Hexagon Bowl

I had quiet a lot of fabric left over from my spiral, it only used half of the fat quarter. I decided to make a bowl from the leftovers, it was already quilted. Again I cut a manila folder pattern from a 5" hexagon, the 1/2 hexagons I used to fill in the borders of a hexagon quilt, would have made a flat piece. I trimmed about 3/4 of an inch from the angle, to make the sides flare up. It was easy to satin stitch the outside edges, then each side to the center, and finally to connect each side piece to its neighbor. It only took about half an hour of stitching, because the fabric was already quilted and ready to go. I still have a chunk of fabric left, what to make now?

3-D Spiral with Hand Dyed Fabric

I got a wonderful book, "Exploring Dimensional Quilt Art" by C. June Barnes, all the work is 3 dimensional, shapes, vessels, wall hangings, free standing shapes and odd forms. It is very intriguing to think out side the box, and not make something flat. Several of our artists in Fyber Cafe have made 3-D pieces for some of our challenges, but this book takes it to a whole different level. My first thought is they are made with fabric that is layered with stiff interfacing and batting, then heavily machine quilted, to give a firm fabric sandwich to work with. I cut out my pattern, a variation on something in the book, from manila folder, then taped the pieces together to see how the shape would work. I found with a spiral, the smaller the center hole, the less stretch there is. I cut my hole over 1" diameter, and got a much better proportion of stretch. So I am glad I made a manila sample first.

I began with a fat quarter of hand dye painted fabric in fuchsia, turquoise and purple. I layered the top, backing, cotton batting and two layers of stiff interfacing. I free motion machine quilted in matching rayon, following some of the pattern, small stipple, and "pebbles" circles. The quilting was close together and dense to give the fabric a firm texture. I traced my pattern pieces and cut out the fabric, I thought it had plenty of firmness. I began stitching in the center of each piece with fuchsia rayon thread in a satin stitch along the edge. Then stitched all the pieces together, to make the big spiral. I satin stitched along the entire edge, over a small gauge covered wire, with the same rayon thread. The circumference was long I'm glad I had a long piece of wire! A good lesson in the effects of Pi. I added a Japanese Braided cord as a hanging line, that I already had finished, and the colors matched! I wanted to add something dangling from the bottom, to add weight and help the stretch, I used the circles I had cut from the centers, satin stitched them and strung them with glass beads.

"River" Details

Here are some closeup photos of my "River Runs Through It" challenge piece for the Fyber Cafe group. Our deadline was Tuesday, and we got 10 out of 15 finished, so that's pretty good. I'll post the finished pieces soon. I was trying at the last minute to get on my binding, label and silk ribbon embroidery. The embroidery is at the bottom, in the flowers, lots of french knots, leaves and stem stitch. The top of the birch trees have two pieces extending above the edge of the piece, they have pipe cleaners in them. I added the painted/melted Tyvek as leaves to help anchor the birch tree extensions. It added a lot of texture. The 3 biggest birch trees are done with trapunto, extra batting behind them, to help them stand out, into the foreground. The hand dyed fabric for the moon, was quilted in a "pebbles" pattern of circles to give texture. The river has hand dyed cheesecloth in green, and plain white, and is quilted in turquoise rayon thread, and clear shiny holographic thread.

Play Day at Meredith's

Whoeee! I had fun at Meredith's, for detailed description see the Fyber Cafe blog. We did ice dyeing, discharge with decolourant, and bleeding tissue paper. I mostly worked on T-shirts, ice dyeing the light ones, and discharging the darker ones. I used several stencils, and decolourant, I really like the red one with the spirograph pattern. I think I will further embellish at least one of the ice dyed ones. I did ten fat quarters of white cotton, in several group colorways. One set had jet black, warm black and bronze, then on two of the pieces I added warm yellow, and two others I added orange. I wanted rich deep colors, a few of them did come out dark, but several were lighter. The next set of colors I used was turquoise, bright green and navy, on two pieces I added bright purple, and on the others I added fuchsia. Having a set of coordinated colors, gives me several options to create a cohesive art piece. Playing with the bleeding tissue paper was fun, we applied ripped pieces with water, and the colors blended. Unfortunately I rinsed mine after removing the tissue, and lost most of the color. At the end of the day my hands were very colorful! It washed out quickly by the next day, but stayed in my cuticles for a week.

Umpqua Valley Quilt Show

The Umpqua Valley Quilters Guild Show is this weekend at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, in Roseburg, Oregon. It is the BEST show in Southern Oregon!! Over 300 quilts are entered, and many other special displays and vendor quilts samples. The featured quilter is Dr. Polly Sepulvada of Roseburg. She has been in the Paducah show many times, and does beautiful work in applique, hand quilting and traditional style quilts. Our Fyber Cafe group, has a display of our last three group challenges, "What's My Line?" "Beatles Songs" and "Weaving" I'll try to post some photos this weekend of our Textile Arts display, I just wanted to get the word out about the show. I also have several small art quilts entered in the show itself, and 5 in the Fyber Cafe display.

Adding Detail to the River

The "River" piece has been undergoing a lot of details, ferns and rocks at the base of the trees, and along the river. The beautiful teal blue for the base of the water, with strips of the other batiks added for ripples, was a start on making the river come alive. I added turquoise & light green hand dyed cheesecloth, and white cheesecloth for texture, and a few rocks in the middle of the water. I used the cheesecloth to blend the rocks on the river edge to the water, and to make the downward fall of the center "Falls." Stitching in rayon thread will add more detail to the water and clear glass beads will add sparkle. A foreground was added with a larger size print of forest floor plants and branches, a few fall leaves and wild flowers added contrast. I think I will add silk ribbon embroidery flowers. I also added more greenery, because the bottom was very dark brown in color. The next part of the project was to add some deer, a buck and doe, I did not want to just add a pre-made print. I decided to paint over the existing fabric to create a texture, and more hand made feeling to the deer. I still wanted him to look like he is highlighted by the moon, I think it worked out ok. You can see the difference in the photo, before and after painting, stitching will add more outline and detail. I also added two salmon to the river, and tucked them under the cheesecloth, one jumping up the falls, and the other in the lower part of the river. The entire picture is coming together, I have a few more ideas I want to try, some 3-D Tyvek leaves, the embroidery, an uneven top edge, so I'll see what my imagination brings up next.

The Begining of a River

Our newest challenge for the Fyber Cafe group is themed "A River runs Through It" We have each been given a section, 14" wide with a section of river, that flows continuously from section to section. I began mine with layers of my hand dyed fabric for a night sky, and a full moon, then Bali batiks for dark layers of landscaped hills in the background. Scraps of the river fabric curved gently across the piece, and then I added grey and white birch tree fabric. I added trees to the right side for balance, and almost stopped here, because I really liked the graphic quality. But it needed more to blend the trees and river, and I wanted to add rocks and ferns, and stuff in the foreground. It is a good start, and I'll fussy cut fabrics and add details as I go along.