Art Quilts Around The World: Macro Challenge

 I am involved in an online art quilt group called Art Quilts Around the World. www.aroundtheworldin20quilts.blogspot.com is the official site. We have a challenge every other month that one designated member selects. This challenge was called "macro" which means close up and the size of the finished quilt is 11.5' x 16.5." I chose to deviate from my normal portrait quilt style and I went out into my garden in late October. I live in gardening Zone 4 and I LOVE my castor bean plant which is an annual I purchase each year for my garden. I love this plant because it is huge at 10 feet by October and it gives a tropical vibe to my garden. I also love the reddish pink stems and leaf veins.

To make the quilt I photographed a leaf close up. I chose a green batik for the background and a magenta batik for the veins. I then thread painted the textured detail of the leaves with three colors of Sulky Blendables 30 weight thread. I used a pink color for the veins, a yellow green for the horizontal lines/borders and a medium green for the inner detail. The quilt kind looks like the inside of an umbrella or a spider web.

I selected a bright psychedelic print for the binding since the quilt was sort of boring to me. I thought about embellishing the quilt since it was plain but the actual leaf was not glittery or shiny so I left. Is this a favorite quilt of mine-no but it may fit into an abstract category in a quilt show. Maybe...

This photo is of the actual plant in my garden. I enjoy it's hugeness and am sad each fall when the frost takes it out.

The next challenge is "Art Nouveau" and I am again challenge not by the subject but by the limitations of the small size to show all the details of this style of art. This one is due Jan. 31, 2014.

This quilt was inspired by Michael Miller's fabric line called "Heavenly Pixies" which to me looked like fairies but whatever it was adorable!! The yellow print is also in the line of fabric. I chose to use my tried and true Blank Quilting free download pattern which name escapes me which I tweak a bit. the pattern is free from their website www.blankquilting.com. This pattern is simply half square triangles, squares, rectangles and flying geese. I am a fan of the double mirror image style placement for a quilt design-no row quilts for this woman since I do enough of those at the quilt store I work at. I fussy cut the pixie border fabric because it was directional which was easy enough. I chose all my personal favorites-red and lime green for the color scheme (Counterpoint!,) polka dots, stripes and herringbone!

In this photo of the center I decided to quilt with a silver thread to REPEAT the silver in the pixie fabric using a Madeira rayon silver thread. It is a wonderful thread that feeds through my sewing machine with ease unlike the Sulky metallic thread which is totally sparkly but a pain in the tush!! I used only curved and circular lines for the quilting.

I embellished with only silver to REPEAT the silver theme-I used silver rhinestones in two sizes in various areas and I have these clear with silver sparkly buttons from Joann fabrics and they were placed in the center of some of the blocks. The key to embellishing to know when to quit!! Then I added silver jingle bells around the binding and in a few areas on the quilt. It makes noise when I shake it! Very festive!!
I call it "Pixie McGlitter" because on Facebook there was a page that talked about picking your "Santa's Elf"' name. You took the first letter of your first name and the month you were born and mine was Pixie McGlittter. I was working on this quilt when the Facebook name thing was posted so that's  my name inspiration since it made me smile! It is so cutesie-poo I couldn't resist!!
I will hang it on my wall after Thanksgiving.

Throwback Thursday: I Remember Doreen Speckman

I had a huge mess where I store a lot of my quilts. These are my non-art quilts which consist of my various holiday quilts, my quilts for teaching examples and other quilts I love and have been making since the early 90s. I found these three wall hangings that were from Doreen Speckman's first book and I had a bit of nostalgia. Doreen Speckman was from Madison WI and traveled the world teaching quilting. She was very gregarious, full of laughter and famous for her Peaky and Spike combination of triangles pieced together to get an elongated triangle. I was living in Appleton WI and was a member of the Darting Needles Quilt Guild and a new quilter and Doreen Speckman was the guest speaker. I was extremely influenced by her work-I bought her book and thru the mid to late 90s made a ton of these quilts and gave plenty more as gifts. I loved Doreen's humor and she indirectly gave me permission to combine prints, polka dots and stripes which I wanted to do but had not seen yet. I was able to take two classes from her and she autographed her second book for me! Doreen passed away when she was only 50 years old in 1999 and myself and the quilting work felt her loss. So finding these memories of her were special.

