Here is the next step I took with "Pile o' Leaves":

Some years ago when I was doing a lot more hand dying, I developed an idea involving 3-5 overdyes and then bleaching out a design. It was started in 2005. The strips I chose to go with it are more of my multi-overdyed pieces. My style is to do 1/16 yd in ziploc or bread bags, using soda ash water and a pour over of one or more dyes. Low water immersion its called. I had a lot of fun doing that for a while. The past few years I've done a lot of simple tie dye, mostly for a friend. Clothes, sheets, blankets and a pair of curtains. There is a new order of blankets coming, so I have determined to also do some more complex hand dyeing with quilting fabric in mind.

Since I have retired I find my mind freed up and the ideas coming faster than I can finish them. I've realized the importance of making art quilts with entirely original fabrics, hand dyed by myself. The only thing I don't do is weave the fabric. But starting from white cloth, these quilts are entirely my own, and that is satisfaction. Please, don't think I'm against prints! I love them equally, in a different way.

Speaking of prints, this as yet unnamed patchwork is moving along too:

We're busy trying to get our cooking system going for the maple syrup making, so thats all for now, folks!

I'll hook up with Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday

Sue

Did I mention I love to sew?

I have been busy with new fabrics and whole cloth ideas, free motion quilting and patchwork.  Here are some pictures and descriptions:

Lots of quilting being accomplished here!! It's lying on a bumpy mess so it looks less smooth than it is. I've named it 'Golden Memories" The quilting design is relatively simple and was easy to come up with. Inspired by cut glass, of which I am fond.

And then there is this patchwork which is pretty much making itself:

I'm about 2/3 done getting all the blocks begun. It will be a log cabin variation of some kind or another.



I found this tonight and decided to take it to the next level:

This started as bleached print cloth in 2005. I have a technique that involved dyeing and over dyeing complex colors, then bleaching out designs and painting dye back in using MX thickened with alginate. I didn't know what to think then except that I was pleased with it. Its been waiting til now. Tonight I took a fabric pen to it and concentrated on outline and negative areas and I think its ready for sandwiching and free motion quilting.

My mom has been downsizing her fabric and as I slowly go through it I keep finding treasures. 2 whole lengths perfect for a matching front and back wholecloth, one hot deep pink in polished cotton and the other a rosier medium pink watered voile. Washed and set aside. You might find it silly that after 15 years as a dedicated quilter I am just now drawing my own quilting designs but its given me a freedom and direction that makes a lap sized Welsh style quilt do-able with free motion and straight line quilting. I do both on my Bernina, and am gaining confidence.

I remind myself that my word for the year is 'Closure' and part of that includes finishing as many as I start. I made 7-9 quilts last year and suddenly there are few left. Not for long. Just gotta get em to completion.

The one above is a familiar face. I had a waking moment where I saw each smaller rectangle with a much much smaller white rectangle, upper right corner, half filled in and half empty, just white outline. I guess it wasn't finished after all. This is also all entirely hand dyed and thread painted.



If you can get past the tie dye underneath,  the fabric and patchwork are a cross over gradation of 36 pieces, from blue green to fuschia. I am slowly making half square triangle units using black with the colors. There will also be solid black squares and solid color squares. Its going to be a good sized patchwork. I am on the hunt for the complicated old fashioned pattern to set these blocks off to perfection. Well, all my perfection is wabi-sabi (imperfect, impermanent, incomplete...well mostly complete) so we'll see what we get.

And finally, a peek at what is under the tie dye:

'Cloister Garden'. The quilting is started and ready to be continued. Soon enough! I change my bobbin almost every day; sometimes twice. Every time I go to finish one, a new one pops up!


We are tapping our sugar maples for sap to boil into syrup. We have just begun with great potential for success and it's a new and exciting adventure. We had fresh maple sap boiled for our coffee the other morning. There was just a hint of something more and it was so delicious, and promising!

I am hooking up with Nina Marie on her Off the Wall Friday blog too. Thanks again Nina! I love browsing with coffee on weekend mornings.

Happy Spring! Soon the flowers will come out to play!

