Art Quilts Around The World Facebook Group Challenge: Communication - Social Memes

My Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around the World's bimonthly reveal day is today and the theme is Communication. I chose social memes because I am on Facebook a lot and see plenty of them. They make me laugh and they make me question things.

I am upset with the 2016 Presidential election in the USA and not sure how to channel my anger. Making art with a social theme has worked in the past so why not now.

There is a resistance against Donald Trump and the word "resist" has appeared on social memes. I love the Statue of Liberty and think she is a great representation of America so I combined the word resist with Lady Liberty.

I needed to Google images of The Statue of Liberty for details and found this close up of her face. Not very feminine in my opinion and she seems to be scowling! Her lips look like Elvis Presley lips! I used my line drawing style portrait quilt technique and drew an image with the non-feminine face. I have the left side with reds and the right side with blues and whites in the middle to represent the colors of the USA and our flag.

I usually add a lot of embellishments to my quilts but this quilt seemed busy enough and only added the standard white dot of fabric paint for the eye reflection and a few plastic star shaped buttons.

The next challenge is called The Eyes Have It. Any chance I get I make a portrait quilt and the eyes are my favorite part so this one will be super easy and I have to do something out of the box due May 31st.

Art Quilts Around The World Facebook Group Challenge: Science

 Today is reveal day for my Facebook group Art Quilts Around the World. The current theme is Science. I am not a big science person and had a hard time figuring out what to do with this challenge. When I was a beauty school student back in the late 1980s we had a textbook chapter on anatomy specifically the skeletal and muscular systems of the body. To cut hair one needs to know the bone structure of the face. As licensed cosmetologists we also are able to perform facials and therefore need to know what and where the facial muscles are located. So a shout out to beauty school is how I came up with my idea. 
I split the face in half and did muscles on one side and a regular woman's face on the other side. I discovered on Pinterest many images portraying muscles had the muscles in different bright colors to visually see them. I was all on board for bright colors so that was easy! The "normal" side has a neutral color palette.
I quilted the muscles in the accurate direction in which they would flex!
The "normal" side got a bit of glitter, a rhinestone nose piercing and both sides got beads for earrings and I used fabric pencils to enhance the eyes, hair and mouth. As I was working on this challenge it became fun and I really enjoy the finished quilt.

This is a closeup photo of the muscle side of the face-lots of tiny muscles!
The next challenge due January 31, 2017 is "I believe..." which is very broad based. I feel strongly about many things-the beauty industry, fashion dos and don'ts, politics and racial discrimination so I'm not sure the direction I will take this challenge.

Art Quilts Around The World Challenge: Letters From Home - Menominee Michigan Lighthouse

 My Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around The World had it's current challenge reveal yesterday-I am late because it's a crazy busy time with my quilt teaching stuff. I am a day late and have a day off today so here goes. The theme was called Letters from Home and a stylized stamp of the area we live in. I had a very very hard time with this challenge because I prefer to make portrait quilts. The city I have lived in the past 9+ years is Menominee Michigan. The Menominee Indian Tribe is where the city gets it's name. I Googled images of Menominee Indian woman and got no results that interested me. The city across the Menominee River is Marinette, WI and they were named after Queen Marinette who was a Menominee Indian woman. Again I Googled images of her and she was photographed only as an older woman and I didn't want a quilt like that. So plan C is a lighthouse which is everywhere in my city. Menominee is on the bay side of Lake Michigan and near where the Menominee River connects to Lake Michigan. We have lots of water and thus have a lighthouse. I made a lighthouse quilt a few years ago for a local fundraiser and adapted that pattern to this quilt so my quilt image is not fully accurate to the actual Menominee lighthouse. I planned to use a white background and blue for the raw edged fused applique to give a nautical look then added red since red is on the real lighthouse. I added a small amount of blue glitter nail polish to the water area and some silver glitter polish to the sun area-the quilt didn't scream out for sparkle. It will be given to a local charity for fundraising purposes.

This is the name of my local newspaper and they use the lighthouse in their logo and the lighthouse is getting a facelift accoridng to yesterday's newspaper which was timely for this blog post. 
The next challenge is about Science which is not one of my favorites either. Any ideas out there? Maybe physiology, muscles or bones of the body, skulls Ala Sugar Skulls!!!

