Got Beans?

I apologize for my late posting. I'm not sure whether my Loony Muse was playing a joke on me, or the Fates were mad at me yesterday. AT&T decided to provide no Internet connection most of the day. Thunder and lightning kept the computer unplugged until this morning.

Since all of my quilts have been heavily embellished, I struggled to think of something different. The Muse, having recently taken Carla Sondheim's "Silliness" class, reminded me that I had a quilted green bean casserole hanging around the studio left over from a crazy Susan Sorrell embroidery class. (Don't ask!) Aunt Flo was born ...

16x20 - Cotton, linen, lace, silk sari ribbon, Mardi Gras beads, glass & shell beads, buttons, deconstructed upholstery trim, perle cotton, raw-edge hand applique, hand quilted.

Next Challenge

The word for our next challenge is "Departure."

de·par·ture (d-pärchr)
n.
1. The act of leaving.
2. A starting out, as on a trip or a new course of action.
3. A divergence or deviation, as from an established rule, plan, or procedure:
ordered curry as a departure from his usual bland diet.
4. Nautical The distance sailed due east or west by a ship on its course.

n
1. the act or an instance of departing
2. a deviation or variation from previous custom; divergence
3. a project, course of action, venture, etc. selling is a new departure for him
4. (Transport / Nautical Terms) Nautical
a. the net distance travelled due east or west by a vessel
b. Also called point of departure the latitude and longitude of the point from
which a vessel calculates dead reckoning
5. a euphemistic word for death

With "departure" as the theme, I'd like to suggest that if you're so inclined, you can depart from the normal dimensions for this piece but stay in the vicinity of 320 square inches (20x16). So 300 to 340 square inches.

See you all on July 15!
Connie

embellish

I call my piece weathered treasures. 

I started a different piece for this challenge theme and decided it was too similar to what I usually produce.  I decided to go in a different direction and up cycle some of my vintage treasures and finds.

Most of the items I have stitched onto this piece have some history and meaning to me.  The fabric came from a vintage Christening gown which I cut apart and very carefully quilted with 100wt silk thread.  Most of the threads I used to embellish the piece and attach the items were vintage, also.

You can see more about this piece by visiting my blog.

Embellish...  hmm... just bought a new "Embellisher" (felting) machine a few weeks before the theme was announced... I wonder what I'll make???

The central image of "Mary's Garden" is made entirely on the felting machine.  Silks, cotton lace and vintage linens were torn, cut and placed over wool batting and needle felted together.  Added scraps of hand dyed papers, paper netting from potato bags, millner's flowers and embroidery were then applied, again, with the embellisher.  I then flipped the piece over and stitched the picture of the dog and girl, using dark blue thread in both my bobbin and top threads.  The resulting piece was then embellished onto a piece of leafy fabric which I had quilted in hot pink, and a few 3-d flowers and butterflies were also applied.

Embellish?  Yes...

Here are a few close-ups...

Cityscape

First I must say that "embellish" gave me pause. Maybe it was because the word is a verb and I was stuck in "noun" gear.

Or maybe it was because Mies van der Rohe's "less is more" dictum got in the way.

Or maybe it was my Grandmother saying "After you get all dressed up, look in the mirror and take one ornament off"...she sure thought less was more.

It is though these biases that I collect graffiti. I photograph interesting, anonymous markings wherever I go. Embellished walls and buildings.

I have them from the Great Wall in China, from a piece of the Berlin Wall, from NYC, Philadelphia, Melbourne and Fremantle, Australia and points in between. Most of the time I think they are interesting...if only from a anthropological point of view.

The three most identifiable images on "Cityscape" are an intricate young Michael Jackson, a hooded figure described as "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (both from different Australian cities) and the stylized "IDSME".

Embellish (with a little restraint)

Here's my "Embellish" piece. I tried to use a little restraint, as I tend to go pretty over the top with embellishing. I still had fun with it. To see the details please see my blog post.

Embellish

A couple of weeks ago I actually cleaned and organized my work space! This was really a major accomplishment since I was at the point where it was a total disaster and I could hardly find anything. In one of the layers I uncovered this 'tie painted' fat quarter that I must have done a few years ago. I immediately knew I had to use it for this challenge.

I used about 15 different threads for quilting and spruced up some of the flowers with additional paint, beads, crystals, yarns and hand stitching. I couldn't stand the thought of squaring this piece since I would have lost so much of the flowers so I used my rotary cutter freehand to create the uneven look. I pulled hard on the edgers while stemming them so they would slightly ruffle. I had fun with this one.

Embellish

To me Embellish means over the top with lots of different techniques used together, so piecing, felting, beading, machine embroidery and quilting with a yarn edge. There weren't too many things I didn't do to it.

Taking Flight

My entry in our "embellish" challenge is called Wings.  The fabric is a wholecloth fat quarter of jar-shiboried muslin, "embellished" with thread and nothing else.

For more photos, see my blog.

All That Glitters

Is not necessarily gold!At first thought the word embellish triggered visions of Angelina fibers, wool and silk roving, foils, tyvek, beads, ribbons and all sorts of additives. In the end however, I decided to go with the two of my most used embellishments... thread and paint.

I started with one of Vicki's hand dyed fat quarters and fused 3 full and two half flowers I cut from silk dupioni to that background fabric. The flowers were inspired by doodles in my sketchbook. Then I painted the rest of the flowers on the background with textile paints and dry pigments; and lastly brushed a layer of Opal Dust over the whole piece.

Layered with two battings... cotton and wool, I embellished my flowers with thread. Again the stitched designs came right from the pages of my sketchbook.

The pages from my sketchbook that inspired this piece and some more photos of the quilt can be found on my blog

Embellished

It had been a long time since I put so much hand work into a quilt. The most enjoyable part of making this quilt was digging into my box of embellishments I've collected over the years: silk cording, glass beads, angelina fibers, wool yarn, hand dyed floss and hand dyed fabric.

You can read more about this quilt and see a few more photos here.

Embellish

It doesn't really fit the theme, does it? I actually think it does!

I had trouble with the theme being a verb for some reason so I converted it to the noun version and started my analysis there. I started defining "quilt embellishment". Of course, beads, yarns, crystals, foil and paint all come tom mind. But what's the most basic embellishment?

Thread.

But is color also an embellishment? I think so and that's how I wound up doing a quilt with only one embellishment: white thread.

Hence, a whole cloth kaleidoscope. I had to keep with the symmetry theme!

For a couple of detail shots and a little more explanation, check out the post on my blog.