Blocks 8 & 9 and One To Grow On

The original concept of this project only needs nine blocks, but when someone asked if I was going to finish each block individually I thought, “Hummm.” So I’ve made 10 blocks and I’ll experiment with one and make a decision.

Brown Blocks 4 and 5

The weather has kept me in the house for the whole week. Although being house bound makes me grumpy : ) I’ve accomplisted a fair amount of work. This week there are two brown blocks. For work that appears so simple, I seem to spend an incredible amount of time mulling and rearranging pieces. Block Five was sewn together, ripped apart, and re-sewn into another arrangement. I like how the “shiny” shows in Block Four. My goal is “Elegant Simplicity.” The fabrics are mostly silks and polyesters.

Brown Block 4

Brown Block 5

Brown Block #3

Two days behind but I will catch up. It’s snowing outside and I can’t go anywhere. The skinny strip is twisted and sewn down flat.  I love the frayed, feathery edges of the larger strip.

Hey Nancy, will a little red purple do?

Brown Sunday (although it’s snowing outside)

After a week of cleaning and sorting in my studio, I’ve thrown away several large garbage bags of stuff and feel ever so much better. Going through all that led to surprises and new discoveries. Here’s one:

It’s a mono print on silk that I did in a workshop with Jason Pollen years ago. Now I think I may try to work it, whole or cut up, into a new QAYG quilt that’s been perking in my brain for the past month. Here’s the beginning of a possible block:

Once again I repeat, “I don’t like brown.” What’s this working with a color you don’t like? I did a quilt in browns in 1995 and it was a real winner in AQS, FL Craftsmen, S.E. American Crafts.

ROAD TO THE SUN

A Bee In My Bonnet

Have fiddled with this all Spring. Finally finished. The background is a photo of a poppy printed on fabric. It has been manipulated in Photoshop Elements to mirror both horizontally and vertically. The head is a sheer fabric and small flowers are cut from commercial fabric and fused. Embellished with beads. Can you find the bees?This piece will be entered into the Art Quilt section of the Bloggers Quilt Festival.

Spring Fling 12 x 12 Challenge

Here is the last 12 x 12 challenge. It was titled “Spring Fling.” My inspiration was a photo taken at Jamie and Natascha’s wedding rehearsal three years ago by their friend, Yevette.

In Spring A Young Man’s Fancy Turns To Love

It was a lovely wedding.

Favorite tree

The Uncommon Threads art quilt group’s latest challenge is “My Favorite Tree.” At first I found that trying to limit myself to just one tree was very hard, but as I reviewed some of my old photographs I realized that I really do have a favorite. Or did. A Wahoo tree (Euonymus atropurpureus), native to this area. The tree starts in the Spring with green leaves first, then flowers with rather insignificant small brown flowers and in the fall it’s foliage is red and gold with little red pods opening to red berries. In the winter we used to see a flock of Cedar Wax Wing birds feast and strip it of the berries in just a few hours.

In 2009 we were hit with a terrible ice storm in which you could literally hear tree limbs cracking and breaking and falling. It was a terrible two days. When it was all over the beautiful little Wahoo tree in my back yard had “exploded” and all the branches were broken. All that was left was a trunk.

My first attempt was to print a photo image of the Wahoo foliage onto canvas and then fuse another photo image of the broken trunk onto that. I was not particularly thrilled with this so used it for the back.

Next I used a purchased hand dyed fabric on Etsy for the back ground and fused to it a free hand cut out of the trunk in brown fabric. The trunk, branch and berries are embellished with machine embroidery. then quilted with a free hand leaf motif.

 “Boo Hoo Wahoo” 

Lesson learned – don’t quilt through the canvas. The needle leaves holes.  You can see the other members work on our UT blog here. Enjoy.

Hankie Art #2

In August, Harry fell nine feet straight down through the framework of the deck that he was rebuilding. He landed on his feet, but shattered his right heel. He has healed now with some residual pain and swelling but doing well. We both had to deal with it in our own way. My way was less painful than his!!!

Tender Foot

It’s mounted on stretcher bars.

Latest Challenge

The latest challenge in the Uncommon Treads Art Quilt group was chosen by Carol Bormann and entitled “Transportation.” I really felt challenged to come up with an idea and in trying to think of some unusual mode I decided on a woman carrying a baby on her back. Obviously, the woman doesn’t get any kind of transportation but the baby sure does.

The work of the other members can be seen here.

106 in the Shade.

The latest Uncommon Treads challenge was Hot and Dry. Dianna Callahan chose that title since we have experienced a severe drought this summer. You can see the other participants works here.

Mine was inspired by my dead and dying landscape, thirsty animals, and the dying trees in the forests. If I were to make it again, I’d put a window with bars on the house because I felt like a prisoner in my own home. It was so hot one only went outside when it was absolutely necessary. The worst day was a Saturday that actually was “106 in the Shade ” when the sun felt unbearable and the wind felt like I was standing in front of a blast furnace. Thank goodness, we’ve finally had some rain and some of the landscape has revised.