Art Quilts Around The World: Vision Board-Hair Color

 Today is reveal day for my Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around The World. This challenge is called Vision Board. I thought about the white and black hair color I tried to have late last summer and I damaged my hair. It is still on my vision board as a hair color I want! Did I mention I am have been a hairdresser for 29 years and am challenged by this?
I first saw the hair color on Pinterest. My hair has been colored dark brown for years. In  hair color theory to lighten hair that has previously been dark one must bleach the hair. In doing so it can damage the hair because there are so many layers of hair. And in my case, my fine hair couldn't handle the bleach and my hair quality was compromised. I gave up and have been repairing and deep conditioning my hair ever since. 
This hair color became the subject of this vision board challenge. I selected red as my background, dress and glasses color. On Pinterest I searched vintage clothing because I love this too and found a great dress neckline and duplicated it in this quilt. The real dress would have a tab and button in the center on the neckline. 

 This is the close up of the neckline. I have found that red and black combination prints are not easy to find. I used a lot of this hounds tooth print in another quilt and now have an excuse to buy more fabric to replace this piece!! The black and white fabric used in the dress is so 1960s and I love it too!!

For embellishment I used a hologram and a slate sparkly glitter nail polishes to add shimmer to the hair. I added a few tiny rhinestones to the glasses, white paint for the eye reflection and a small amount of nail polish to the eyelid. I didn't over on the embellishments because the variety of fabric prints seemed like enough activity and I wanted the hair to be the emphasis.
The next challenge which is about a postage stamp that represents the area where we live in due September 30, 2016. I am exploring lighthouses, Menominee Indians or Queen Marinette.

Art Quilts Around The World Facebook Group Challenge: Kitsch

 My Facebook art quilt group "Art Quilts Around The World" has it's current challenge reveal today. It was my turn to select the topic and I chose "Kitsch!" This group has a Facebook group page and a few of the members seemed to have trouble with this one!! I LOVE kitsch and discovered the actual word in 2005 when I bought a book called Kitschy Christmas. I have been doing kitschy dress and decorating for years but had no idea there was a name for it. Kitsch is a description of styling things with excess, tacky on purpose, a busyness of prints/objects or over cutesie. Examples of kitschy are cute kittens, troll dolls, garden gnomes or pink flamingos and over sequined/rhinestoned garments/jewelry/quilts. I love to push the limit in the way I dress and wear things a bit "off" the norm to test people. I put a small amount of kitsch in many of my projects so this was a fun and easy project for me!! On Facebook I found a page called Kitschy Living which provides lots of ideas and plenty of laughs!

 I love cat eye glasses and have a board of such on Pinterest. I found a pin of a pair of glasses with an excessive amount of flowers and rhinestones and knew this was my topic for this challenge. I also love large amounts of plastic fruit and have some beads in bright colors but could not finds them when I was making this project. I did find them recently and will use them in another project a la Carmen Miranda! I then selected a rainbow color scheme with a wavy stripe and a large polka dot for the dress. I have a rainbow trim that has a pull thread to rusch it which I added to the dress neckline. I chose red hair because it was the most garish-I combined curly and straight hair for more kitschyness and  added glitter nail polish for highlights. I found the fantastic flower beads at Joann Fabrics to complete the crazy glasses plus a rainbow of rhinestones in a variety of sizes. I quit adding embellishments and kept the emphasis on the glasses and the mix of prints.

This is a close up view of the background and dress fabrics and the rusched trim. I also used variegated thread.
The next theme is "Vision Board" due July 31, 2016. I have an idea based on a hair color I wish I had. Being a hairdresser I see lots of images of new and innovative hair color!

Art Quilts Around The World Facebook Group: Folklore Challenge

My Facebook art quilt group "Art Quilts Around The World" has reveal day today. The theme is Folklore. I googled options and fairies and mermaids were common themes but I have done those in quilts before. I found the legend of Madre Monte (Mother Mountain) which is from Columbia to be interesting. The folklore story is about a woman who wears moss and leaves and a green hat that conceals her face. She lives in dense jungles and supposedly bathes in rivers causing flooding and heavy storms. She haunts those who steal other people's land and cast plagues on cattle owners who steal or misuse fields or ignore boundaries. She puts spells on people in the jungle when they walk and they eventually fall asleep with exhaustion and do not wake for hours.

