Another Trillium Patch

I had a bit of time to complete the two trillium pieces that incorporate the real birch bark before having to get busy with a big commitment before we leave here for the summer. Here is one of them ...

The trillium in these two have bright yellow green shading in their centers. They'll be mounted on the large leaf print to finish them. That will get done when I go to the cottage, since they're destined for Good Good's Gallery in Saugatuck, Michigan.

In the meantime, I'm knee deep in smocked clothing and boxes of "paper." A whole lot of my smocked stuff is being donated to the Lacis Textile Museum's (Berkeley, California) permanent collection. An exhibition featuring smocking is scheduled for early next year. Getting my donations documented, and packed to send off before we leave is taking a lot more work and time than I had imagined. I'm not having any fun with this and fantasize about dumping it all in boxes to let them sort it out. This means I most likely will not post here again until I'm relocated up north.

"Remembering Mother"

This beautiful piece is not mine ... but it could be yours!

"Remember Mother" 9"x 12"

The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative is offering a special Mother's Day auction starting today and ending at 10 p.m. central time on Sunday night. During this special Mother’s Day weekend, they are offering just this one extraordinary quilt. “Remembering Mother” was made by Rhonda Dort of Houston, Texas. It is a tribute to Arline, Rhonda’s mother-in-law who passed in September of last year due to complications from Alzheimer’s.

• Bid here:
  http://www.benefitbidding.com/auctions/listings/details.cfm?item_id=6753 

• All profits fund Alzheimer’s research.

Rhonda shares her thoughts about, as well as her process for creating this beautiful wall quilt on the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative blog. To read those and to see close up photos of each section, click on the link at the beginning of the paragraph above.

There were 34 bids with the winning one $335.

Different Kind of Orts

When I was at the Cliff Dwellers Gallery Theresa Tyler was stripping birch bark to make hand crafted baskets in her studio space. While we were talking she was discarding that outer papery white layer.  Before I left I asked if I could glean her waste basket of what I considered to be the "good stuff." This is what I brought home.

You'll note there's also some marbled paper scraps strewn among the bark pieces. Pat Thomas, another of the gallery co-op owners, does marbling. I emptied her wastebasket of those. The pieces with blues are now stashed with the bags of orts set aside to make lake pieces.

The two new trillium pieces have "birch sticks" in the foreground. Here's one of them with the first layer of orts trapped under yellow tulle ready to be quilted.

"Trillium Patch #4"

More Trillium Patches

I've become enamored! There are two more trillium textile art quilts that I finished and delivered to the Cliff Dwellers Gallery in Gatlinburg this past weekend.

 Trillium Patch #2

 Trillium Patch #3

Both of these began with my dividing one of the pieces of fabric on which I had made rubbings of huge leaves that were collected along the Mississippi River with gold and silver oil paint sticks back in 2008.

Here are both of them with the first layer of bits and pieces of scrap fabrics, thread ravels, roving, and skeleton leaves

... before they were trapped with a layer of yellow tulle netting. I then machine quilted around the outside edges as well as the shapes and lines.

Here you can see I've added leaves, stems, and grasses that were shaped from fabric scraps and disassembled "silk flowers" (collected from thrift shops) to the quilted foundation piece on the right in the picture above.

The next step was to trap those pieces with green tulle by quilting around their shapes. The excess tulle was trimmed away between the leaves so as not to "muddy" the background.

The border fabric is linen that I discharged a number of years ago. Real fern fronds were scattered across it and then a strong bleach solution was spritzed over all. The bleaching action was stopped by immersing the fabric in a bucket of vinegar and water. At that time I discharged all the yardage I had of this linen with various patterns, some of which was used in "Come With Me to Kasbah" and "Fading Memories". I love the copper color of the bleached areas. I had gone back to the store to purchase more, but it was GONE.

The first hanging, "Trillium Patch #1" sold before it was finished to one of my blogging friends. There are two more foundations using another of those pounded big leaf fabrics layered and laid out to make numbers 4 & 5.

Happy May Day!

 "Trillium Patch" 18"x 18"

It's finished except for the hand-stitching of sleeves and pockets for the hanging apparatus. I like the contrast of the dry ashy colors in the border with the warm ones in the coming to life area. The contrast of scale between the border print and the trillium patch, as well as the contrast of the clean edge on the outside versus the fuzzy organic around the focal piece pleases me, too.