed and the dark is commercial.

Thanks Pam for the fun challenge. Comments appreciated.

Pam

Celtic - Standing Stones

Standing Stones is 23" x 18".  This piece started out as a tie-dyed piece of fabric to which I added some acrylic paint.  Commercial fabrics were used for the stones and foreground.  While many people will think of Stonehenge, there are also standing stones in Ireland. The stones in Ireland are generally not in as good a shape as they have fallen over and some are partially buried.  This is how they may have looked once upon a time.

Talleulah Finds Her Pot of Gold

This challenge theme had me stymied until I met a few fellow FFFC'ers last weekend. Cherie Brown and Kathy Brannock threw out a few suggestions that caused the lightbulb to come on. I have been making projects over the past few months with the overall theme of "Talleulah Dreams". Talleulah is a bit of an odd bird, always wearing goggles and a cap just in case something exciting happens. She often has at least two friends nearby who are her support system, friends who would stick by her side no matter how odd Talleulah's dreams are. I have made many Talleulah quilts with several different adventures, so when the idea of a pot of gold was mentioned, I knew exactly where Talleulah fit in. My quilt is 18"x24", the egg is stabilized lame, the grass is attached so that it will wave in the breeze. Any and all comments, no matter how odd, are always welcome!

Green Ireland

To me, as I recall my trip to Ireland I remember green, green, green, rain, rain, rain and celtic ruins. So I chose a green background with a celtic knot butterfly and triskel designs on the border as quilting. This is a small quilt l8x20". Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Pat Havey

Celtic Knot

Last week, our guild hosted Cathy Miller "The Singing Quilter" for a concert and a class. Cathy and I have been friends for years... she and husband John Bunge stay with me when they are in the southwest.

We did her Mock Mola class, a very slick way of doing raw edge reverse applique. So I grabbed a piece of my hand dyes and off I went. After much rumination about what design to use (I had 5 lined up), and after reading our challenge, I decided on the celtic knot. I learned a lot and I think I would use a zig zag stitch to do the initial design and make the lines more stable... but overall, it was a great class and we had a blast with all of the possibilities!
And it's reversible! The colors didnt show as well on this shot, but you get the idea! Comments of course are welcome, and thanks, Pam, for a fun challenge that refreshed my love of celtic knots!

Stencilella

I decided to make an Irish Quilting Fairy Godmother.
She is paper pieced. I got the pattern from www.paperpanache.com She has free mystery pattens frequently and this month it was create your own quilting godmother. She had six sets of words and we have to pick one from each set. There is no way of knowing what she looks like until it is sewn.
It was machine quilted and the celtic design in the border was part of the quilting.

15-1/4" x 18-1/2"

Big Blue Stem

Very late, but completed.  :)  When I looked at Andy Goldsworthy's works, one of the things which struck me is that while he used natural items, he usually had a focal point which was maybe related to a natural color, but kicked up several notches.  Gold boulders, outsized natural elements, REALLY red leaves, REALLY green leaves...

So, I decided to do a native prairie grass I grow in my yard which is called "Big Bluestem"  (Andropogon gerardii) and make it really blue.  I assure you, mine is a blue colored stem..but this is more blue than in nature!. 

I think I hit the rhythm requirement pretty well, both in the seed heads and in the leaves.  the other requirement was "to create an exciting background".  For this, I painted the background cloth ins shades of green.  I took some deli papers I bought and wanted to try and painted them with a thin coat of Quinacridone / Nickel Azo Gold mixed with Hansa yellow and transparent yellow oxide.   I tore the pieces into strips once they were dry and attached them to the fabric using Matte medium.  I felt that the back ground should probably have been lighter as once the yarns were added for the seed heads, I didn't think that they contrasted enough with the back ground.  You can see an OK shot of it just on the background on Maria Elkin's blog here.

In order to brighten it and make it pop, I added the orangy-gold border.  I then took some King Tut variagated thread and did a wiggly line first one direction and then another over the background to give it more interest and hopefully lighten it a bit.