 I saw this woman as a earth mother type with all green skin and hair. I used one of my other portrait patterns and made it smaller to the required size. I reduced the size of her Afro as well. I chose 4-5 green for her skin tones and a tie dyed ruffly heavily textured fabric for her Afro hair. I envisioned lots of hair texture and viney stuff by using lots of textured yarns which I machine and hand couched to the quilt.

From my embellishment stash I pulled anything with a green leaf-silk and felt leaves; leaf and flower buttons; sequins, beads and even foam leaves. I found a great metallic special occasion fabric for the dress and used two green glitter nail polishes on the eyes. I stitched the turquoise background with a leave themed specialty stitch with a variegated thread to repeat the nature theme.

 This photo shows a close up of the hair and all the funky fuzzy yarns I used to capture the jungle vines in her hair! I had a blast with this challenge once I found an idea and will use this quilt for Earth Day and other seasonal related quilt themes.

This was the original pattern that I adapted for the Folklore that I used for my 2014 Hoffman Challenge quilt. It looks different with green skin instead of brown.

The next challenge for this group I get to select and I chose "Kitschy!!!" Kitschy is defined as pleasingly distasteful, melodramatic, overdone, gaudy, tacky, sentimental, folksy, cutesy fun or hideously ugly. It is so bad it's cool! I discovered the word Kitschy in 2005 and I was thrilled there was a name for the style I embraced! I wear kitschy jewelry, have garden art and add something kitschy to many of my quilts.

I discovered some terrible gaudy cat eye glasses on Pinterest and will run with this idea for this challenge due May 31, 2016

Art Quilts Around the World Facebook Group: Book Challenge

 My Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around The World has a challenge reveal today and the subject is a favorite book. I thought about the many great favorite novels I have read and nothing jumped into my head that I would want a quilt made out of and the time spent making the project. I was looking at my quilt books for something unrelated and I saw my favorite quilt book "Pattern Play" by Doreen Speckmann and decided to use it as my inspiration for this challenge. Doreen was a quilter from Madison WI and I was a new quilter in the 1990s when I first saw her speak at the Darting Needles Quilt Guild in Appleton WI. She inspired me like no other quilter at the time because she used a variety of prints in each quilt and that is what I wanted to do and she gave me permission! She had a great sense of humor and she created characters called Peaky and Spike out of two triangles in her quilts.

Doreen's book was a book I used exclusively in the 90s and early 2000s. I saw her lecture and took a few of her classes. I made over a dozen lap and wall hangings based on the patterns in this book. At the time Doreen used templates but I have switched it up and use foundation piecing to have more accuracy these days. Doreen used to do quilting cruises and dance the Electric Slide at these events. On a cruise in 1998 Doreen died of a heart attack on the dance floor and the quilt world lost a great creative woman.

I created a version of Doreen's Peaky and Spike style piecing for this project using some of my favorite colors. I used a rayon variegated thread I bought in Houston and my new sewing machine's decorative stitches in the borders. It is not an art quilt but more traditional but it represents the challenge theme. I added the cute little button to keep with MY theme of having a portrait quilt!

This is the inner cover of Doreen's book where she autographed it and I love it to this day. RIP Doreen Speckmann!! The next challenge due March 31st is "Folklore" which will be a challenge for sure. I get to choose the challenge after that and I have it selected so be prepared!!

Art Quilts AroundThe World Reveal: Uniform

Today is reveal day for my Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around The World. The challenge theme was UNIFORM and I interpreted that as something being the same or having conformity. I prefer to make portrait quilts so I selected an Andy Warhol style with four of the SAME images of a woman and I call it "Pop Art Princess 3." What is the same in this quilt: The background; the sashing and the sashing quilting; the image of the woman; the stripe in the halter dress and the position of the stripe on the dress; the brow, lip and eye color; the variegated thread used for the skin tones; the glitter nail polish on the eye lids and the quilting on the images. What is NOT the same: The color of the hair, the skin tones and the glitter nail polish used to embellish the hair. The size of this quilt is 11.5" x 17.5"

Of the four images I like this one the best because the combination of values of the skin tone, lip and brow color seem to be the most flattering. In the upper left corner, the image with the lightest skin tones and the pink hair has too much eye brow contrast and she looks severe. Likewise the black woman in the lower right corner has too low of contrast and I can't hardly see her brows. This became a happy accident to use in my lecture on value. This situation shows how a medium color appears dark or light in relationship to the colors it is placed with.

