SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) 2014 Auction Piece

I have been a SAQA member for a few years and they do an art quilt auction beginning in September of each year to raise funds. They ask any of the members to donate an original art quilt piece 12" x12" and I created this piece I call "Human Harmony."

The deadline was extended from June 1st to June 15th and that gave me enough time to make something for the auction.

I started with the red batik with purple and gray gears. I felt like working with darker skin tones and blonde hair-as interesting combo but if it's good enough for RuPaul it's good enough for me!! I added the word harmony because I was being social/political in my mind while I was creating this and it spoke to be about human/racial harmony.

I embellished with two different yellow nail polishes for in the hair, one polish on the lips and another purple nail polish on the eyelids. I added rhinestones to simulate actual jewelry and a bit of white fabric paint on the eyes.

I'm glad they expended the deadline so I could commit to the SAQA auction project!

 

 

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.

Portrait Quilt for Appleton East H.S. Class Reunion Door Prize

I have a class reunion this July in Appleton WI. I went to Appleton East H.S. and our school colors were blue and red because we were the Patriots. Back then the Americana color combination was not easy to come by but today it's everywhere. Anyway, the reunion is having door prizes and the coordinators are asking us to donate something so here is my contribution. I used my school colors and all fabrics in my stash. The batik stars and stripes is totally a great fabric as well the batik I used for the halter top!! I have used this pattern of mine before but have not added a border before. I also went into the border with the hair while doing the quilting.

I embellished with rhinestones for earrings and a necklace, two different nail polishes for the hair, a red glitter nail polish on the lips and a great blue chunky glitter nail polish for the eye shadow. I found a cute little button for the jeans closure.

The quilt is 18" x 24."

I added the year of my graduation to the bottom of the quilt in a subtle way. I wanted some reference to the reunion but not too much. You can do the math to figure out how old I am!

And last I never show my labels but I wanted to show this one. I do all my labels using the face stamp I picked up at Joann Fabrics and then I emphasize the eyes and lips using my Pigma Micron pens. I use them to write the info for the labels too.

I hope who ever gets my quilt enjoys it!!

Ann B: A Real Person Portrait

I have a website www.laurieceesay.com and I have had Ann Bridges from Appleton WI (my hometown) re-do my website last year. Ann is a former hair customer, neighbor and we found each other a while back on Facebook. Ann has a web design business called AMB Web Solutions and she helped me out when my original web designer retired.

Ann is very generous with adding pages/widgets to my website. I just added a page with my teaching schedule and another page with my patterns for sale.

So I wanted to pay her back by making a portrait quilt of her. I used her Facebook photos as references since I haven't actually seen Ann in several years. I was wondering what her favorite color was so I could use that as the color scheme of the quilt so I was sneaky and told her I was doing a survey on "what is your favorite color?" for my color classes. I did ask on Facebook and to the people I worked with etc. in a 24 hour period and the results were interesting.

Pink was her favorite color (mine too!) and I loosely use a pattern where I did myself in a whimsical portrait and Ann's glasses were the same shape as mine. I changed the face shape, smile and nose. She has fun hair too!! As I was creating this quilt Ann posted on Facebook while watching American Idol that Keith Urban and her had the same haircut!! I had to agree!

I embellished with nail polish on the lips, pink rhinestones in the background and some bronze fabric paint in the hair. No jewelry.

I mailed it to Ann this week and she received it yesterday and loved it!

I love surprising people with my art!!

 

The Woman With The Belted Dress x Two

This is a pattern I drew up and used for a several quilts a few years ago. I like the asymmetrical placement of the woman, the long hair and the halter dress. When I first designed it the woman was very thin. I thought "who looks like that?" and I added curves to the poor thing so she looked like a real woman! I added the belt because it was fun to accessorize and I can use more fabric!! That is the back story of this design.

Today I used this pattern to make these two wall hangings for two separate reasons. The quilt in the first photo is for a fundraiser in my community for the local free clinic. I want to contribute a donation to this worthy cause. The dress fabric is a hippy psychedelic fat quarter I picked up on my journeys and simply could not put it in another quilt where it seemed appropriate. But my lady could wear it as her dress! I have fallen in love with chevrons and this background fabric was a great contrast to the red hair and the dress. I added red glitter to the hair, glitter nail polish to the eyes and lips (makeup!) and rhinestones for jewelry. I did not add a flower to her hair because I felt there was enough activity with the patterns of the various fabrics and it would have looked too busy. I have to part with this quilt next week. :(

 

Quilt number two is for my local quilt guild's next challenge on using someone else's "ugly" fabric! I randomly picked the large paisley print. Not the worst fabric in the world but large! I liked the blue/orange combination and ran with that. I chose the paisley as the dress and had this great hand dyed orange velvet for the hair. I tried to downplay the paisley using value. I purposely selected a background that had low contrast to the paisley while boldly using orange for the hair, lips and belt. I embellished with an orange marker in the hair, rhinestones for jewelry and a felt flower button painted with blue nail polish with a bead in the center in the hair. The challenge isn't due until August but I was in the mood to work on it now. If any of my guild members see it before the reveal oh well!!

 

The two quilts look quite different to me based on fabric chose. I like the red haired woman quilt better because I prefer bright colors with lots of contrast  but I love the velvet hair too! Which one do yu prefer?