I then quilted the border in triangles which were quilted in first one direction, then the opposite.  Overall, the piece is equally quilted.  I'm not really pleased with the wavy border...but then I didn't have time to block it either...The background is backed with Decor Bond which makes it lay nice and flat and is great for stabilizing the yarns I couched down as well as the thread painting I did on the stems and leaves of the plant.  I don't like, however, how it doesn't seem possible to get any loft in the piece once you use the Decor bond.   I would have liked to have had the plants stand out a bit more from the background.  As I did the threadwork before I quilted and only outlined quilted those parts, it should have stood out a little...(I used warm and natural for a batting).

My blurry vision and lack of feeling in my hands made the execution of this piece much more lengthy as well as difficult.  I had to rip out the quilting along the border a couple of times...the fact that my Bernina is having tension issues didn't help.  Off it goes to the shop (AGAIN!) I can't figure out how even when the upper tension is set at "0" it is still tight enough to pop the bobbin thread up. My picutres aren't the sharpest in the world either because again of my vision.  Profuse apologies!

I had intended to enter this in the Marianist Environmental Education Center's show in Dayton which is closing this weekend, but I finished one of my entries, just not this one in time.  So, I took it down to the Dayton Visual Art Center member's show (Dayton, OH), today...at least it is going somewhere!

This was one of those times when I said to myself "Boy, life would sure be easier if you'd stick to painting....you'd be done by now and you'd have more of a choice to lighten the background!!!."  Sigh.  I do like the texture though!

Finished size:  20 1/4" h x 24" wide.

As always, comments/suggestions / thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Challenge 58 - Celtic Quilts

Fast Friday Fabric Challenge #58 – Celtic Quilts Host Pam Clark

Top o’ the mornin’ to all of you. Put your Irish thinking caps on and choose any subject matter, but put an Irish spin on it. You can go with Celtic designs or Irish chains or create an Irish scene. You can finish your project off with a Celtic chain border, or use a Celtic design as the focal point, or you could include the Irish chain pattern as part of your quilt. Regretfully, I’m going to be late finishing my own challenge, since I will be out of town from June 18 – 27^th and my sister from Portland will be spending the week of June 28-July 2 with me. I hope you all have fun with this topic. I know it’s not the month of March and St. Patrick’s day, but I’m an Irish descendent, and I know that there are lots of Irish symbols that can be integrated into your quilts somehow. Irish art and folklore offers a lot of springboards for ideas. If you Google Irish quilts or Irish art or Celtic Quilts, you will get lots of hits. Below are several links that might give you ideas. May the’ luck o’ the Irish’ be with you in this challenge.

http://www.quiltersmuse.com/Irish_quilts.htm

http://www.irishquilting.ie/Irish_Quilting/home.html

http://www.amishcountrylanes.com/Pages/hs1685.shtml

http://tinyurl.com/6f76qmf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triquetra#Celtic_art

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7665648@N04/4270396918/ (This is a picture of Jaynette Huff’s “Mantle” using Celtic designs around the fire place and in the borders.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7665648@N04/4270385108/in/photostream/

This quilt uses Celtic designs as space filler in the corners.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7665648@N04/4266872759/in/photostream/

This quilt uses an Irish chain motif across the bottom as a space filler.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/martingaleandcompany/4011724787/in/photostream/

This quilt also uses Celtic designs as space fillers around the flower arrangement.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/martingaleandcompany/3859987152/in/photostream/

Irish chain quilt

http://www.flickr.com/photos/martingaleandcompany/3859987152/in/photostream/

http://tinyurl.com/6ky6dg3

http://www.quilt.com/Blocks/IrishChain/IrishChain.html

http://www.womenfolk.com/quilt_pattern_history/irishchain.htm

http://www.5min.com/Video/Irish-Chain-Patch-Quilt-Block-100310655

http://tinyurl.com/6kgk6n6

http://tinyurl.com/6h28uzg

http://seeinside.doverpublications.com/dover/0486237966

http://www.doverpublications.com/zb/samples/991113/art72.htm (look at the different samples)

http://seeinside.doverpublications.com/dover/0486991091 (vector motifs)

http://seeinside.doverpublications.com/dover/048699953X

Celtic Alphabets

http://seeinside.doverpublications.com/dover/0486995151

The link above is excellent. It lets you go page by page through several pages of Celtic designs.

