It all starts with a stitch! An organic exploration of fiber art & beyond.
Weeklies 2014
This was a personal challenge in between ‘real’ projects to help stimulate my creative juices, try new things and not get rusty. My rules:
Once I started the piece, it had to be completed in one week start to finish. Hence the ‘Weekly’.
Nothing could be purchased for the sole purpose of the ‘weekly’ – all fabric, buttons and embellishments had to be from my stash or gifted.
Only a week so edges wouldn’t be finished; nothing perfect!!!
After that, anything goes!
There are 13 pieces below – each reflected in whole and then one detailed picture.
Actually done in 2012 for a Quilting Art’s magazine reader’s challenge that I completed in one week. The challenge was to create a small quilt reflecting your favorite color. I really like red and turquoise together. We have great memories of trips to NYC with the kids – museums, shows, Central Park & the excitement of Times Square!Strip piecing, machine quilting, tulle and bead embellishmentsDone with purpose of re-using a purple potato bag saved from our pantry. I had no idea what I’d make and just started with the swirled piece that was sitting in my scrap basket. Once I’d sewn and started adding the stitches I’d realized I was making a cosmic sky. Trimmed with fuzzy yarn.Purple potato bag; embroidery, buttons and beads.I have always loved the story telling folk art quilts using images and rambling words. Since it was Valentine’s Day week, I decided to write about my Dad who loved Valentine’s Day! He would always get Mom a bouquet of carnations and a box of chocolates; and give my sister and I a smaller heart shaped chocolate box. Lovely memories….Fabric weave, appliqué, buttons and embroidery (straight stitch, blanket stitch and split stitch).Confession – I love candy! I really LOVE banana candy – not banana cookies, pie or ice cream. Banana Candy. Banana tootsie pop wrappers inspired this little self portrait. A funny thing – when my husband saw this, he said “I didn’t even know they had banana tootsie pops.” I guess I’d picked them all out of the Halloween bag!Tootsie Pop wrappers (backed with stiffener); machine appliqué; banana drawn with fabric markers.I had a piece of fabric in my stash that was created by weaving blue and orange fabrics as well as some beautiful blue floral fabric scraps. I decided to create an all blue silhouette – who better than Miles Davis????Detail of machine appliqué with small fabric pieces and satin stitch; fabric weave in background.The fish print is using a Gynutocku Fish Printing replica – a silicon fish on which you apply paint or inks then press fabric or paper on top for a print. Fish printing was done by Japanese fishermen to document the size of their catch. Just as I’d finished the piece with the silver thread quilting my Mom came for a visit and handed me the ‘diamond’ necklace saying “I have this old necklace and thought you could use in your quilting”. The ‘diamonds’ were the perfect finishing touch!Gynutocku spring with pink, white and silver paints; silver thread quilting; ‘diamond’ necklace hand sewn on.I was so disturbed by the news that was unfolding in the papers: starting with Russia making gay life ‘illegal’, then Uganda doing the same; followed by the terrible violence in Ukraine. The rainbow fabric was intentional to signify my support of the LGBTQ community. Russia is in the middle to reflect its influence on the ofter events.Machine stitched globe; hand cut letters backed with Pellon 2-sided fusible web; simple appliqué.I wanted to practice with dissolvable stabilizer. I had the start of the body of a dragonfly from a class and decided to finish it. The wings are machine embroidered onto the stabilizer, then dipped in water to dissolve it. Outlined in blanket stitch.Machine embroidery on ultra light iridescent fabric; thread sketched grasses.This started with a pair of glass frames I found in the road. I got to thinking about the meaning of the word “Vision” – how it’s related to sight but also how it speaks to our view of the people around us and our ability to use our imagination to make the world a better place. I embellished an airplane eye mask with stamps, letters, oil crayons and colored pins. These are overlaid with a vegetable bag to signify how I let my perceptions distort and impair my Vision.Glass frames; stamping; metal letters; small pins; oil crayons; vegetable bag and embroidery.Another Quilting Arts magazine reader challenge for small quilt showing favorite flower. This was also a prototype for a bigger Sunflower pillow I’d been planning (and made). I ended up teaching a class on the pillow!Thread sketching on petals; blue sky is stippling; the ‘seeds’ are loops of thread I hand stitched; and you can just catch a glimpse of seed beads for center.Experimenting with wire and creating my own fabric: green fabric spray on white fabric overlaid with an onion bag and pebbles. The tamped pink pattern is the pinned tip of a red poppy seed pod from our garden. I also inserted wire in the fabric layers to form the bendable wings of my “Painted Pink”.Stamped with tip of red poppy seed pod from our garden and white bottle cap rims. Outer edge trimmed with hairy yarn. Wire inside wing edges is not visible.There was so much unrest in many parts of Africa – killings, kidnapping and terror. I can’t imagine what these children were feeling every day. This is made with scorched lime juice on muslin, a photo of an eye looking through a fence from the internet printed in sepia on canvas, an onion bag, prayer flag and a broken handed of a wooden pie server. Extra thick quilt batting layers.Eye printed in sepia onto canvas using fabric printing sheets through our Canon ink printer. The scorched lime is made my squeezing juice onto the muslin then covering with a scrap cotton and heating with very hot iron until the juice scorches.Wanted to use my pile of fabric hearts, practice uneven finished edges and pay tribute to my sister’s love for her puppy named Jabber who is a real sweetie!Jabber is printed onto fabric using printing fabric sheets through our Canon ink printer; embroidered appliqué, edging and letters using cross stitch, blanket stitch, split stitch and straight stitch.
Made with Stitches 