Tag Archives: landscape

Something lightens

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river-house-placed

“River House”

This house was built in preparation for the class I’m teaching this Saturday at the Boston Center for the Arts.*  While probably not apparent to a viewer, this quilt pulls together many elements of recent learning.

How so? For one, it’s lighter than I usually work (exploring white online with Jude Hill).  It has a less defined horizon line. The house sinks into its surroundings better and displays a little perspective (the two barn pieces taught much!!! here and here).  And, the attachment techniques are more refined (and yes, that is the same green plaid I used to roof the two big Barns).

component building

“Off-top building” —

By that I mean connecting small elements with stitch prior to trying to connect them with the background (the “top”).  In this case, I HAD to stitch these teeny house elements together, because I couldn’t keep lifting and shifting the background fabrics without going nuts if I hadn’t. Once stitched, I could easily lift the entire component and rearrange the background fabrics.

Note to self: when constructing a component, use pieces of fabric that are already part of the background!

Reducing the number of pins required for when the piece is in your lap is always a good thing. And, this component-building has the additional virtue of reducing stress about shifting windows and doors, some of which are smaller than a standard-sized postage stamp.

‘sky’ fabrics dyed in backyard last summer using chemical indigo (I know! I know! – haven’t gotten to the plants, yet)

Again, because of the work with white over at Spirit Cloth, I laid some gauze over rectangles on the surface. They are staying. For a while, I shifted the house lower down (photo above) and exposed a piece of the underlying linen napkin (just above the roof). I liked wondering what it might be like to leave an unadorned white section, there, right in the center of the quilt. What matters? The house? Or the empty space above?

‘shadow’ of house is an overlay of polyester from a shirt

It is not something I have committed to yet. In the photo above, I have shifted the house back to center, covering not only the white linen, but that mauve rectangle (another goodie from Sandy Meegan, by the way!!).  I like knowing that that empty rectangle is still there, even if I’ve covered it.

Of course, the entire underlying linen napkin is THERE.

The pale blue water fabric came from a fabulous skirt depicting scenes of a European city on a river. I normally eschew ‘cheater’ fabrics (the name says everything, doesn’t it?), but here I am happy to employ.

*********************************************************************************************************************

Back in 1980, I lived in SF and worked in a copy shop.  The best part of the job was access to a color copier, which was BRAND NEW technology then!  The house image came from a photo of a duplex I occupied during the last two years of college.

And here’s a more recent picture (photoshopped church from Newtonville):

Lastly, a collaged card using a cut out photo of a quilt and an Inkydinkydoo moon stamp:

Adios!

* Class is at Boston Center for the ArtsSat. June 1, 10:00 to 1:00
Free! (but contact the Center, it might be full).
617-426-5000

“Venice, Anyone?”

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“Venice, Anyone?” is the smallest & bluest of the Global Warming series, to date.  Finished it this weekend. Found some older, in-progress pictures from April of this year:

Unlike so many others, this little quilt’s basic composition remained the same from start to finish.

After a few quick seams, I decided to use a little stitch-witchery to adhere rough edges, since I didn’t know when I would have time to actually get around to assembling and quilting.

The red stripes marked where I was adhering fabric with the sticky tape, and even though there are so few, I managed to gunk up the iron by touching a piece.  Boo hoo!  I had to stop & clean the iron before calling it a day.  Because quilting through anything with glue is not great, I kept the sticky tape pieces small and away from edges.

This is possibly a piece that I would have liked the outcome a little better had I decided to go toward gesso rather than thread.  Hard to know, now, but the spontaneous feel of collage often is diminished by the finishing process.   In this case, the original design stayed put, and I wouldn’t say the quilting took away from it, but it doesn’t really enhance it either, which it should.

The fish fabric, by the way, was too bright initially, so I toned it down in a tea bath.

Late Feb Mosaic

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1. Slip stitch pattern, prior to blocking, 2. travellers palm, 3. hairpin banksia, 4. JunkerJane Textile Art, 5. objectart 1/ emotion, 6. detail 3, 7. painted wall sign, 8. journey cloth_15, 9. Sleepers, Awake (detail), 10. Yawn… Maddie and Harry…, 11. Blue angel, 12. School Days, 13. Jane Austen – structural experiments – detail, 14. Synthesis #21, 15. Books, 16. Alger. Casbah, 17. Blown up., 18. House nestled in Vineyard, Fall Nature in Germany, 19. The Flying dog – The strange case of the dog who jumped over his shadow, 20. Work Quilt #3 – Detail

Grey Sunday outside of Boston has me choosing a mix of hot oranges and cool blues…. enjoy.

Canada’s hockey team just scored again — I’d better go watch!

Quilting a Full Moon in Taurus

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I THOUGHT I was going to bind and be done with this.  But a few influences (later on those, perhaps) got me to wanting to add a moon and moon shadows.

To make the moon, I looked in some unlikely places, underlining my rule about COLLECTING UGLY FABRIC.

who knew I'd want this fabric?!!

Disk and batting to start —

I won't use a backing -- but there will be two top layers

I love sheers for layering to create depth and a one-of-a-kind surface —

sheer shirts and scarves layer well

This shirt has shown up in other places lately — a self portrait, for one… Its scenes of New York resonate to a child of parents who haled from Brooklyn.  THIS particular full moon was in Taurus, and so, while my initial impulse was to make a quilt about money, the difficult transitions to fall/daylight savings, and the painful nature of attachment… now it had also to do with my father (b. May 19, 1929).

I like to use dissimiliar threads top and bottom for more texture

After stippling the craters, I flipped one of the lighter edges over the top (making a third top layer) because I thought the moon was too dark, and the fabric was there.

Then, because I wanted to make progress and because I knew I didn’t want to attach the moon to the quilt with a loose satin stitch, I machine-stitched the lunar edges under.  (BTW, do you see those two men in the foreground of the grey landscape?!!  This reference to the “man (or men) in the moon” not only affirms my love of visual puns, it does direct homage to my father, who was a true Master of the Pun.

On a different day, I might have decided to tuck these edges under by hand.

Now, I wanted to make moon shadows.

rejected this treatment of moonlight

More on that tomorrow!  (This treatment was soundly rejected!)