Coronavirus Quilt

Our Cutting Edge Fiber Arts Group will have a virtual exhibit at PIQF this year

 with Coronavirus as the topic.  Here is the quilt I made for the exhibit.

Above is a picture of the whole quilt and below is a closeup, 

so you can see the embroidery details better.

The printing process I chose to create the fabric for this quilt resembles the way the corona virus has spread, which is mostly through air-borne droplets from people who are in close contact with each other. The blocks in this quilt were created through a method called ‘dendritic or fractal monoprinting.’  Paint was applied to a piece of glass. Another piece of glass was then pressed firmly to the painted plate, causing the paint to spread and create the branch-like patterns known as dendrites or fractals. Fabric is then placed on top of the glass paint and light pressure is applied by hand.

Soy wax, ice dyed scarf, Embroidery and Barn Update

Here are some pics of projects I've been working on.

This is a silk scarf on which I used soy wax batik and ice dye techniques. 

The colors on the silk vary according to how the light hits them.

Above is a closeup, below is the whole scarf.

Two more close-ups are below.

For my Take A Stitch Tuesday facebook group I did a satin stitch butterfly which was fun but took longer than I thought it would.

Over the weekend, mu husband finished the interior north wall of the barn. What a difference.

Finished Fabric Manipulated Small Quilt

So I finished my fabric manipulation piece using slashing and blooming techniques.  The edges of the center piece weren't quite parallel to the edges of the quilt, so I couched some ladder/ribbon to the inner edges to disguise that a bit. I pronounce it done!

This week the Take a Stitch Tuesday Facebook group is taking a break to let everyone have a breather and get caught up. It's a good thing because I've been pretty busy with home projects and some quilt displays for our local libraries.  I didn't get to last week's stitch which was couching. I did however, lay out some fun yarns and threads over my piece to play with couching down later this week.

More Hand Embroidery on Soy-wax-Ice Dyed Quilt

This week's stitch was the detached chain, otherwise known as the Lazy Daisy Stitch.  In the first one, I overlapped stitches in three colors and a variety of sizes.

   In this section, I did the classic daisies.

This picture shows more of the quilt with the embroidered areas.

Women's Rally and Soy-Wax, Ice Dyed Linen

On Saturday I joined thousands of other men and women in a rally at the Mission Plaza in San Luis Obispo to remind our government about what their priorities should be. I was glad to see that it was well attended and that many of us are feeling the same way.

As part of the TAST (Take a Stitch Tuesday) group, I added this week's stitch, which was the fly stitch,  to my soy-waxed, ice-dyed vintage linen tablecloth. In the triangular shaped area, I placed the stitches separately and along the left side, I joined them together, adding a stitch in between each one to create a plant like design. Next week's stitch is the detached chain stitch. Hmmmm

Newest Ice-Dyed Quilt

This quilt was finished the day before putting it in my show at the library,so I didn't get a chance to blog about it. This quilt was created  from two beautiful ice-dyed pieces of fabric which I cut apart and put back together. Below are the fabrics with which I started.

  

I cut both of them apart into the same shapes, then shuffled and sewed them together carefully.

 I cut the quilt apart again, fusing it to black fabric.  

Below is a closeup of some of the hand embroidery that is throughout the quilt.

I really enjoy the process of hand embroidery.  My earliest experience with embroidery was learning how to do it at about the age of 11, as taught by my mom,  on pre-stamped towels and dresser cloths.  Remember those blue stamped fabrics with days of the week, or teacups, girls with watering cans, etc?  All the women in our family (4) would work on these in the car on our long family camping trips from Wisconsin to New York, Washington, California, etc. Doing it again brings back lovely memories.  I find handwork to be a very meditative process.

Finished New Quilt

Have finished one of two new quilts that will be part of my upcoming show at the Paso Robles library, which runs from July 1st to July 31st.

 Above is the whole quilt, measuring 30" wide by 19" long.

 Above and below are detail shots.

This is the first time I've signed a quilt on the front, like the fabric painting that it is. This may be what's 'trending' for me.

Hand Embroidering the Quilt

I tried machine quilting this art quilt and did not care for the harsh look of that at all, so am starting hand embroidery in the negative areas, mostly using one of my favorite stitches, the seed stitch.

This is just the beginning, but I'm liking it.  Much more to follow.

Finished Helianthus, alias, Sunflower Quilt

Finished the sunflower quilt Thursday at about 3:00, photographed it, put together a CD with photos of that and two other quilts I'm interested in entering into the Dimensions show and hurried off to the post office to get the entry materials postmarked by the June 20th date.  Wasn't sure if by June 20th included June 20th or not, so wanted to get a June 19th postmark on it, just in case.

I often find it difficult coming up with titles for my art.  I decided upon "Helianthus," which is the Latin name for sunflower.  Sunflower just sounded too cutsey, which was not what I was going for in this quilt, or for that matter in any of my art. I always cringe when someone feels they are giving me a compliment about my work, using that word.  It makes me reexamine my work.  I'm sure they don't mean it as an insult, but rather don't know what to say.

Detail of focal point.  Ended up doing more hand stitching than originally planned, but like how it looks and always enjoy that process.  The seed stitch behind the sunflower made the flower pop out more and the background recede.

More details

Sold a Quilt in the Fabrications II Show

I'm very excited that I sold one of my quilts, Transformation No. 2,  that was displayed as part of the recent Fabrications II show at Studios on the Park. 

  Here are some pictures of it before I deliver it to its new owner.  I really enjoyed working on this quilt. Cotton Velveteen just hungrily accepts dye, making colors so luscious.  Creating all the marks with the thickened dyes was random, sometimes thoughtful, play.  Doing the embroidery over the period of many months was also a very enjoyable, meditative process.  

 Here is a picture of the whole quilt and below are closeups of squares and embroidery.