Quilt Guild Challenge

I belong to my local quilt guild in Lexington, VA (Rockbridge Pieceworkers Quilt Guild) and this year we did the two-color crayon challenge.  This was a lot of fun because the two colors I got could not have been more appropriate for me...
PURPLE AND ORANGE!!!

What luck because my favorite holiday is Halloween!  We could also add black, white or beige to our quilt but at least 51% needed to be our chosen colors.

Anyone who follows my work knows that I'm an out of the box thinker when it comes to my artwork.  I have made traditional quilts in the past but I consider myself a textile artist who creates art quilts; wall hangings that incorporate various textiles and most of the time an "unusual object" of some sort.

With this in mind, I went to Pinterest for inspiration.  I found a watercolor and ink painting of a female in a beautiful ball gown.  That was it!! (Pinterest link)  Using my purple and orange colors, I was going to transform this girl from a stunning blue dress to a Halloween Masquerade Ballgown!

I first researched the artist that painted "my inspiration" and her name is Inslee Haynes (or Inslee Fariss).  She is a New York City-based artist and illustrator and she can be found at Inslee By Design.

I then graphed the design to the largest size I could without going over the requirements for the challenge (100" perimeter)

My next step was to cut out my pattern and quilt a background for her.  I found this chandelier fabric at Walmart (cringe!) and I went into my fabric stash for the realistic looking wood fabric.

The quilt peeking out from the right is my Steampunk quilt

Next, let's start designing her ball gown!  Ball gowns are traditionally "pouffy and sparkly" and I enjoy beadwork and embroidery so I knew this was going to be the focal point of my design.  I went through my stash of orange and purple ribbons, beads, embroidery floss, felt and paint.  I then sat for a few days looking at what I had... waiting for inspiration.  I always tell my husband that I could never be on Project Runway because they have no time to sit with their project, they just have to cut and sew and cut and sew.  I am a slower designer.  I have to do a few steps then let it hang there for a few days and even maybe a few months!

Then inspiration hit:

We traveled (from Virginia) to Indiana for Thanksgiving and to Wisconsin for Christmas.  I needed handwork for the car and this was the perfect opportunity to finish her ballgown.

I used beige felt for her head and arms and permanent brown and black markers for shading on her arms and to draw her face.  I initially cut and sewed brown felt for where I was going to put her hair but I knew I would be covering up most of the brown felt with "3-D hair."

And then came the hair...(which I hand sewed in place)

Over the Christmas holidays, I found a white chandelier ornament that I wanted to use.  I wasn't sure how I was going to incorporate it into my quilt but it looked just like the printed background fabric.

Next came the paint and the clay.  I painted the chandelier purple and orange and added the same color beads.  I then made a masquerade mask out of orange and purple Sculpey clay then glued sequins to the mask and the mask to the stick.

Next the chandelier.  I knew where I wanted to put it on the quilt but it was big and bulky.  I remembered a wall hanging I made 8-10 months ago where I cut a hole through the quilt and strung a spider web through it.  Problem solved!

I felt like her hair needed something else, like a hair clip so something.  So I made this out of Sculpey clay also, the same material as the mask.

The challenge isn't until March's meeting so this hasn't been seen by anyone in my guild yet.  I hope that it has enough of the two colors for the challenge but if not it was a blast making it anyway.

Thanks for looking!

The 2017 Newport News Fall Festival of Folk Life

I absolutely love this festival!  I grew up in Newport News so coming back to do the festival just warms my heart.  I have been on the juried side in the past, and my mom has been on the marketplace side BUT since they are moving to Wisconsin I decided that I wanted to be in my mom's place this year.  My mom has taught adult art classes through the NN Parks and Rec for 40+ years so she has a huge following in Newport News.  Since she is moving I wanted to do this for all of her students who want to keep up with her and my dad and their new adventures closer to my brother and his family.

Because I was on the marketplace side this year I was able to combine my sewing and painting talents under one tent.  Had I been on the juried side I would have to pick one category.  I realized a long time ago that my brain doesn't work like that, I am definitely all over the place when it comes to my artistic endeavors.  Here are a few photos of my tent at the Fall Festival:

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Reverse Wool Applique

Two weeks ago my mom and I went to the Quilt Convention in Hampton, Va.  We have done this for a number of years and I am always so inspired by other people's work.  There are vendors, quilt guilds displaying their guild challenges and anything and everything in between.  I took over 300 pictures but I'll save that for another post.  Tonight I want to tell you about this wonderful lady I met who does reverse wool applique.

