AQATW - Kitsch

The latest challenge for my Art Quilts Around the World quilt group was called "Kitsch".
I had great ideas for this, but I'm not certain the final product meets my original expectations. I ended up making a cute little peacock quilt:

I have a friend who makes fairy wings (On Gossamer Wings is the name of her company) and in the process of making the wings she ends up with piles of little glittered circles. She has collected these for me, which I in turn used to create the tail of my peacock: 

I wish that I had centered the body of the bird and moved it more towards the bottom of the quilt. I had quilted the background before I started adding the circles and when I finished the tail, I determined that the bottom just seemed blah, so I added some cut out flowers around the feet. Here is a shot of the tail in progress: 

The body is made of velvet and I used a couple of circles combined to make the eye: 

Oh, and I now recall that I don't want to work with glitter again because it ended up ALL OVER the studio and in the crevices of my sewing machine. 

Structure - Golden Gate Bridge

The Art Quilts Around the World challenge this round was "Structure".

This could be so many different things, but I immediately thought about architectural structures (although I did briefly toy with an idea of rock structures found in nature).

I landed on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. When I lived there, I always enjoyed driving across that bridge and even made a walk across it once. During that walk I took some great shots of the framework of the bridge, and that became the impetus for my piece:

I decided that I would do a white border (although I'm not thrilled with the actual binding) to hark back to the old school pictures that would have white borders around them. I didn't do a lot of quilting on this piece as I really wanted the fabric to speak for itself (and trust me this sky around San Francisco will look very similar to this). Other than the binding, I couldn't be happier with this....and in creating this, it gave me some ideas on how to translate photographs into quilts.

Every one of these challenges is an opportunity for me to learn something new and to add to my repertoire....bring on the next challenge!

The Three Rs Quilts

I have been participating in the Art Quilts Around the World, quilt challenge for a while now. The latest was "The Three Rs...Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and the only rules (aside from staying within the size range) was that we were not to purchase anything new for the creation of these quilts. I immediately knew what I was going to use for my quilt....I have been doing a lot of fusible web stuff lately and really enjoy it and always end up with bits and pieces of fused fabric left over that I have just been tossing into a box. I decided that I would pull all of that out and and figure out a use for it. I then came across a picture in a recycling ad of a swirly tree with its limbs all ending in what can be recycled and the importance, blah blah. Well, I decided that I wanted to make a tree. This is what I ended up with: 

As I was working on it, it felt a little Dr. Seussian to me...but I loved it.

Then, sadly, I quilted it....

This is with the quilting and the binding. I am very disappointed in both of those.  I wanted to do a bunch of free motion quilting, but need to practice a lot more on that. Ah well, I learn with each challenge. 

This is the backing. I used a wallhanging that I made for my friend Sara's nursery...or rather, I used the first attempt at the wall hanging. I wasn't happy with the placement on the fabric after I had fused it all down and decided to make a second version....which is what she received. However, since this was the reduce, reuse, and recycle challenge, I figured I would go ahead and use it. The binding is also a bit that I had left over from some other quilt and you will notice that the bobbin thread on the backside is all different shades, that is because I used up a whole bunch of bobbins that were partially filled with different colors (nice thing about that is now I have a bunch of empty bobbins that I can prefill in preparation for my next big quilt rather than just having a single or couple of bobbins that I have to repeatedly stop and refill. 

As I look at this more, I may take the binding off and redo it...if I get done with the next challenge early...

This was a great challenge for me and I really enjoyed it. I've always wanted to attempt doing a "snippet" picture and this was my first foray into that but it won't be my last....I'm thinking about just covering a whole bunch of fabric with fusible and then see what moves me... 

AQATW Challenge - Song Title

I have been participating in an online art quilt challenge for about a year now and today is the reveal of our latest work. The challenge was to create a quilt based off of the title of a song. For a long time I've had Adele's song "Set Fire to the Rain" going through my head, but  just couldn't figure out how to create that idea into fabric. 

