MIX Extreme Studies

MIX is my small quilt group. Our challenge for this year was to work in an 18 inch square format and study the concept of material, form and color "in the extreme".  Several members chose a single theme for exploration  but in the end, each artist was allowed the freedom to apply the parameters in any way they wished. This produced 21 unique pieces which are hanging in the Community Hall of the First United Methodist Church in Portland Oregon.

If you live near by, stop and get a closer look It will be worth your while.

Week 3 Included Shibori Dyeing

I showed you these greens last week. There were actually 8 pieces, one light and one darker from each of the green mixes. I took the lightest of three and one other and used the shibori pole wrap process to dye the pieces on the right. I was to make a quilt using the shibori pieces but used both in my small piece.

This is the result. There are some trees on the golf course where I play that suffer from bad pruning. I fondly refer to them as the elbow trees. They were beautifully flowering wih pink blossoms at Christmas. I just new they were ladies and decided to bring them to positive life in some of my art.
This one is titled: That Girl...She Gives New Meaning to the Term Going Green

What do you think?

Dye and Design Week 2

This weeks lesson was to mix many colors from 6 basic colors.

Here are a few that I did.  The pink and oranges. I eventually dyed a more red orange that is my preference.

The greens: these were achieved by mixing yucca, evergreen, turquoise and blue with the same yellow. I made a step 4 and step 7 strength for each. The lightest here was the step 4 and the others the darker step 7.

I worked on browns by mixing complimentary colors. Turquoise and orange, orange and black, blue and orange. In each case, it seems that the orange was too strong.

Stay tuned to see what I did next with each of these.

Dot Calm

I've been on circle work of late.

I finished the small piece for the SAQA Invitational. You saw its beginnings last week. I named it Dot Calm. It's machine pieced, appliqued and quilted along with added hand stitching.  I love the combination of grey and a rusty red.  The fabric consists mostly of hand dyed but there is a bit of commercial fabric as well. FUN!

I'm continuing with the Dye and Design class with Elizabeth Barton.

What Am I Working On This Week

I love to sew...just about anything.
I love traditional quilts and fiber art.
It all make s me happy.

Generally, I work on two things at a time because for me, the most fun part is the design process. In the traditional quilt world, this often translates into color, value and cloth selection. In the fiber art world it is a ditto with the addition of original design, for me accomplished through sketch. When the design is completed, then the task of assembly takes place which is less than fun for me. Thus two things at a time: one in the assembly stage and one in the design stage.

I am assembling this quilt: Sintra Squares by Cynthia Young.

Sorry for the blurry picture. I will send a new one in an upright position when I get all the rows sewed together. This is made of some terrific batiks and best, I used up 5 entire pieces of fabulous fabric from my stash.

On the creative side, I am taking a class at Academy of Quilting from Elizabeth Barton. It's called Dyeing to Design. The first week we dyed a gradation of greys.

 

and then we were to design a simple quilt using them. We all know that color gets the credit but value does the work. Here is my start. I cheated a bit by introducing some grey with brown , rust and salmon tones. There is  reason. More to come...

What are you working on?

APWQ pt 3

Flicker by Sonia Grasvik

Sonia says "We feed the birds. Frequently a feather will be left behind for us to discover. A flicker left this one. It begged to be on a quilt."

Sonia has done a magnificent job with the detail of this feather. Look at the texture in the second image. I loved the narrow bands of cloth giving this a striped effect and the color choices were perfect. Simply stunning.

APWQ, pt 2

Diversity by Deborah Babin

This was a delightful quilt. The composition is so balanced. The colors so compelling  and the quilting exquisite. The quilting tells the story and includes people, houses and quotes. I found this to be one i could look at a very long time. It pulled me in.