http://seeinside.doverpublications.com/dover/0486997995

http://seeinside.doverpublications.com/dover/0486995917

http://seeinside.doverpublications.com/dover/0486289869

http://tinyurl.com/6cls8f7

http://tinyurl.com/6ex4m6d

http://www.ancient-symbols.com/irish-symbols.html

http://www.whats-your-sign.com/celtic-symbols.html

http://symboldictionary.net/?page_id=3

http://www.scarlettrose.com/celtic_quilt_patterns.html

http://www.scarlettrose.com/celtic_quilt_patterns_2.html

http://www.celticquilts.com/gallery.html

http://www.clanbadge.com/craft.htm

(Be sure to page all the way down. There are numerous examples of Celtic designs.

Louise Page

I am about a week late, but I have completed the latest challenge for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge group. This month the task was to create a piece in the Art Deco/Art Noveau style. I was excited about doing this as I had purchased some books from Dover dealing with this subject matter. I had perused them many times, but had not gotten around to using the designs for a project. That coupled with the fact that I am determined to use up some of my fabric stash, led me to creating a slightly Asian style Art Deco work.

I began by drawing my own Art Deco pattern after looking at some of the shapes used in that style of art. I then ironed fusible web to the back of the butterfly batik panel and cut out a circle shape. Then I drew the cutting lines on the piece and cut it into sections. I kept some of the sections and discarded the others. I cut out a black circle a couple of inches larger than the batik circle, layed the batik sections on the circle and fused them. I added a few of the discarded sections in order to create more interest in the piece. After this, I stitched the sections down, added some quilting around the flowers and leaves, and then quilted the black background. I used a varigated King Tut thread by Superior to stitch a decorative motif around each section to lift them of the background more. I finished the outside of the circle with the same thread, but a different motif. I then added piping around the edge to finish it off. I am disappointed because the circle is not perfect, but am not willing to pull the piping off at this point.

This is the first quilted piece which I have sewn on my Janome 7700, and must say that I am very impressed by this machine and the free motion quilting capability which it has. I loved my Viking Designer 1, but this machine is light years ahead of it in this area. A lot of improvements have been made in the last nine years (I bought the Designer 1 in 2002) and I am just beginning to experience some of the strides which have been made. What a blessing this machine is going to be!

I named it 'DONE'

I started this little piece last spring. Then I had a series of medical interruptions. It was started for a Fast Friday Fabric Challenge titled, Art Deco. I think my original design hit the mark. All I intended to do was stitch in the ditch so the design popped. 

Pieced Design

However, I could NOT get the tension adjusted on my machine. The more I stitched, the more out of whack it got. I had lost a LOT of my incentive for finishing this. Yet, it was something practical I really wanted to finish.

After marking a bunch of circles flowing across the design, I stitched those several times around using white thread until I felt they stood out enough to make the design show. It was rather subtle. Next, I picked out a thread color that is in my wall. Then I really stitched it within an inch of its' life. Now the real FUN began. I took out my buttons. No real whites, so I used these small off white ones. I really wanted gray and purple. I had bought a set of purple buttons and also some tiny gray ones. I needed something that would POP. Like any good Artist, I looked in my closet for buttons that would work for this quilt. I absolutely love the steel gray ones. I rarely wore the wool jacket. Now I have more wool for wool stash. I found a few more purple ones on a sweater I never wear. That will be re-purposed later.

Completed Design

I laid my buttons out on my design; then I fiddled for hours. I held them in place with the yellow headed pins. I liked the accent, so decided to use white embroidery floss on all of the buttons. I actually only had to take off one button that didn't work out. That amazed me. This is my first time using buttons as a design element. Attaching them took 2 days because I had to pull the large needle through with pliers. The tiny gray ones required a small needle, so I just went through several times.

Finished Design in Situ

Am I hooked on buttons? Not sure. I think each quilt will have to speak to me and tell me what to do, just as this one did.

Challenge 57, Pam Clark

While researching Art Deco, I came across a stained glass window that I used as my inspiration for this quilt. The black, lavender, green and gold fabric I found in my stash had an Art Deco feel to it and I used it for my color scheme. I learned a lot about Art Deco from doing this challenge. Thank for inspiring us to research different art styles. I used both piecing and appliqué in this piece. It measures 13 x 19"

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