I then saw a really cute baby quilt that had a fish blowing bubbles and I thought "Tiny Bubbles" by Don Ho. But then I was like "nah, that really doesn't appeal to me". But I still wanted to do something with water.

About this time we were getting a fair amount of rain, which took me back to my initial thought of "Rain". Suddenly, I had a brainstorm (no pun intended) and came up with "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head". And this is what I came up with:

I have to say that even though the song is fairly depressing, this quilt just makes me smile. Here are some close ups:

And while I don't currently have any green in my hair, it does frizz like that when it rains!

Quilt Challenge - Macro

The latest challenge for the group Art Quilts Around the World was the word "Macro" from which we were to create a small quilt. The member who put forth this challenge referenced "macro" as close up photography, which gave it a new meaning for me as I always thought of macro as a little mini-program that is written within a piece of software that is used to perform some function.

With the idea of close-up photography, I had two thoughts run through my head, both of which centered around my sweet puppy Leo. At the time that the challenge was set, I was in the process of getting him tested to try and determine why he continues to have upper respiratory problems and one of the things that the vets recommended was that he had some issue with the cilia in his lungs. I did a Google search for photos of cilia and found a number that could have been translated into a quilt:

I opted against these because 1. I imagined having to get a feather boa involved and not sure that would really represent the direction that I want to take my art and 2. these photos are more of microscopic photography and didn't really fall into the meaning of macro photography.  

So, I opted to go with my second thought, which was to take a close up picture of my sweet Leo's nose and go from there. The only problem is getting him to sit still so that I can actually get a good picture of him because every time I pull out the camera he is nosing right into it and sniffing. I ended up taking this picture of him:

and zooming in to get the section of the nose that I wanted to focus on:

and ended up creating this quilt:

You will notice, perhaps, that the image is reversed on the quilt from the picture. That would be because I'm still trying to figure out how to make all of that work right, but I'm getting there. I really enjoyed doing this quilt and I have introduced myself to the joys of thread painting, or at least my version of thread painting. Every one of these challenges is making me a better artist as they force me to move well beyond the comfort of squares and triangles that I use in my normal bed quilting world. I still have a long way to go, but I'm loving every step of the journey.

And just for good measure, here is a shot of Leo watching over my studio while I work:

 

Road Less Traveled



This month for Art Quilts Around the World (AQAW), we were challenged with coming up with a quilt that represented "The Road Less Traveled". Here is what I came up with:

When we were first given the challenge topic, I immediately knew that I wanted to do a Mariner's Compass and I was originally going to add some song lyrics that reflect traveling on a road (e.g., Long and Winding Road, On the Road Again, Highway to Hell, etc.). However, I attended a retreat at my church to kickoff a nine month small group that I am facilitating that discusses our spiritual journey. As part of that, we discussed a Rumi poem:

Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving
It does not matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times
Come, yet again, come. 

After reading and discussing this poem, I decided that I wanted to include those words on my quilt.

I really enjoyed this topic. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and for the most part, I think I achieved it. It is far from perfect, but I'm happy with the outcome. I was challenged to find a simple Mariner's Compass that would fit on the size that we work with, and as you can see, I didn't quite make it, however, I'm okay with that as I like the look of how two of the points are chopped off allowing for the idea that it goes beyond the page (I tried to back the compass and thought of having two points extend beyond the actual quilt, but it didn't turn out the way that I imagined, and I ended up removing the backing and going with this). I also hadn't intended to go with a black and white and sepia quilt, but when I started pulling fabrics, this is just what I saw...sort of like an ancient map. Getting the actual compass onto the backing...well that was a challenge. I ended up using my go to material (Wonder Under), but it wasn't as neat as I wanted it to be especially when working with all the added seams on the back of the compass. I'm also not overly thrilled with my wording on the quilt. I used the alphabet that comes with my machine and while I really like the idea, the execution isn't to my liking....for one thing, I didn't put in lines first on which to follow and therefore the text isn't spaced well and it went all wonky. Lastly, I don't like to bind quilts, primarily because I'm lazy and which is why I have a number of quilts sitting in my studio sitting there finished except for the binding. But, I really don't like binding quilts this size because I worry that it can overwhelm the quilt, however, for some reason I felt strongly that this one required a binding, a stopping point, and I'm happy with the final look.