Michelle May is the owner and designer at The Raspberry Rabbits located in North Carolina.  We had a wonderful chat in her booth.  I was initially drawn to her pumpkin pattern.  As I looked around Michelle started telling me the stories behind each of her works, for example, the pumpkin pattern was named "Peter's Pumpkin" from the nursery rhyme.  I did end up buying this pattern along with her adorable book called Fabled Fusions.  The Peppermint Tea pattern was inspired by Alice in Wonderland's Tea Party and Wish Upon A Star was inspired by Michelle's love of the Wonderful World of Disney show that she used to watch as a child.

As you all know I like working with upholstery because it adds texture to a piece of work.  I told Michelle that I was going to try to make Peter's Pumpkin out of my upholstery stash:

It turned out being a little bit more difficult to work with than I had anticipated because of the many layers of upholstery (including the batting).  It was THICK and this was all hand stitched.  The backing was a velvet paisley print.  I ended up changing the beige background because it was too hard to sew through (as it was leather).  In the next picture, you can see that it is off-white wool felt.  The first layer of the pumpkin, the brown part, was in fact leather.  The second layer was a tweed upholstery and the third layer, orange, was wool felt.  The stem was two layers which consisted green velvet and the same brown leather I used for the pumpkin.

In the above picture, the upholstery with a mustard color background had a raised wool design that I cut out and then used for the vine and the decorative pieces at the bottom.

This was so much fun to do!  I think my next project is going to be O'Ryan the Stargazer from her book Fabled Fusions; O'Ryan is the cutest little owl I've ever seen!

Art Quilting and Kaffe Fassett

Now that my "once-a-year" art show, the Newport News Art Festival, is over I am now focusing on a another one of my passions: quilting!  I really like traditional quilts but recently I've gotten into art quilts.  It stands to reason that I would like art quilts because there is really no right way to create an art quilt.  By definition an art quilt is "an art form that uses both modern and traditional quilting techniques to create art objects. Practitioners of quilt art create it based on their experiences, imagery, and ideas rather than traditional patterns.^[1] Quilt art generally has more in common with the fine arts than it does with traditional quilting. This art is generally either wall hung or mounted as sculpture, though exceptions exist"(quoted from Wikipedia).

I just went through my archives to find any pictures I've posted so far on my Kaffe Fassett art quilt but I don't think I've posted any!  If you haven't heard of the fabulous designer Kaffe Fassett let me introduce you to him here (click on his name to be taken to his website).  His fabrics are wild and whimsical!  I can only take his fabric in small doses but my mom has really embraced his style and has started a Kaffe Fassett quilt too. My mom is doing a traditional 9-patch but with these fabrics it is very modern. 

Here are some examples of his fabrics from his 2014 Spring and fall collections.  I really wish I could post all of them!

Last year at the quilt convention I bought a bundle of fat quarters not quite knowing what I was going to do with them:

I also saw a technique done there that I thought maybe I'd try.  There was no pattern which was fine because I don't like following patterns anyway.  This quilter sewed the fabrics into tubes then wove them together to make a pattern.  Hmmm, I could do that!

This would be the main focus of my quilt.  I then appliqued circles onto other parts of the orange background then quilted around the Kaffe Fassett fabrics:

I have only just begun to embellish!  I love beads and sequins and other found objects added to my art quilts so stay tuned for the finished product.

Close-ups of embellishing and following my 3 triangle quilting designs within the quilt:

Thanks for looking!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (almost)

Yes I know I've been MIA for a while but because of my job I now have less time to devote to my artwork.  I love my job (pre-k asst. teacher) and I love my art so I've really been torn these past few months.  But because I am making money as a teacher my artwork had been pushed aside.  During Christmas break I have had time to create again and I love it!  I made 2 fabric bowls for Christmas presents.  One for the director and one for the teacher I work with.  Our theme at St. Andrew's Preschool is The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle so the bowl for the director looked like this:

Each of the classrooms is an animal from Eric Carle's books and I am the assistant in The Blue Horse class. I made this bowl for my teacher:

The other things I've done on Christmas break are zentangles, cutting fabric for a new quilt, working on an old quilt AND...

I got a dress form for Christmas (actually it was a present to myself).  I have sewn garments in the past but never with a dress form.  Every season when my husband and I watch Project Runway I get so inspired to start garment sewing again.  I love the fun and funky challenges these contestants must do: create an outfit using only products from the pet store. The beach and the souvenir shop will be the only two places you will be allowed to buy your materials, these were two of the more fun challenges.  I don't think I'll be that "outside the box" when I create my garments but I now have a board on Pinterest called Altered Clothing that has inspired me.  I also have a board called Wearable Art that look more like some of the challenges from Project Runway.

Just because I've been absent doesn't mean I've given up art, on the contrary, I have so many new ideas that I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to work on them.