This is my second favorite image because the woman appears serene. Even though I use the same applique pieces the women can look slightly different based on the fusing placement and the way I quilt it. The next challenge due November 30th is on TEXTURE which is a no-brainer because I use a variety of textures anyway in many of my quilts. I will now go back to prepping for my teaching job at IQF in Houston which is at the end of October!

Art Quilts Around The World Snowflake Challenge Reveal Day!

 My Facebook Group Art Quilts Around the World has reveal day today July 31, 2015 and the theme for this two month challenge is "snowflakes." I am experiencing summer in Upper Michigan and winter will be here soon enough so this idea was weird at first. Once I decided on a snow princess I started pulling cool, icy and snowflake themed fabrics from my stash. I found a royal blue and a white piece of hand dyed velvet from Chris Day for the princess's winter coat.  Chris used to be in this group. She is from Western Wisconsin and will vend at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo in Madison WI in September and I will buy some more velvets from her. I love the velvets because they add texture to the quilt that commercial cottons and batiks do not. I had the two great "disco ball" shiny fabrics from Pine Street Quilts in Marinette WI, where I used to work, and they worked nicely for the hair. I used a white batik for the skin tone to keep the cool icy feel to the quilt.

I originally started with finding the sparkly plastic snowflakes from The Dollar Tree in a place where they shouldn't have been! These snowflakes got me thinking of a crown for the princess. While shopping in Green Bay at the local Gordman's store (Awesomeness!!) I found the blue necklace on the clearance rack. I saved it and removed the necklace chains and flipped it upside down and it completed the crown.

I printed a Googled image of a snowflake on foundation paper and pinned a large flake to the chest area and stitched through the paper to get a snowflake image on the princess. I repeated the process in a smaller version on the cheekbones and chin.

I embellished with several iridescent nail polishes to accentuate the stitched snowflakes and the blue eye shadow.  One iridescent snowflake shaped bead hand stitched in the middle of the chest area and the snowflake princess was finished!

The next challenge is due on Sept. 30 and the theme is "uniform." I'm going to take it literally and either do a quilt of my daughter Jordana in her chef UNIFORM or explore a 50s dinner waitress!!

I will continue to not see snowflakes for several months!!

This s a closeup of the necklace and plastic dollar store snowflakes!

It's Summer So I'm Gardening More and Quilting Less!

It is Summer and I live in Zone 4

which gives me 4-5 months of gardening time. I am quilting less because I love my cottage garden with the whimsical artsy garden art that myself and my boyfriend have created through the years.

This is the front yard decked out for the Fourth of July-it gets a Northern Exposure so not a lot of sun and therefore all the hostas.

I am sewing two BOMs I found on Pinterest and Facebook. The one in the top photo is from Facebook and is from Michelle Foster and her Aiming for Accuracy II-Quilt Along called Mishka's Playground. It began in March and on the 7th and 21st of each month a new set of small (8"-9") blocks are emailed to me and I can make them anyway I want. There is a FB page where we can post our work as well as view all the fun and varied versions of this pattern. I chose a white background and colorful fabrics with white polka dots. Sometimes the I disagree with the instructions and do my own thing!!

This BOM is called Moccasin by Gen X Quilters and the designer is Ann Marie Chany. It is smaller than the first BOM I talked about at 67" square. The blocks are 9" in size and each pattern makes two of the same block but with different color ways. This BOM is more "modern" and I was totally enjoying it until June and July's blocks. The triangle block which is on the bottom of the photo was a huge problem using templates. I haven't used a temple since the 90s and it was still not a fun thing to do-not the most accurate triangles and I cut off the tips but I'm not re-doing it! There is a Facebook group but not many people post their work there. There is a Flickr group but I'm not into that. The BOM sample was in pinks, purples, orange, indigo, white and brown and I chose to do cooler colors plus lime green.