All in all, I'm very happy with how this one turned out. I learned quite a bit about myself in working with this one, so yay me!! 

I am participating in a quilt challenge from Art Quilts Around the World and today I reveal my latest work.

When we were given the challenge of "Out of Asia", I had no idea what I was going to do. Soon there after, though, I was sitting listening to a speaker talk about spring and the trees blossoming, which made me think of a trip that I had made to Washington, D.C. for the Cherry Blossom Festival, and I immediately sketched out what I wanted to do.

I originally planned to figure out how to make origami fabric cherry blossoms, but after a couple of attempts I decided that it just wasn't for me. This got me discouraged and I started thinking about other things that would be considered "out of Asia". I thought about doing a rendition of a Buddha, as I am also learning some about Buddhism and meditation. I thought at one point as I looked at the oil seeping out of the wrecked Arizona at Pearl Harbor that I would do some abstract play on the idea of the oil slick and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but I quickly set that idea aside as my previous quilt had been oil-slick-esque. I then started doing some research on Japanese beetles and thought doing a big beetle would be an interesting take.

Sadly, time was passing and I still hadn't made up my mind what exactly I was going to do. That is until one day as I was walking through the halls of the office building where I work and I came upon a picture of a cherry tree in full bloom with Mount Fuji in the background. Now, I have passed this picture hundreds of times, so I'm sure the image was planted somewhere in by subconscious, but when I saw it this time I knew that it was meant to be....whether I did origami cherry blossoms or not.

Therefore, here is my abstract of Mount Fuji with Cherry Blossoms:

I broke down and used silk flowers and a hot glue gun, but I still like the effect.

And, now on to the next challenge....I really need to just stick with my first thought as I seem to keep going back to what pops into my head when we first get the challenge.

Quilts Challenge - Carnival

So, I finished the second challenge from Art Quilts Around the World. This time the challenge word was "Carnival". When I first thought about 'carnival', I thought of Carnival in Rio or Venice or even Mardi Gras. I had my first thought for a design and then decided that I needed to do a little more thinking. So, I did an image search for Carnival and found a number of different pictures of masks and parades that I thought I would try and use. Here are some of the examples:

I then started thinking about other types of carnivals and came onto traveling carnivals, carnies, and carnival games:

So, carnival games led me to think about the movie Big and the traveling carnival that the family went to at the beginning of the movie and thought that I would do a Zoltar quilt...but then thought about other freaks and geeks associated with carnivals:

But, then I ended up just going back to my original thought... A wilted feather in a puddle of oil at the end of the carnival parade....


Full Quilt with Mardi Gras bead sewn into the border.



Close up of the feather and the quilting

What I learned from this challenge is that I really want to work more on my quilting. I've done long arm quilting in the past on much larger pieces and that was so much easier than working on a smaller piece and controlling it all. The other thing I have learned is that I'm not a big fan of doing hand work. I had to hand sew the beads around the edge and I do not have the hand-eye coordination to thread a needle.

Picture Challenge - January 30

So, as I mentioned previously, I went to Sprouts the other day to purchase some produce and where I got the yummy candy crack. 

While there, I purchased some squashes (acorn and butternut) as well some sweet potatoes. I got the sweet potatoes to make some YUMMY  sweet potato, corn, ham chowder, which I have been eating on all week. This is NOT a picture of MY chowder, but is very similar. 

As I stated, I also bought acorn and butternut squash, which I have no idea what to do with, and some pearl onions and zucchini squash. What I am thinking about doing is figure out how to clean the squash, cut it up in chucks, and throw it into a dish with the pearl onions, olive oil, salt and pepper and roast them... Thoughts?