The first photo is called Scrap Lilies and my label says 1995. I actually hand embellished tiny seed  beads to the quilt! I had hand quilted all three of these quilts-thank goodness I quit doing that! I also mitered the corners of the borders and who does that anymore!!

This second photo is a layout I make a gazillion times and we used templates-oh how times have changed!! I still use this little quilt as a table topper at Christmas and still adorn it!

This is the same quilt but in more "Laurie" colors-I was finding my groove! I still tend to pick lots of polka dots and black with brights. My technical stuff is pretty sad on these quilts-bad bindings and the corners aren't straight but you have to start somewhere!

I am glad I put labels on these because they are 18-19 years old and it seems like yesterday I made these. RIP Doreen!!

Bella Bordeaux: Last In The Series

This is number five in a series using my same favorite pattern and a variety of batiks in the background. I love this pattern because of the face and swirly hair and all the fun embellishments I am able to add to the quilt to make me happy! I also love Timeless Treasures Fabric Tonga Treats Batiks. They sell them as charm packs, jelly rolls or yardage and I picked up this one with the forest greens and burgundies. When I work on my color wheel class samples I discovered I had NO burgundy in my stash. I guess I saw it as a "country/primitive" color and since I like bright hues I never purchased any. Same is true to some extent with the forest green but when I found this charm pack it was calling my name because it is a variation of red and green and I love that!! I chose burgundy as my raw edged fused applique color because I have done this technique with forest green before and thought burgundy was my "challenge" color. As I worked on the quilt it reminded me of winter in the garden and holly berries etc. This is not a Christmas quilt but a winter garden quilt. I named it Bella Bordeaux which is Good Burgundy in Italian. I love the Italian language and the other quilts had Bella in their names and the color or the quilt added such as Bella Gialla and Bella Rosa (purple/pink.) The other two quilts were monochromatic values or yellow and the other one was in all blues without Italian names.

Since I live where there are no fabric or craft stores within an hour, and I wanted a sprig of holly and berries, what do I do??-I make my own!! I drew out the holly leaves on Wonder Under fusible web and double fused some forest green batik together, cut them out and with some Sulky Blendables Thread I stitched around the leaves and added the veiny details. Then to make the berries I used red, black and a bit of magenta Sculpy Clay and made my own which bake in the oven to harden. I used a toothpick to make holes to hand stitch the berries into place. I fabric glued the three holly leaves at the stem area only to the quilt so it is 3D and then hand stitched the berries around the holly. I took a little red shimmer nail polish to the berries to "frost" them up!! And wa-la who needs Hobby Lobby!!

I embellished some cute red, pink and green snowflakes to the background area and some white hologram iridescent nail polish to the eyelid and one white rhinestone for her nose piercing and Miss Bella Bordeaux is ready! I think I will hang her at Pizazz Salon where I work because the color schemes match!!

Quilting Arts Magazine Becomes an Ebook

This is Quilting Arts Magazine issue June/July 2011in which I wrote an article for the magazine called "Making a Fashion Statement!

 I am very proud of the article and the fact that I actually wrote it since that's not really my thing. I had five of my portrait quilts featured in the magazine and online at their website. This was a great experience and my first encounter with Pokey Bolton. Pokey loves my Tina Turner quilt and she has been instrumental in my quilting career advancement so this magazine is sentimental to me!! The magazine people were all very professional and friendly and it was not notch!!
 I recently received an email from Interweave, the Parent company of Quilting Arts Magazine, Cloth, Paper, Scissors Magazine and QA TV etc., and they informed me this issue of their magazine would be made into an eBook and I received a complimentary copy. Yeah!!

