Art Quilts Around The World Challenge: I Believe...in Professional Hair Color!!

It is reveal day again for my Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around The World. Those two months went fast! The theme this time was "I Believe..." It was selected by the individual in the group who chose it to be spiritual or religious. I could not think of anything that I wanted to put on a quilt to reflect this idea. I had to think about this subject for a while before finding an idea. I decided I have very strong opinions about being a hairdresser for nearly 30 years and how I believe women should wear their hair to look their best. I come from a family where the women color their hair no matter what their age. My Mom is 81 and is still coloring her hair brown like she has for decades! This is my norm to NOT see gray hair. I color hair for my job and it is one of my favorite things to do in the salon. I make my living coloring hair. As you are reading this you may agree or disagree with me. You may have gray hair. I get it but I believe women look better with their hair colored!

In this project I drew a women with a bob haircut (my personal haircut and favorite!) Half of the hair is gray and white and the other half is PROFESSIONALLY colored in a salon. Not from a box from Walgreens and your friend did it while drinking too much wine! Stylists know what we are doing and take classes on color formulation and color correction. Salons fix home hair color!

I just realized the challenge from November 2016 had a face that was split in half vertically and I did it again unconsciously! Oh Well!

In this photo it shows the lettering of the names of five professional hair color companies-Redken (my favorite,) Joico (used to get the bright fashion colors,) Matrix, Paul Mitchell (abbreviated for space) and Wella which is what the salon I work at uses. There are many more companies but since this quilt is small I literally ran out of room. Why use these particular colors for the lettering? They represent the colors customers ask for when they have their hair colored-red, rusty browns, oranges/auburns, gold and pale blonde. The browns are represented in the woman's right side of her hair with warm brown and highlights and lowlights.

This is a close up of the face. I used a few pinks and purples for "make up!" The quilt was embellished with fabric paint, Derwent Inktense pens, a rhinestone on the nose, some glitter nail polish on the brow bone and both sides of the hair.

The next challenge is due March 31 which will feel like Spring is near! The them is using words in a quilt-I actually used words in this quilt and use words anyway in my work. I am going to use the statement "I Resist!" due to the terrible President that is running the USA and my opposition. I feel strongly about this and a quilt with these works will have meaning!

Bobbie Pin: Rockabilly Chick

 This quilt began as another quilt which was for a Ricky Timm's Convergence challenge. I purchased a piece of his hand dyed fabric and then used it in the challenge. When I received the fabric I thought it was the ugliest fabric in the world-brown and muddy looking! It needed some bright colors to help it out! I wanted to do a portrait quilt with raw edged fused applique over the Convergence pieced background and drew up a design with a Rockabilly woman with tattoos and fun retro hair. It is fun combine my hairdressing career with my quilt designs!  The photos of the original quilt are toward the bottom of this blog post. I made that quilt in October but never shared the photos because of the epic fail.
I will talk now about the my newest version. While teaching last November at Houston my Janome tech support woman was sewing a project with a fun line of fabrics called "Good Hair Day!" This fabric line caught my attention because of the bobby pins, blow dryers, hair combs, curls and braids. Once I was home from Houston I ordered this fabric line. I enlarged my normal 5" square to 5.5" and added a border. The rest of the project went pretty conventional in construction. I quilted the background in a triple crosshatch design. When it was complete it reminded me of a 1960s silk robe's quilting I had as a child! Very retro just like the Rockabilly theme!
I embellished the quilt with blue rhinestones and a large bead for an earring was hand sewn in place. A small amount of fabric paint and glitter nail polish to accentuate the eyes. I discovered I had colored sparkly blue bobby pins which I hand sewed to the corners in the outer border and two in the hair area.  The fabric motifs were very strong and showy and too many embellishments seemed senseless. I had fun creating the flower, heart and Hello Kitty tattoos-I have not added tattoos to a quilt before.

This is a close up view of the face.

 These are the photos of the failed attempt. What went wrong? There is not enough contrast between the pink used in the applique and the pieced background.

I made several attempts to add definition to the face by adding lots of glitter and fabric paint. The details just do not show up. I did enter the online Convergence contest and, of course, I did not get accepted. I love the newer quilt with plenty of contrast and am stuck with the original quilt. What should I do with it since it's not something I am proud of?