All things being equal, there are things I would have done differently on this, but I am finishing it tomorrow and will get it photographed. The title is ” Taking Leaf of My Seasons.” I struggled with the leaf component. One of the quilts in Quilt National this year consisted of leaves that were scanned and printed and arranged in a composition. In the end, I thought why not!?
I arranged and rearranged the leaves and glued them temporarily on the background and then stitched them and left them lose on the edges so they look as if they are floating.
For the back, I am using the big piece of fabric that I was gifted with in San Antonio. It has my name spelled out. I stitched two long edges of facing tonight. So all I have left to do is the top and bottom facings.
I am still dragging around with this virus. I wake in the morning and think I am ready to roll and as the day goes on, I get tired, achy and cranky. Having the roof work done is not helping. I wanted to crawl in bed and take a nap this afternoon, but they were working right over head and so that was not to be. It is dusty, noisy and I can’t wait for it to be over.
To add to our misery, Mr C’s jeep was broken into last night. We had to leave the cars out on the street because of the new materials and the roofer’s truck in our driveway. They broke a back window and took an old laptop that was with some other old computer stuff that Mr C was taking to the Free Geek recycle center. They no longer make the window that was broken so he had to go to a junk yard to find one and then have it installed. The good news is that it cost less than $100.
I hope that the next time I am back here, things will be looking up around here. I am tired of the plodding.
I am plugging away on this big piece while I am dealing with a nasty virus and men on my roof, making noise that hurts me to the core. This particular virus made its way through the Barnes family and then skipped over here to me. Fever, swollen glands, dizziness, sleepiness – ack! So, will I finish this in time to photograph it and enter it on line?
I got the background quilted over the week-end, in short spurts, a section at a time.
Spring:
Summer:
Fall:
Winter:
So far I have 3 layers – hand-dyed cotton, painted organza and thread. The next layer will be tulip tree leaves. I got the idea of making this quilt because when I walk around the neighborhood, I pick up leaves for their colors or shapes and bring them home and scan them. I love the shape of tulip tree leaves, they are kind of short and curvy, like myself!
I am trying to use up what I have in my studio and not go out and buy more stuff. I found this roll of Jacquard paperĀ backed habotai silk on a roll.
I played with my scanned leaves in photoshop and printed them on the silk. IĀ then fused them to cotton crinoline to give them some shape.
I have pinned them to the background and now I am deciding if I am ready to stitch them in place. I was orginally going to make thermofax screens and screen a layer of leaves and then add the silk leaves. Seemed like too much to me. Today, I almost bagged the silk leaves and was about to make screens and screen the leaves. I just don’t have time to deal with that and so I think I will stick with these. What do you think? You can click on any image to see it larger.
I need to crash. It has been a long day.
I have been a busy artist. First of all, I am so excited with the results of fusing the painted organza to the seasonal background. It gives the illusion of a landscape which is what I was hoping for. I am now working on the next addition to this. I am excited about that, too. Here is a detail shot of the background.
Tonight was the opening of the High Fiber Diet Show at the Mt Hood Community College Visual Arts Gallery.
It is a beautiful gallery space.
Here is Mr C checking out one of my pieces:
Here are some other shots of the show.
We had a few sales tonight – always happy to hear that. Galleries tend to want you back when that happens.
Our excellent weather has continued to delight us. Warm, sunny days at the end of October are such a pleasant surprise.