The feather process

So I got there in the end!  After my last round failure, I thought a lot about  my philosophy of creating and how we need to give ourselves permission to fail and to think of it as a positive, learning process.  As well, I believe fully that creating is about the process, not the product.  Producing an end item is good, if it happens, but it is the process that I wish to enjoy.  If I don't, then really, is it worth while? Creativity is, for me supposed to be a fun, happy process.
Well, for my process, I have posted

here

here

here

here

here

and here

The last step has been the beaded edges of the layered mini quilts

I love how the beading (which was endless, so lucky I enjoyed it) emphasises the dimensionality of the layers.

Here (Sorry about the blur) you can see I didn't bead the outer edge, but bound it with organza ribbon.  There is a limit to my persistence!

And here is my finished piece.  Because it was based on a spread in my sketchbook, I just used some large stitches in the centre to 'bind' it like a book.  I did not however stitch through the centre feather. I thought that might detract from the focus.

Getting on

I have finished quilting the other pieces to my feathers!
But of course I forgot to photograph them.
The next step was to decide what to do with all the edges!
I have decided to bead them and so I needed to seal them

Here I am painting the contour cut edges with white glue.

I did both sides.  You can see here that I have not put any backing fabric on.  This is just one of my little foibles.  I always leave the backing off, and add it it after I have finished handstitching to cover up my threads.

Here are my pieces hanging up to dry.

And the dried pieces arranged as they will be in the finished piece.

And here I am beading the edge of the centre piece.  I hope I will finish the beading in time!  Also, notice I am using a mix of beads.  I did not have enough of any particular colour to do the whole edge, so I have chosen a range of colours that are in the fabric.

Starting to stitch

I am just started on my stitching of the base of my piece.

Here is the bottom layer, stitched.  I am hoping to have time to do a little hand stitching and beading, but we will see.

Now I just have to rinse and repeat with the other layers.

Since four of us would like a bit more time and this is all supposed to be fun, Reveal date has been moved to the 24th.  Breathe.  You now have an extra 8 days!

..and then wait 72 hours.

So today, I painted my Fabric for my piece.

I used acrylic, simply because it was easier.  I intend to do a lot of free motion embroidery and the stiffness helps with that.  The piece at the top was an extra piece that I put all the leftover paint on.
When they dried, which was not long as it was very hot today, I stencilled the feathers.

I used shiva sticks to do the stencilling, although I could have just used paint.  The one on the left was my scrap piece and I thought it looked a bit like monet's waterlilies, so I added a bit of paintstick to make it look more like it!

And now.  Wait 72 hours.  I put quite a bit on, so although stencilled images can dry quicker, I will wait the whole time, 'till tuesday, just to be sure.  and then I'll be doing a lot of stitching between then and the due date.

One small step

I have taken my next step, finally!

I have cut ripped my fabric and ironed it and got out the Freezer paper.

Armed myself with stencil, masks and shiva sticks and my fabric ironed to the freezer paper.
Of course then I went and looked at my reference image and realised I need to paint the fabric first!
So  I'll be back after that is done.
Soon hopefully.

finding stuff

So far, all I have shown of my process is my inspiration in my journal

Yesterday, whilst looking for some fabric for a class tomorrow, I found this

It was a sample fabric I used when teaching painting with an air gun last year.  So.... I am pretty sure I will spray my fabrics for this challenge.
Now of course, there is one black feather and so I have started to make that in free motion lace

My other half is using the air gun at the moment, so perhaps sometime soon I can get the painting started!

Feathers

Well, I Said I wanted this challenge To be about the process, so I am starting at the beginning of mine.  I have had this page(s) in my journal for a while and thought I would like to convert it to a piece, so My first step is to look at the page and think about how I am going to construct it.

As you can see there are several pages to the spread and I want to maintain it in my piece.  Obviously, I need to change the proportions to make the finished ones fit our challenge size, so I will probably have to upsize my stencils and masks as well.  How I am going to recreate the torn edges in fabric, I am not sure, but we will see, won't we?