Picture Challenge - January 29

This is my nephew, Colin, preparing to swim the 1000 free. He is a freshman in high school and an amazing swimmer. This past weekend he was in a UIL meet where his relay team, with him, took first and broke the school record by 5 seconds. I'm not a swimmer myself, but from what I understand that is a pretty amazing feat. We are all so very proud and amazed by this kid.

Picture Challenge - January 28

These salt and pepper shaker showed up in my Amazon recommendations today, along with a whole slew of other unicorn stuff. Part of me really wishes that I was a unicorn person, just so I could take advantage of all these wonderful things, alas, I am not....Perhaps I need to just tuck these away in case I need to give them to some unicorn lover in the future. 

Picture Challenge - January 27

Damn You, Sara!! Chocolate Covered Honeycomb was a treat that we had last week at the Bachelorette party. I stopped at Sprouts today and picked some up for myself. This stuff is like candy crack and I'm a full on addict..... Damn You, Sara!! 

Picture Challenge - January 26

I had the chance to go to the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo with my folks today. It has become a family tradition to go to the rodeo with the whole family for as long as I can remember. We typically wander through the exhibit hall and then some of the barns before heading to the actual rodeo. Last year, Sara joined me as my folks were not able to make it and she used one of their tickets. This year, my sister and her family weren't able to make it due to Kathleen being in school down in Austin and Colin being at a swim meet. One thing that struck me this year was that there was a female bull rider, she didn't make it the full 8 seconds, but she did have sparkly pink chaps on and only got stepped on by the bull...twice. I really missed making it to this annual event with the family when I was out in California. Hopefully next year we'll be able to have more of the family around for the show. 

Picture Challenge - January 25

So, today I got to play the role of Plumber. The chain on the plunger thingy broke on my guest room toilet this past weekend while Sam was here. I decided I needed to fix it before I have Laura and Ash here next weekend. I might just quit my current job and take up plumbing as a permanent profession....if there wasn't so much ickiness involved. 

Picture Challenge - January 24

I figure since I'm way behind on posting pictures and will probably NOT make up for it, so we'll just throw out this picture of Leo...you know because I haven't posted one of him recently....

Picture Challenge - January 20

The goal today is to hike to the top of Enchanted Rock. Whenever my folks would visit the Hill Country they would always make this a regular stop on their travels and then hike to the top of "The Rock". I went with them one time about 17 years ago and want to experience it again. Fingers crossed that I'll actually be able to make it to the top. 

Picture Challenge - January 19

This is a picture of Sara from 2008 on the first wine tour that we did together. That time we were in California and had started with a quick trip through Muir Woods and then on up to Sonoma, Russian River Valley, and Napa. This was at Hop Kiln Winery.

Later in the day, we ended up at a place catering to small, boutique wineries and Sam and Sara ended up really enjoying themselves with the wine pourer guy...Don't Worry, Be Happy....

We ended the touring at some other winery, Valley of the Moon, but by this time the moon was starting to appear in the later afternoon sky and somehow, so did Sara's... Okay, so she didn't actually moon us, but she was as happy as the Man in the Moon.

Today, the three of us, along with five other lovely ladies, are once again touring wineries. This time, though we are in the hill country of Texas...which should be a completely new experience!!

Picture Challange - January 18

Today we head to the Texas Hill Country and Fredericksburg, TX to properly fete Sara and to see her off into marriage. 

Picture Challenge - January 17

My friend Samantha arrives today from California. She is coming in town to participate in Sara's Weekend in Fredericksburg. I have 5 bottles of bubbly chilling in the fridge in honor of Sam's arrival...hopefully that'll last the two nights that she is staying at my place...

Picture Challenge - January 16

I came across this picture on Organic Green Roots Facebook page. I just love this image (and other optical illusion-type pictures) but this one in particular makes me think about all the people that are a part of MY family tree and who went into making me the person that I am.