These blocks are from a book called Arcadia Avenue by Sassafras Lane Designs. Each block is 18" in diameter and there are 12 paper pieced blocks. This pattern appeared very fun because of the use of the color wheel and I intend to use it in my color theory teachings. Once I began I realized each block was very slow going because of the pre-cutting all the fabric and making 1 wedges that are difficult to put together. I planned to make 9 blocks but since they take so long to make I am leaning towards only 4 blocks!

Lastly, I am in an art quilt group formed through Facebook and every other month we create a small wall hanging based on a theme one of the members. The current theme is due July 31st and is called "snowflake." This photo is a sneak peek-I used sparkly plastic snowflakes from The Dollar Tree as a crown in the hair and a "statement" necklace on the clearance rack at Gordman's in Green Bay, WI and hand tacked it upside down. I used a few novelty snowflake fabrics, all cool colors with some shiny and some fuzzy fabrics. I will share the full photo on July 31st.

I have had a few ladies request I convert two of my quilts into patterns and I intend to but with the summer weather I just can;t be inside on the beautiful sunny days. It will happen!

Art Quilts Around The World-Out Of This World-She's An Alien

 It is May 31, 2015 and reveal day for my Facebook group Art Quilts Around  The World. The theme is "Out of this World" and I chose do a portrait quilt and I thought an alien woman would be a great choice! I wanted to stay away from blue skin because it was too "Avatar" and green skinned martians are too typical. Plus I reserve green skin for witches!!
I also watch every season of Face Off on the Syfy (sp.?) Channel which seems to have an alien makeup challenge every season and this inspired me!
I selected white skin and orange hair. My last 4 quilts have all had orange in them unconsciously! I do love orange but this wasn't planned. What makes this woman an alien? The pointy ears, orange and yellow iris color, the flat wide bridge of the nose and the weird white skin tone. She sports a flaming orange Mohawk hairstyle and small ear gauges. 

I embellished with several clear sparkly buttons on the cheekbones to look like alien "markings", an earring from my jewelry box for in the ear gauge, rhinestones for smaller earrings, several varieties of silver glitter nail polish on the eyes and face and a few black rhinestones in the background.

My alien woman is pretty in her own "out of this world" kind of way and I love the orange Mohawk!!.

The next reveal date is July 31st and the theme is Snowflakes which will be a Christmas is July kind of moment! I have nothing planned yet in my head.

Art Quilts Around The World-In The Garden Challenge-Mosaic Garden Art

My Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around the World has reveal day for the current art quilt challenge. The theme is "In the Garden" which sounded easy because I garden but it is the beginning of what the calendar says is Spring and I am challenged to remember what my garden looks like. As you scroll down I took a photo of the same side of my house where I have a big flowerbed and the comparison photo today March 31st and at the end of May. If you garden you will understand the zones of gardening and I am in Zone 4 and a bit of a wait to plant anything or put out my garden art.

So I resorted to photographs of my garden and found the photo of the mosaic stained glass stepping stone my boyfriend Ken made in 2006. I drew the image of a woman with blue skin and a sun around her head. Ken added the yellow triangles to the outer edge. It sits in a flower bed by my side door into my kitchen and I plant a lot of yellows, blues and orange flowers and have other color coordinating garden art near it. It makes me happy!
I also have done a art quilt technique with a mosaic style where all the applique pieces are separate from each other and the background "grout" shows through instead of overlapping the pieces. This style is not my fave because you have to stop and start each stitched applique piece because they do not touch. More work and more thread. But to make this project look like a piece of garden art it had to be made this way.
I added very little embellishment because it's garden art but I did add a little red glitter nail polish to the lips and the purple eye lids got some purple bling.

The next challenge is due May 31st and it is called "Out of This World" and I am feeling like an alien invasion!!

The east side of my house on March 31st-brown, barren and last Fall's leftovers.








A file photo of my garden on the same side of the house on May 31st. Green and happy!!

