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.

Fairy Thoughts

This past weekend I went to Scarborough Faire with my wonderfully talented friend Angie. She makes amazing fairy wings. (If you want to acquire your own pair check out her website On Gossamer Wings.) Anyway, she allowed me to borrow a pair of her wings while attending the faire:

She is in the green and I'm in the monarch wings. More than anything, she amazes me as to how easily she can slip into the character of a fairy. People are always wanting to take pictures and the children are so amazed by her and she is more than willing to always stop and talk to them. On one such occasion, a father came forward with his daughter and asked, "Do you mind, this is a hands on experience." It was quickly realized that his daughter was blind. I willingly allowed her to feel my velvet bodice and blouse, my face, hair, etc. she then moved on to Angie. While I was able to speak some to this young girl, Angie immediately slipped into character and described everything that she was wearing and all the things around her. She then asked the girl what she was on this day (the girl was wearing a warrior ensemble). The conversation carried on for going on 10+ minutes and I was truly in awe.

I later wondered how you would describe colors to a blind person to help them understand. Chocolate brown, I can understand because when you taste chocolate you can imagine what it looks and feels like. There are other colors that can be "tasted" like reds (strawberry, pepper, fiery, etc.), yellow (tart lemon), green (smell of grass, lime, granny smith apple, etc.), orange (well, orange....). What other colors can be described by taste or smell.....



 

Wild Life in the 'Hood

I've been seeing lots of wild life recently in the neighborhood. A few weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch and heard a tap tap tapping at the door. I looked up and saw:

Yes, that is a roadrunner sitting on the ledge of the window above my door. I, obviously, grabbed my camera took that picture and then went outside after she jumped down and got another picture of her in my yard:

We have also been seeing an over abundance of rabbits around...I haven't bothered to get any pictures of them, although they do seem to enjoy teasing poor Leo as they will sit in the backyard while he is trapped in the house.

Today, as I was driving out of the neighborhood, I turned the corner and saw this strange mass in the middle of the street. The mass then started to move and as I got closer it made its way to the curb:

Here is another shot of the momma duck with her babies following behind, doing as they are told.

Gotta love Mother Nature....

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.