Crows & Dragonflies

A week after returning from Asilomar, I am off again, for our annual retreat to the Oregon coast. Our Fyber Café art group takes four days at Bandon, Oregon. We had LOTS of FUN! It is a work on what ever you want kind of retreat. I did not know what to take, it was a last minute, throw some hand dyes and thread into the car. I packed a spare sewing machine, as I thought my usual was getting wonky from all the goop from the Steam a Seam, that I used in Asilomar. It must have worked itself out, as I had no problems. I took this piece of hand painted, printed, stamped, and stenciled fabric, I wish I had a picture before I started adding applique to it. I really liked the way I layered all the acrylic paints. My idea was to add a pair of crows on a branch, I began free hand cutting a variety of leaves from my hand dyes. Sketching the crows was an issue. I am good about drawing almost anything but birds. It is so important to get the body language right, the correct angles of the head. It looked more like a dove, until I bowed the head down.

I wanted the free motion quilting to be loose and sketchy, I am a fussy quilter when I do raw edge applique. I like to follow the edges exactly and make sure I don't miss any. So this was a challenge! I took a couple of deep breathes, tried to get my head around the idea, then just dove in. Fast and loose, sketchy, trying not to stay on the edge. I really like the effect, it came out the way I wanted it to, and it was really fast. With a couple of thread color changes, it probably took me no more than 45 minutes to quilt. Adding a nest and eggs was a last minute choice, I used some striped shibori fabric I had dyed for the nest, and an ice dyed blue for the eggs. I haven't named it yet.

After a fun lunch excursion to Port Orford's "Quilter's Corner" to add to my large fabric stash, I got a fabric with gold metallic dragonfly wings on it. It inspired me to begin a composition with three dragonflies. It was difficult to cut out opposing pairs of wings from the print. In looking through my hand dyes I found a blue piece that already had a curved ripple cut, so I used that for water. With no planning and no pattern, I chose a sky fabric and began cutting lily pads and flowers. The flowers are from an Ombre fabric, light to dark pink. I wasn't very happy with it at this point, no plan leads to no good.

It needed more to the composition, so I added the cattails, I was concerned that they were too dark, but I liked the way they framed the piece. It also needed the koi for balance and as a better focal point. The sun and cheesecloth clouds added some interest to the sky. I free motion quilted with my usual rayon threads, in my usual tidy way, to edge and add detail. The koi is quilted with gold metallic scales, and sparkles nicely. I am happy with it now, but I don't like it as much as to crows. It is pretty but too tame.

Several of us wanted to play with paper fusion. We used mostly napkins and tissue paper to collage onto muslin with gel medium. Some old book pages and music sheets, and other ephemera were also used. This one was too dark until I added the green to brighten it up. I've already cut it up to make greeting cards.

I began this one trying to use lighter colors as a background, but it is very jumbled and scattered. Not sure about it, it doesn't seem finished.

Then I tried to make more of a composition, using florals at the bottom, light prints and patterns in the background with the large butterfly as a focal point. I really like this, I might quilt it. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" check to see what other talented artists are doing this week.