Art Quilts Around the World Challenge: Structure

I am in an online art quilt group called Art Quilts Around the World and our current challenge called Structure has it's reveal today. The group's website is aroundtheworldin20quilts.blogspot.com. 

I had a hard time with this theme because I view art quilts as unstructured and traditional quilts as structured. I pondered this idea for over a month then had an aha moment of realizing I liked to make half square triangles and I also like the Modern quilt Movement with its use of chevrons. I began with the white fabric with the large colorful polka dots. I selected six of the seven colors, eliminating the gray, and white for the portrait applique color. I arranged the vertical chevrons so the navy was on the outside for a nice border edge. I like the echo quilting used in modern quilts so I did this with the machine quilting of the chevrons.

The group determines the size of our challenge quilts to be 11.5" x 16.5" but I needed to enlarge this quilt to 12" x18" to work with a HST sized at 3." I may never actually show this or any of the other challenge quilts to the group so I made this executive decision to deviate from the original size because I have to love the quilt or why bother making it.

This is the closeup of the face which was quilted with a tiny stipple stitch between the quilting lines to detail the face. I embellished with nail polish, a rhinestone "nose piercing," a fabric yo-yo from the binding fabric and a large button. I love this quilt and it looks structured.

I enjoyed the process so I made another quilt for my local quilt guild's biennial quilt show April 25-26, 2015 using batik scraps from the raffle quilt. same pattern and same vertical chevron placement. Same fabric yo-yo hair flower. I added a small border to the outside

  since there was no rules!!

I do not work with pastels very often so it was a welcome change.

Art Quilts Around the World: Flight of Fancy

This quilt was made for my Facebook group Art Quilts Around The Qorld. This two month challenge was called "Flight of Fancy" and I was inspired by the various birds that flock to the birdfeeder outside of my sewing studio window. I particularly love cardinals because of their color and striking color contrast to the winter snow.

I couldn't resist making this a portrait quilt as well as fitting this challenge into another challenge I needed to have completed by December 8, 2014. That challenge was an embellishment challenge for my local quilt guild Northwoods Quilters. This challenge required a button, which was given to all participants, a fabric yo-yo and any other embellishment we wanted to use. I am not a yo-yo type of person but it was a challenge so I went for it!!

I chose to keep the portrait part of the project in a monochromatic blue to represent the cold weather and blue is a color that recedes into the background. The red cardinal then becomes the focal point because red is a stand out color.

The yo-yo was created from a piece of awesome hand dyed velvet which indirectly became the girl's hat "flower" with a button for the flower center. The button I was assigned was a unfinished wood button which I painted light blue and glittered which became the girl's coat button, No other embellishments were added to the girl except the white fabric paint reflection in her eye.

The cardinal was raw edged fused appliqued and it still needed some zing so I cut six feathers from a red batik and double fused them together to make three feathers. I stitched down the center and cut ruffly feathers with my shears. I then machine stitched them to the cardinal along the same stitching line with the same thread color. After the feathers were stitched down I fluffed them up to get them more of a 3D appearance.

The cardinal got a bit of red glitter nail polish on it's body and white fabric paint for the eye. Any more embellishments seemed unnecessary.

The local embellishment challenge will be on display with the other guild member's quilts in January 2015 at Spies Public Library in Menominee, MI. I can't wait to see the results as well as the online results from the original challenge at www.aroundtheworldin20quilts.blogspot.com. Today is the day for the reveal.

I feel it is a nice representation of a fancy bird NOT in flight!!

Art Quilts Around the World: Monochromatic Challenge Reveal

Today is reveal day for my online art quilt group Art Quilts Around the World. The current theme is a monochromatic color scheme. I have done many monochromatic color scheme quilts because I enjoy the process because it involves a study of value. I have a lecture that I teach about value and this style of quilt is way too fun!

I have done pink, red, green, blue, brown, purple and yellow monochromatic quilts so by process of elimination I chose orange as my color for this challenge.

I drew an image of a woman with a 1960s hairstyle and makeup. I went into my stash and pulled all my oranges from pastel to a dark orange brown. I love the woven batik background fabric which calms all the energy of the oranges.

