home
about the artist
gallery
blog
links
contact

Archive for the ‘Bird’s Eye View’ Category

Quilting Done

Monday, February 15th, 2010

After a false start and several hours of unquilting, I have finished the quilting on Meander. This photo is a little fuzzy, but you get the idea. My original plan was to quilt in curves, following the lines of the river, but it just looked terrible.

This is another in my construction series, and I have basically done linear quilting, sometimes with some waviness, and I realized, to fit my aesthetic, I needed to do that with this piece, even though it meant stopping the stitching at the river for each row. I found some variegated thread that worked perfectly. I used a different thread in the lower portion.

I had originally tried to do a zigzag stitch around the river, but with those deep curves, it did not look good. So I went in with the zigzag and free motion quilted it. I really like the organic look of it. Click on the photo to see a close-up.

I still have to finish the edges – probably a satin stitch with the variegated thread. Tomorrow night is our meeting when we turn in our quilts. I will be bringing them all home with me as we are doing the jurying of the show at my house next month.

Don’t forget to check out the Tote Tuesday 3 auction tomorrow. There is some great stuff to be had!!

My Artist Cloth is My Muse

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

It seems that whenever I am stuck I can always count on my fabric to lead me in an artistic direction. When I started this piece, I had totally different fabric in mind. As I started pawing around, the top two pieces jumped out at me. I love how they play off each other.

I fused the fabrics and then folded and played with layouts until I got this background.

I decided it would be best to do a reverse applique for the meandering river so I drew a meandering line and then took the rotary cutter to it. Here it is as I poked some turquoise silk under to see how it would look.

I am anxious to quilt this because I think the quilting will add a lot to the background.

The movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was quite good. To fit it into almost 3 hours, many layers of the story had to be discarded. The director was there. He is Danish. It was fun to hear him talk about making the movie,

I haven’t posted the pup lately. Here he is in all his laid back glory.

Meandering

Friday, February 12th, 2010

I was totally stressed last night, trying to decide if I could make another quilt before Tuesday and if so, what? I looked through all my plane photos. I googled birds eye view and views from planes to get some inspiration.

Ta da, I came up with a meandering stream/river. I have cut a rough version of how the river will meander with some fabrics I am considering for the topography. The turquoise has been disqualified for the river. Also, the river will not be that wide.

I dyed some silk charmeuse for the meandering river.

I was getting so distracted trying to work on this because I still had a mess from the last two quilts I made. So, after lunch, I took some time to put fabric away and clean up the studio.

Ahhh! Now, I can get to work. I got all of the fabric fused. I will get up in the morning and get to work.

I am feeling pretty good about this because it will be another piece in my abstract landscapes, using my art cloth.

Tonight, Mr C and I are going to the Northwest Film Festival to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a Swedish film of the book we just read. It is quite long. I hope I can stay awake.

Coming in for a Landing

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

My irrigation circles are almost finished. Today, I worked on the edges for the silk circles. I cut one inch wide strips of the various fabrics I had used in the quilt top.

I then fused them to the edge of the quilt in random order.

Now I am hand stitching embroidery thread over the binding so that it blends with the hand-stitched top.

Tonight, I did my talk about becoming an artist at an older age for the group at church that is working through the Artist’s Way book. I hope I didn’t blather on too long, but this is something I love to talk about  — my passion for what I do. I also bragged a lot about my artsy kids.

Tomorrow is STASH— I’m looking forward to some girl talk while I stitch the binding on my quilt.

Some Stitching Peeks

Friday, February 5th, 2010

I am doing very simple straight line quilting on this, using variegated thread in the colors of the quilt. I think it is looking good.

When I have time, I have been hand stitching the silk circles. Here are a couple of peeks.

It is interesting to see these together. They both use the same pattern, but very different styles. The shibori piece is crisp and graphic. The silk piece is soft and ethereal.

Tonight, Mr C and I went to see Avatar in 3D. It was a visual feast. So amazing to think how that movie was created. Really beautiful. More violent than I like, but the beauty was worth sitting through the violence.