This is the new cover of the eBook and it is available on their website for all to purchase at www.interweavestore.com/portraits-in-cloth-create-portraits-with-fabric-and-stitch-ebook. This concept is new to me and just when you think something is done and finished it can be redeveloped in a different form. Thanks to all the technology changes!! Check it out!!
P.S. Do you know who Linda Ravencroft who paints fairies and has calendars etc. is? This eBook cover reminds me of Linda's artwork.
 

Happy Hippie Chick

This quilt is a result of me signing up for a block exchange called Block Lottery at Quilter's Haven in Menominee MI, My month was June and I selected four fabrics-the pink overall peace sign print, the pink tone on tone, an orange with pink dot and the cute daisy print with the black background. I knew I wanted to create a hippie chick/flower child image positioned in the middle and, after seeing the yurk quilts at the Wisconsin Quilt Museum Booth at the IQF Quilt Show in Chicago last June, I liked the long banner layout. I love star blocks so I lucked out and with my own block (upper right) I had enough star blocks for the corners and placed the other blocks in a pleasing matter. The flower block in the upper center is particularly awesome and I had to put it at the top!!

The hippie girl was inspired by an image from one of my daily calendars. I used all batiks except for the blouse fabric which is one of the four original fabrics. I used the hot pink and orange from the block in the "Hippie chick" letters. This is a good example of why I choose batiks for raw edged fused applique since the commercial cottons, especially the orange print, unravels too much. I wanted to repeat and reuse these fabrics but I am disappointed in the unraveling. I used a font common in the hippie era and hand drew the lettering then fused them to the background once the hippie girl was fused in place.

The fringe on the purse is batik cut into strips and tucked under the fused purse applique and then it hangs freely for a 3D touch!!

I used variegated thread and some fun decorative stiches on my sewing machine to duplicate trim on the bottom of the blue jeans and the blouse-this was fun and not the norm for a quilt to use these specialty stitches.

I hand beaded a necklace and two bracelets and glued a rhinestone choker for my hippie chicks "love beads!" I added a few felt peace sign buttons in the background and decided to stop with the embellishments. I considered adding more flower buttons but liked it the way it was and it had enough activity from the fabric prints.

 

This is a close up of the fabrics and the two decorative stitches I used in areas of the blocks I saw appropriate. I quilted this quilt with hot pink rayon  Madeira 40 weight thread which is lovely and does not break in the machine. I will use it as often as a can and it comes in lots of colors.

Witchie Poo 2013

This was a fun little quilt I wanted to make after purchasing the polka dot, mini stripe and the purple batik background fabrics. I used one of my patterns that has more of the woman's torso and gave her long orange hair and a witch's hat. I added the broom and some green skin and a witch is born!! I am in love with Halloween witches and women with green skin-this is my third green skinned portrait quilt-first my Victory Roll quilt, then a sample quilt for my Intro to Portrait Quilt pattern and now this one!!

I purchased a spool of Superior Nite Lite glow in the dark thread at the IQF Show in Chicago in June. The color choices were pastels and I used the pastel green thread for this project. It was kind of easy stitching all the applique down with only using one thread color and not changing the thread for each color of applique!! It really does glow in the dark but I could not figure out how to get a photo of it with the camera flash.

I embellished with some orange glitter nail polish for the hair and some iridescent polish for the eye shadow. I created some jewelry for my witch by gluing rhinestones to the quilt for a necklace and an earring.

I was in a hurry when I was drawing the pattern pieces onto the Wonder Under and forgot to reverse the pattern pieces. I thought about throwing it away but decided to make two witchy wall hangings-one the desired way and one in reverse which I gifted to my hairdresser friend Sherrie. She loved my other Pinup Witch quilt and I was not willing to part with her so I made Sherrie this quilt for an early birthday and housewarming gift. The day I gave it to her she had been having a bad week and I brightened her day-that's what it is all about!!

The quilts are small at 18" x  18" and I may consider creating a pattern but I am a little late for Halloween 2013.

Now if I could just figure out how to crop my pictures using my new computer-I'm so not tech savvy!!