I embellished this quilt by digging around in my embellishment stash and found sequins, beads, glitter/glue, a felt flower with a rhinestone, some velvet on the shirt neckline, glitter nail polish on the lips and another rhinestone for a nose "piercing." I found the large sequin dangly trim and hand sewed it to the bottom of the quilt after the binding was sewn on-it reminds me of a go-go dancer's dress.

I titled the quilt "Carrot, Copper, Cantaloupe"

I have not posted in a while because I am trying to figure out how to add a watermark to my posted photographs. I have found a local woman from my art council who is a photographer and is helping me tomorrow. Once I figure that out I will be sharing my new realistic style quilt about steampunk.

I have been busy in other areas of my live besides quilting. I work in a hair salon and had to find another job and that time of finding a new job took away from my quilting!! Then the last few weeks my 16 year old cat Mia has been sick and went to the vet. Mia decided it was time to go to cat heaven and I put her down on Friday Sept, 26. She was a crazy mischievous cat that ate my sewing thread, raffia, curly ribbon, tinsel, artificial Christmas tree needles and basically any string she could get in her mouth. She  had two surgeries and several close calls. After the Christmas tree incident in 2003 I have not had a Christmas tree in my house. So this year I will put up a tree in Mia's memory. She always spent a lot of time in my sewing room and I miss her terribly.

I travel to Houston Texas for the IQF Quilt Show in late October and am beyond excited to teach two 6 hr. portrait quilt classes as well as enjoy myself shopping and viewing the exhibits.

 

 

 

Art Quilts Around the World: 3 R Challenge

 I am in an art quilt group through Facebook called Art Quilts Around the World. Every two months we select a challenge and today is reveal day for the 3 R challenge-Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. go to their blog  www.aroundtheworldin20quilts.blogspot.com to see all the challenge quilts plus all the previous challenges.

I have been favored with two local woman who I did not know give me fabric because they heard I would use it for a good cause. The first woman used to own an area bridal shop and was down sizing her special occasion fabric stash. I received velvets, satins, taffetas, lames, laces and chiffon in a variety of colors. I was very happy and overwhelmed by all of this great fabric. The black fabric of the hair in this quilt is from this woman. It is actually on ottoman type fabric which I forgot to mention before. It is a heavier coat weight fabric with a texture design. It was very stinky when the iron was on it! The second woman I met used to live in Las Vegas and told me she made costumes for Vegas shows, drag shows. Disney and circus costumes. She currently does hair and make-up for the Performing Arts Center in Appleton WI-What great stories to share with me! Quite the interesting lady!!It was sparkle paradise for me the day I received all the lames and shiny fabrics! I reused the awesome striped "eyelash" lame as the dress in this quilt.

The background and binding fabrics I have used in two other separate quilts. The small facial feature fabrics are all recycles scraps from my stash.

The quilt was shiny enough from the eyelash lame so I held off on the normal rhinestone embellishments. I did use several nail polishes on the face and a bit of fabric paint. The earring is a combination of a bead, a chain from an old necklace and a shiny thing from a Christmas garland

recycled.

 

I was going for a 1960s pop art psychedelic woman. I had fun on this quilt and plan to use this quilt locally for a quilt challenge I will blog about in August.

Bollywood Challenge: Art Quilts Around the World

I am in a Facebook art quilt group called Art Quilts Around the World and their blog is www.aroundtheworldin20quilts.blogspot.com. There are 22 members from around the world and we have a challenge every two months. The reveal day in today, May 31st, for the Bollywood Challenge.

 

I was intending to do a Bollywood quilt down the road and purchased the fabric on the left side of the quilt from www.equilter.com. Bollywood to me means lots of bling and flashy embellishments so I went crazy!! I hit my jewelry stash and selected the huge over heavy dangly earring for the forehead. I had some leftover gold trim from my 2013 Hoffman Challenge quilt and added two to the quilt plus some gold rick rack to add to the bling. I used several decorative threads with gold thread to create the image of a sari. I added plenty of gold beads and colored rhinestones to the head scarf. I took two old earrings and the chain from an old rabbits foot with some gold glitter nail polish to create the woman's earring/nose jewelry. I added a bit of glitter nail polish to the hair also.

Here is a detail photo of the face. I enjoyed the entire process of making this small (11.5" x 16.5") quilt.