Love,

Sue

Patterns in Nature: an Art Quilt Challenge

Patterns in Nature-Unconventional was proposed as an art quilt challenge on  Dec 1 2014, over on the Quiltart listgroup. Over three months the objective was given to take a natural pattern and interpret it using whatever chosen methods and materials explained the artist's purpose, at whatever size decided upon, as long as there were some quilting involved. These 7 artists responded. We hope you will enjoy their interpretations.



Phyllis Cullen, "Lava 1: Pahoehoe"

 Here on the Big Island of Hawaii, the work of Madame Pele and the ongoing eruption of Kilauea volcano is much on our mind. Evidence of previous lava flows are everywhere, and an area of forest or a home, public building, cemetary, beach, school etc that is there one day may be covered the next with 2000 degree molten rock. Disorganized lumps of sharp rock is called a'a. When the lava flows in ropy smooth folds it is called pahoehoe. The crust blackens as it cools but while it still flows the fiery inside can be seen.

I used fabric painting, bleaching, metallic threads and bits of fabric to capture the fiery rock.

20 x 16



                                                       http://phylliscullenartstudio.com



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 Kathy Zieben, "Getting Schooled"

13" x 11". Paper collage printed on fabric. Machine quilted using Rainbows Trilobal Polyester Thread and Sulky Metallic Threads.

"Patterns in the world are visible everywhere.  It is important to have that connection with nature to appreciate all the different kinds you can see.  My inspiration for “Getting Schooled” happened during an experience out on a boat.  When the sun is shining, the shimmer and ripples on top of the water formed beautiful patterns, but beneath the surface, even more patterns revealed themselves through schools of fish swimming below the surface. "

                                                          http://kathyzieben.weebly.com/

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Meena Schaldenbrand " Coral Anniversary" 

Coral Anniversary

 

I chose the Coral design as it marks a milestone anniversary for me.

 

Materials:  Aluminum popcan, Angelina, beads, buttons, Evolon, metal, metal and paper tubes, net, sheers, sequins, Tyvek, yarns, wire

Free motion quilted.

 

Meena Schaldenbrand

Plymouth, MI

http://meenaschaldenbrand.blogspot.com/ 

                                      

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Sylvia Lewis, "Bark"

"When I heard the challenge, my first thought was about this wonderful Eucalyptus tree at the Walker Creek Ranch. It has beautiful bark. I attended a retreat in January at the Ranch and was able to get a photograph of the bark. I printed out the photograph, traced the elements from it. I free-form cut the layers to match the photograph. I added a layer of tulle to hold it all together while I quilted the piece using my trusty walking foot. "Bark" measures 11"x 13" "

                                              http://bunchberrystudio.blogspot.com/ 

                              

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Cindi Goodwin  "One Branch"

Machine pieced randomnly....colored pencils...fmq....9 by 9 and one half inches....and beaded

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Suzanne Riggio " Ancient Willow"

 ANCIENT WILLOW

Size:  10 1/4” wide x 12 3/8” long
Materials:  Curtain linen and silk overlay on rayon geometric print, 
cotton, linen, Ultrasuede, yarn, beads, embroidery thead, batting
Techniques:  Scrunching, trapunto,  hand embroidery, free-motion 
embroidery, beading, machine applique, machine quilting

Ancient Willow is inspired by actual, enormous, ancient, bulbous, and 
bulging willows lining the pond in Greenfield Park in Greenfield, WI, 
a suburb of Milwaukee.  I love the patterning of the bark which 
reveals decades of cold and heat, insect incursions, and the defense 
mechanism of the tree in its huge bulbous bumps.

Suzanne Mouton Riggio



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Sue Kaufman "Lady Bug Invasion"

I chose symmetry as my inspiration and used my own Spoonflower designs of symmetrically altered pictures of outer space, sunsets and the aurora borealis. There is raw edge piecing and free motion quilting. The idea of ladybugs came as that fabric was also one of my manipulated designs, and seemed the perfect jumping off point. There is mostly mirror (reflectional) and rotational symmetry exhibited here. In nature there are many other types of symmetry. I wished I'd had more fabric to make it bigger! It finished at 16" X 17"



Sue DiMeglio Russell Kaufman



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I'll be hooking up with Nina Maries' Off the Wall Friday.