Moon Dance

This is my final entry in this year's SMQ Guild show. It was awarded 1st Place in the "Wall Hanging/Mixed Techniques and Quilted" category. It also received the Surface Embellishment Award.

Moon Dance - 38"x 42"

The background was constructed several years ago. It's made up of four small sections using Ricky Tims "Harmonic Convergence" technique. I posted about my Shiva Oil Paint Stick rubbing techniques on it here last fall when I began to work on it for this show.

Initially, this was my plan for the center. My friend, Judy, had given me several pieces of African fabrics. One of them had a marvelous single warriors head printed with metallic gold. I had in mind for him to wear the macrame neck piece I had created back in the 70's. It's made with trade beads I had purchased in Morocco.However, it ended up as his headdress in reference to east African tribes who used zebra manes for that purpose.I sculpted the warriors face with layers of of batting. The nose, lips, and hair in the middle are machine quilted on the first layer placed down the center. His eyes and facial contours plus the rest of the hair are quilted on the second layer. When this quilted piece was appliqued to the quilt it became even more sculpted.

It's embellished with beads and buttons and African themed doodads I've been collecting over the years. Antique black glass beads are scattered like stars over the dark fabric areas of the background. There are hand-made ceramic buttons layered with beads to create shields.
Yarn was couched over the seams of the pieced background. Long ends were left with the intention of burying them in the batting. I liked the look of them hanging loose on the surface and ended up adding even more, plus gold metallic ones as well using the same thread that I machine-quilted the background.A heavy gold metallic yarn is couched to the outside edge of the binding as well as outlining the warrior's neck piece. I wanted to soften that outside edge since this piece is about moonlight as well as to give strength and to define the shape of his neck piece.

Beware Of The Cats

Another quilt from the African series.

Beware Of The Cats -37"x40" - 2004

This piece began as just a demonstration to share Ricky Tims harmonic conversion technique. I selected interesting fabrics just to see where they would take me. I had no idea it would be into this fantasy jungle.

The great aspect about this technique is that the strip sets can be combined any number of ways besides Ricky's prescribed formula. When I saw the tree trunks appear in this one I played with the arrangement to get the canopy of tree tops and a shadowed floor.

The large pieces of the fabric printed with animals ended up at the bottom. What little of that fabric was left got all the animals, birds, and circles cut out and hand-appliqued to the piece. I also added "natives" cut from a different fabric. The green aura around those figures fit right into the green and purple print.
If you look closely, you'll see the cats sneaking upon the beasts and the natives. Life is full of concealed and veiled surprises.
This piece is machine-quilted following the printed pattern on the back. The decorative threads were wound on the bobbin. A variegated rayon thread is used for the flowers and fronds and a heavy multi-colored metalic for the cats.

I added a hint of color to the flowers and fronds in the black border with oil stick pastels. Most of it is rubbed into (or off) and heat set into the fabric.

Exhibitions: 2004 Dogwood Arts Quilt Show (3rd place)
Knoxville, Tennessee

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"Gemstones"

Gemstones - 17"x16" - 2006

I had been given 6" blocks of fabric that were patterned with what I thought were semi-precious stones. I was just playing when I cut and sewed and then recut and resewed them together several times ala Ricky Tims "Harmonic Convergence" technique. It is quilted with a neutral palette of thread colors.

It is exhibited at MB Gallery in Chicago, Illinois.

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Oil Paint Stick Work

I had pieced this several years ago using Ricky Tims "harmonic convergence" technique. It was prepared as the background for one of my African series quilts.
It now feels like the right time to give this piece some attention. I added gold paint to the surface today. It will have a few days to set while we're gone to Memphis.
The bottom of a plastic container was used to make angled lines. I placed the plastic piece under the fabric and rubbed across it with the paint stick to make the lines on the solid, or nearly solid, colored patches. Each quadrant has the same angle of lines in relationship to the center of the quilt.
The bottom of a pressed glass plate was used to rub branch-like shapes on the printed patches. I was very loose in technique because I didn't want the solid, uniform pattern that you see on the plate.
The same glass plate was used to make a sparse pattern of lines within the circles. I then used a bubble patterned piece of cardboard that insulates take-out coffee cups to rub small irregular circles of gold within the circles. My fingers got messy with gold and I couldn't help getting it on the background while maneuvering the fabric over the objects that were used for rubbings. So ... I coated my finger with gold and lightly rubbed it all over the dark areas between the circles. The whole surface shimmers and shines.

Come back next week to see how this piece developes. I can hardly wait to get back to my studio to heat set the paint and get on with the rest of it.

Graceland, here we come!

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Out of the Rubble

 "Out of the Rubble" - 38"x70" - 2002

"Out of the Rubble" hung for several years in St. Paul's Chapel which is located just east of where the Twin Towers had been.

Reflections

"Reflections" - 26"x26" - 2002

This piece had its beginning in the workshop, Twisted Ribbons, conducted by Ricky Tims in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The objective was to learn curved piecing. I decided to choose my fabrics by value rather than hue to get the effect of a dimensional ribbon twisting through space. Those values were selected from pure hues to go on a muted background. I learned Ricky's technique, but the result was the ugliest, most garish thing I had ever made.

I cannot throw anything away ... there had to be a way to "recycle" this piece. I had also taken Ricky Tim's "Harmonic Convergence" class the same week, so decided to use aspects of that technique to salvage this piece. The ribbon piece's background was a fat quarter of batik fabric. I had another fat quarter of a similar batik. I cut the ribbon piece into 1" strips and inserted 1" strips of the new batik. That helped, but it still looked awful, so I cut and stripped in more fabric from the other direction. That was better. Now, I don't recall if I cut and stripped in additional fabric one OR two more times. I mixed up the order of the ribbon strips in the process. I stopped cutting and sewing when I saw what looked like reflections of lights in river water to me. I needed something to cast those reflections. A dive into my stash came up with 2" squares of silk fabric samples.

The gold metallic threads around the silk squares float away from the surface. Tails were left at the beginning and end of the zig-zag stitch seams on each side. Yarn couched in a wave pattern is the quilting in the center panel.

Since this obviously was "night" I needed a dark frame. The velvet border fabric that was discharged (bleached) and painted by Jan Lewis of Evanston, Illinois was perfect. She had given me the piece in exchange for working out of my fabric stash at workshops we both attended at Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

This piece is one of the few out of the 244+ quilts I've made over the last 12 years that I've kept to hang in our living room. Its hanging space gets a rotation of a selected small group of quilts. I'll indicate which those are when they get described in the future.

Toonga (Adventure)

Toonga - 37"x40" - 2002

Description:
Toonga (an African word for adventure) is the second piece in my African series. The fragmented images symbolize my perceptions of Africa ... from a jungle safari to structural and native patterns. I'm also fascinated by the way a herd of huge elephants move so quietly that their presence isn't known until you see them ... plus there is the camouflage of foliage and shadows. You hardly notice them at all in this composition.

Technique:
Machine quilted, machine pieced, hand applique. Yarns are couched to the surface with machine zig zag stitches. The center panel is pieced using Ricky Tims "harmonic convergence" contruction technique.

Materials:
cotton fabric, cotton and polyester threads, beads, yarn, cotton batting

Exhibitions:
2002 Dogwood Arts Quilt Show - Knoxville, TN
          awarded Third Place
2006 Festival of Quilts - Farragut, TN
2008 Good Goods Gallery - Saugatuck, MI


Detail Photos: