Didn't think I liked Purple but....

This little quilt could change my mind.

I like having a quilt on the frame so I can take a break from my creative work and rest my mind quilting.
The combination here, of soft purple, beige and cream batiks really appeals to me. It was a delight to work on a customer quilt that was so well assembled...smooth as silk.
Simple all over free hand meander of vines and leaves.

Tofino Trail - 4 - Progress is not always a straight line

In an effort to use more of my own dyed materials I made a bold move yesterday and stitched and cut out a large fern frond and glued it down.
It wasn't until the next morning, when I looked at the photo of the piece, I decided it was wrong.

 

The solid material jarred. While it was alright for the leaves of the shrubs it was not alright for the fern. As all the other ferns were lacy and tactile, this material frond was too heavy.

 

It had been glued for about 10 hours with permanent fabric glue, but given that a lot of the substrate was not solid, I had only a little trouble in a few places, removing it all.

 

So how to make a bigger frond with the same feel. I puzzled that most of the day, (cooked and canned some pickled mushrooms, packaged and froze some mushroom soup, and quilted most of a small quilt for a customer.) When all my delay tactics had run out, I went back to the studio and dove in.

 

Yesterday, I had tried making a tree frog with the organza. It was too shiny, but I reasoned if I filled most of the surface with stitching that might tame the glossy nature. The fabric itself was too insubstantial to stitch directly so I hooped it, layered with a piece of netting. This worked very well. I was able to stitch it easily,and cut away the excess.

 

When the cutting was finished the new frond had some life, curl and texture and most of all, substantial colour without weight. To keep this feeling I stitched it down the center rib only so the frondlets? were not tight to the surface.

 

I intend to make about 5 for this spot. The second one I changed the netting to black from white and the thread colour to a darker green. Even though the organza was the same colour it looked entirely different.

 

Now this was more in keeping with my original fern. Tomorrow this fern will be finished.
Not much more to do here.
I've rejected the idea of putting in the wooden path. Too distracting. I'm still working on a piece of Fauna.
Frog, Newt, Insect, Mouse?

 

Tofino Trail - 3

It's been a full month since I last worked on this piece; time enough to mull over a few things?

"since you've been gone" (ha ha), a lot of little things were added or changed.
I chose and mounted a background for this piece. I had decided I would use as much of my own dyed material as possible but as most of this will be hidden I used a "cheater" fabric. Great for where there are little holes in the scene and the right colour and light needs to filter through.

Walkway? not yet.

 

 

The fabric folds are anchored with both glue and stitch.

I dyed a little bit of cheese cloth black, primarily to wrap the exposed wool roving but also to add additional texture.

 

 

 

Using hooped netting I manufactured and added some moss and some ferns.
There is a wooden walkway at the very bottom of this view so it needs to be dealt with next. It will be almost entirely hidden, but it needs to be there.

Ps We're still only working on the back and mid ground. All the white areas will be concealed or cut away. I'm also thinking a little Fauna might be fun!

Fairy Quilt

I raised two boys, so fairies were not a big thing, if every, in my house. So this quilt is, so NOT ME. But I was gifted this panel printed from the estate pictures of Cecily Mary Parker last summer, and quite frankly I was at a loss.

 After some cyber consultations I came up with a programme. I cut off the Froufrou on the edge and added first a batik border with green vine like foliage and then a red batik as close to the colour in the poinsettia in the panel.
As this piece was long and narrow, I made two of the side panels wider than the top to bringing the final size to 50" x 60", making this a very usable throw or comfort quilt.

 

 

 This now will be given to my guild that supports a local programme for abused children. Hopefully it will bring some comfort to a little someone.

I included some close ups of a few of the "fairies" I embedded into the quilting. This was perhaps the hardest part of this exercise: find simple pictures of fairy folk that didn't resemble Barbi Dolls. I was hoping Disney knew better but no. I finally went back to the work of Beardsley and Rackham  for what I envisioned as lovely and innocent looking, androgynous, fairy folk.

 

Eureka! What was LOST is FOUND!

At least 3 years ago, I went on an Art Studio Tour in Thornbury and took a picture of a wonderful piece of acrylic art. It was a gnarly tree in full spring growth. I worked on duplicating this for days and weeks. I remember I was really pleased with it except I didn't like the background. So I cut it off the background and put it away........That's Mary speak for I LOST IT1.
 I search high and low many times, every drawer, every pile of fabric, every box of material and nothing. At least 5 times over the 3 years.
Today I pulled out a piece of green print I thought of using in my Tofino piece and there poking out of the edge was my TREE.

It's so gratifying to know you haven't completely lost it.

So now this piece is back in the queue.