I love doing these journal quilts – what a wonderful way to try new techniques. For “I’ve Got Lips” above I first did a pieced background and quilted it. Then I drew and cut out appliques of various “lips” – with a variety of pink and red fabrics. (I had to add paint to get the right color a couple of times) I looked for as many “lip” quotes as I could find and printed them out in various fonts using ExtravOrganza in my inkjet printer. I then cut out the sayings, frayed the edges and painted each one using a fabric marker. I adhered them to the quilt with a clear fabric glue.
Just about the time we got the Haiku prompt word for September I was itching to do another fiber/ribbon collage quilt. The perfect opportunity arose when we were presented with the word “Rhapsody”.
I always think it’s kinda interesting to look at thought processes and how we end up where we end up so I hope you do too. I immediately discarded the obvious (to me at least that was Rhapsody in Blue) and considered “what have I been rhapsodizing about lately?” Peaches!! I had brought home some from Costco and every time I had one I was oohing and aahing about how delicious and perfect it was.
AND, just a few days before I had been in the local quilt shop looking at orange and PEACH fabric and carrying on about how gorgeous it was.
The rest of the title should be…And catching up with Haiku Art. I am woefully behind BUT I have excuses. The dog ate my quilt?
Let’s see, the November word just was announced – it is Gnarled. I mean the word is “gnarled”. October was Canopy (I’m working on the art – at least in my mind) and September was Rhapsody.
Finally Rhapsody is well on its way.
Here is the Background that I’m so excited about…
It is collaged ribbons and fibers on tulle. I just washed out all the stabilizer and it’s dry and ready for the next step.
I just learned that my quilt Fragments of Time was accepted to be shown at the Prospect Park Lefferts Historic House Show to be followed by the Prospect Park Audubon Society Show. VERY excited!!
I realize that the only way that I’m going to dig into my hand dyes and actually use them willbe to create some more. Now that the weather has eased up some I can move outdoors and set up there. It can be done in the kitchen but gets a little (!) messy.
So I went through my hand dye stash to get inspiration.
BUT WHAT ABOUT MY PRECIOUS GREENS????
😦 not much left after digging into these for a project.
This is something a little different that I did with green – It’s a sun print – I gathered some leaves for the sun images.
and finally a couple of “serendipity” fabrics that I created with leftover dyes.
Most of the art quilts that I’ve been making have been fairly free form. So I wanted to try my hand at a Still Life. I wanted it to be vibrant with color and simple in design. The fabrics that I chose would be very important.
First, not knowing which veggies would make the final cut, I went to the refrigerator to see what was available. I arranged various combinations on a cutting board and ended up with something that looked pleasing. I photographed them as I went along to get various perspectives. When I was satisfied I made a print in the size that I wanted to sew and prepared templates. I adhered a clear piece of laminating film to the printed design and cut the shapes that I wanted to use.
For the first time I went to my little stash of hand dyes and selected the veggie fabrics. Believe me when I say this was a really big deal. This is my holy grail of fabric.
I found pieces amongst my commercial stash that would work for the background and the cutting board.
Eat Your Veggies
Once I had the composition in place I decided that some highlights were needed on the veggies. I added these with Tsukineko Inks, chosen because of the ability to readily control the amount and depth of the color to be added.
I machine quilted to add texture and interest.
As I said earlier it’s quite different from what I usually do – do you like it?
Balance – what comes into your mind when hearing this prompt word? I thought of my 10 year old granddaughter Abigail balancing on her unicycle and of the determined look on her face as she struggles to maintain her balance on the low wire. I thought of commonly used expressions such as “balance your checkbook” or “eat a balanced diet”.
Ultimately – what balance means to me these days is the attempt to put the mind and body into a balanced or integrated state as we do through Yoga practice.
This is the 2nd of a series about Yoga practice. It incorporates the words: “Shanti” which means peace and “so hum” . This is a mantra that we use for focus while doing deep breathing.
The prompt word this month is “soft”. Now this will be interesting to see – how many directions will the artists go with this word. The possibilities are endless.
This one didn’t require too much deliberation on my part. During a trip to Ireland a few years back I latched on to the phrase “soft Irish day”. It really captured my imagination.
It rains a lot in Ireland. Sometimes it rains hard; sometimes the rain settles over the earth like a misty blanket. They call this a “soft day”.
steady gentle rain
Irish hills shrouded in mist
another soft day
I used fairly vivid commercial quilt cottons for the stylized hills then couched the edges with decorative fibers. Then I quilted the whole thing with 40 wt. variegated cotton in shades of green.
I arranged a piece of tulle over the quilt and tacked it down with vintage buttons. Finally I topped it with a piece of lace (Irish lace?) .
When presented with the February word: “love” I thought of many ways to go with it – parental, romantic, physical, familial – even love of music, nature and so on. But what I really wanted to deal with was loss of love – specifically loss of loved ones. When my Mom passed away last year I had to deal with the sadness of her loss plus the fact that she was the last one. Her passing followed my Dad’s (by many years) and my brother and sister’s deaths more recently. I reflected on how we all suffer loss of love – or loved ones – then have to face our publics as though everything was completely right in our world. Here you have a heart that has been fractured into many pieces along the faultlines thatwere there all along. And floating over the pieces of the heart are a tangle of ribbons attempting to hide the tears underneath.
Letting go of love
Hot salty tears flow freely
Bruised battered heart cracks.
All the red “shards” combine to form one complete heart. The pieces have been attached to the background with a lot of heavy quilting. I used heavy cotton plus metallic. The ribbons are hand tacked. Under the ribbons are tear-shaped beads peeking out. I purposefully left the thread tails and frayed edges alone as they are part of the over all feeling that I wanted to generate.
Guila's Art & Other Assorted Joys 