nature study

on silk fabric

with fabric markers and

water soluble wax pastels.

  The water soluble crayon was scrubbed against a piece of parchment to make a little palette.  Using a wet brush you can pick up as much color as you want and fill in coloring-book-style.

The outline was stitched with a super, heavy weight upholstery thread that I had in my machine to do some leather work. 

The outline stitch is thick, I will use this thread again to do this.

...the image on my cloth came from my doodle from my sketchbook which came from my photo...

 and the the colors were switched to work with the new Fiberactions color challenge which is the triad.

The color challenges have been good because usually I have trouble stopping with just two or three colors....

the grieving heart

Today is the Fiberactions art quilt group reveal.

 color challenge #1

 As my small New England community mourns the loss of two young men with in the past 10 days; I put my colors away.

black - the absence of color  

Black silk sateen, Kimono black silk thread. 

8 1/2 x 10 1/2

RIP

-textures of life-

 Today is the Fiberactions Group reveal day.

Our theme word is texture and this is named

Textures of Life

The seed pod theme and color way were revisited as well as using the vintage, hand pieced blocks (shown at the bottom and used with the last challenge.)

This is a traditional three layer quilt which was constructed with a top, batting, backing and then quilted.  Gesso was painted over the finished quilt, background color was added, the pods were masked then painted and stitched.

 The thread did the work and maybe for the first time embellishment was not added for texture.

 Head on over to Fiberactions and check out the challenges as they are posted throughout the day.

-a good life-

 Today is our Fiberactions challenge reveal day. 

 Departure is our theme word picked by artist Connie Rose. 

My piece is constructed of vintage blocks which were stitched, painted white with artist's gesso and then watered down acrylics.

This is a traditional three layer quilt consisting of a top, batting and backing.  The flowers are painted silk organza and were stitched to the top after quilting.

 The vintage blocks, shown below, were given to me from Cathy Racine.  Cathy is the proprietor of Charlton Sewing Center and hosts a charity auction for our Guild once a year. We have raised thousands of dollars for various causes. 

Cathy included these blocks with something I bid on and told me to make something beautiful out of them, she didn't have the heart to throw them away.

Reluctantly, I took the badly soiled, stained and smelly blocks.

Several washings and soakings later I was able to work with them, but they sat waiting in my cupboard for a year.

There are blocks for at least a good sized queen quilt, but the integrity of them is very weak. They are hand pieced using a variety of thin fabrics and threads.

I'm not sure what I will do with the remaining blocks,

but at least I saved a few from departure and gave them

a good life.

Now head on over to Fiberactions and check out how the others interpreted the theme.

weathered treasures

Today is the Fiberactions quilt reveal day, our challenge theme was embellishment.

I went in a totally different direction than I normally do.  In fact this is my second piece because I decided my original piece was too similar to work I usually produce.  I love to embellish with fancy threads, beads and lots of bling.

This time I used my treasure box of finds.

 

There are a lot of fun things stitched on this quilt. I won't go into all the details of the pieces but most have a little history.

The fabric was taken from a vintage Christening gown.  I don't know anything about the gown, but my guess is, several babies wore this gown over many years. Above you can see some of the tiny patches of hand stitching, I left them as is and didn't cover or hide them for the most part. 

To make my embellishment piece even more special, I used vintage threads to attach the items. My friend Sharon gave me a vintage sewing box awhile ago and I used the variety of threads from inside.

Above is the Christening gown before I cut it apart. I still have a lot of the fabric left for something else.  Below you can see the lace that is in pretty good condition, comparatively.

Below you can see the hand-stitched pleats. I like to think; who ever put those pleats into the gown would have been happy to know that her hard work lives on with my weathered treasures.

Head on over to the Fiberactions blog and you will be sure to find a lot of colorful eye candy and bling!

don't judge a book by it's cover

because you never know what is inside

Today is  the Fiberactions Challenge Group reveal day.  Our theme word was impression.

This is a two sided quilt.  The front, meant to look like a weathered book of plants and flowers. The back  meant to look like a page from inside.

Again, I went with seed pods.  This time I created 3d seed pods which were lined with green silk.

The fabrics of the book were painted, over painted, distressed, inked and made to look like leather.  The label was was hand printed onto white fabric, distressed and the edges were burnt.

I took pictures of drawn flowers from my sketchbook and used them to hand paint white cloth. 

The flowers were stabilized prior to cutting and then stitched onto the background fabric.

I loved making this piece.  Out of all my Fiberactions pieces this is probably the most representational of  the type of work I love the most.

Head on over to the Fiberactions blog and see how the other talented artists interpreted the theme.

Thanks for looking!

natural environment

Today is the Fiberactions art quilt  reveal. Our theme word is environment.

I decided to continue with my seed pod series and created what I call

-natural environment-

I love seeing untouched, undeveloped landscape. 

Near where I live is a beautiful parcel of land,  I hear it has sold and will be developed. 

The view, the landscape, the history - will be forever changed.

Hand dyed and painted fabric, silk fusion fabric, embroidery, quilting and beads.

Be sure to check all of the artist's work by going to the Fiberactions blog.

a peak inside the sketchbooks . . .

. . .  and there are several.

-below is a little sketch of a wall quilt I'll be making.  Here, I just have a few ideas down and it is more cartoon like, but if I commit to this design I'll draw it out larger and begin to make templates of the pieces.  When I don't do this I find I can get lost and often abandon the piece all together.

  I don't often add color to my sketchbooks but this bottle of lotion, in real life, is the most magnificent shade of blue that I may eventually add some water color.

Since starting the Fiberactions group a year ago, I've kept one sketchbook with only ideas and concepts for those projects. 

Below is a quick sketch for my environment piece.

The sketchbook below isn't really an artist's sketchbook, but a book of graph paper - I'm not picky, so I've filled it with doodles and quick sketches.

I was going through a book from last year and came across this doodle. It's from one of Jaye's prompts: sterling. 

I remember this is what prompted me to get into using charcoals. I'd love to draw a silver place setting . . .

. . . it's on the bucket list.

My husband gave me this cool little leather paper case years ago. It's for important notes and such, but seeing I never really have anything important to write down when I'm on the go - I use it for doodling.

I doodled this guy when I was waiting for my son at school one afternoon. 

The sketchbook challenge has been great fun so far. 

Go check it out here!

environment. . .

. . .  is the theme word for the Fiberactions group. 

Our reveal day is January 15th -

sew, be sure to check back to see my environment piece-

- then click here-

-to see all of the artist's work on reveal day.

seed pods

Today is the Fiberactions group quilt reveal. 

The challenge word this month was transformation.

Seed Pods

Inspired by the seed pods left behind when flowers die off.

The fabric is hand made silk fusion.

This is the first in a series of seed pod quilts I'm planning.

------

Be sure to check the Fiberactions link (here) to see the group's responses.

surface tension . . .

Today is the Fiberactions reveal day.

We created pieces using the word stretch as our challenge theme.

Click the link to see the interpretations revealed throughout the day and to learn more about our group.

Seemingly like magic, the water strider skates across the pond as if on a length of stretched plastic wrap.  Magic, it is not. In addition to his hairy legs which trap tiny air bubbles and act like life preservers; it is surface tension which allows him to stay afloat and stride so gracefully.