A ton of colour

Well, Ladies, what a wonderful colourful challenge!  I was blown away by all of your pieces.
As I told you in my email, I was unable to complete my challenge.  My mysterious illness still continues and at present the doctors have no idea what is the matter.  I am slowly improving, but the underlying problem is still present and returns now and then.
I thought you might like to see where I was going with my piece before my setback.

My intent was to quilt grass shapes at the bottom and clouds at the top and to couch the flower stems on the monoprint with the fibres.  I might have added some colours to the buds with some inktense, and some text somewhere.  Anyhow, that's where I got to.

I will leave it a week or so to post the next challenge!

I could have told you vincent

As you all know, my piece for this is about Vincent van Gogh.
It all started with some sunflower prints...

What else comes to mind when you think of sunflowers and art.
A little bit of needlefelting

Some thread sketching

Some quilting

I thought the spiral went well with Vincent.  More quilting

And a whole lot more quilting

And I finally had something I liked.  No-one said anything about size, so I went a bit overboard (sorry)

You can see the step by steps-
here 
here
here 
here
and here
Hope you like it!

More resources

I just found this repository of information.

The Getty museum has a virtual library of books on art that you can download.
I see I am going to be doing a bit of reading.  I'm sure we can all find something useful here.

Something to do when it's hot

It has been very hot here in the last week, up to 44 celsius, which is over 110F.  It has been impossible to work in my studio, so I have been doing a bit of work on art history.  I thought this might fit in with our new theme.
My favourite period of art is the impressionist period and I watched a ton of videos on the impressionists.
What really amazed me is that the Truth is not anything set.  Different art historians present their FACTS, but every historian tells a different story.  Two people in particular I found were presented quite differently by different historians.
The first is Edgar Degas

The author of those lovely ballet paintings is presented as a friendly person who was a close friend of Mary Cassatt by one historian, and another historian presents him as a misogynist, who regarded her as 'just a woman'.  How different is that?
The second person is Paul Gaughin.

One historian presented him as a selfish and egotistical person who deserted Vincent van Gogh in his time of need, whilst another presents him as a sensitive man, who did his best to help a mad Vincent.
It is difficult to know what the truth is about either of them.  Luckily these two are not on my short list...or perhaps they should be just for this reason?
And of course what I am to do with all this information is beyond me at present.  I started my search because I was looking for something to use as inspiration, but as yet haven't found anything which pops out at me, except for the life of /vincent, but that is because he has always been my favourite.
Just a bit of information I though might be of interest.

Water Music

My inspiration came to me, via wikipedia, quite quickly, however it didn't turn out quite how I envisioned it.
I am posting this, because it was an interesting experiment, or series of experiments and, isn't that what the challenge is all about?  I had fun doing it and didn't let myself stress over the things that didn't quite work.  It's a learning experience and this certainly was, for me.

I cut lots of tesselating shapes that suggested water to me, with fusible on the back.

Then I arranged them and fused them for my background

I free motioned some music.  It is the opening bars of George frederic handel's "Water Music".

There is also some handwriting in free motion with variegated thread - very messy.

I also added some foiled text - which was one of the things I was really quite happy with and will do again.

I also added a print on chiffon, which worked well but the contrast was not good, so I outlined some parts.  I didn't like it, so I added a bit of scribbled free motion colour to the main characters.  It was a bit rough, but I just went with it.

you can see my original idea of the water shapes in the background created major problems with contrast.  The shapes are all fused to the background.  Probably, I should have kept it simple and left the picture off, but it was the picture that inspired me in the first place.
"Water Music" does exist,  but the premiere as depicted in the picture is only hearsay, as the painting was painted a hundred years after the supposed day.  But supposedly the music was played for King george 1 on a trip up the Thames River on 17 July 1717.  This story is what the handwriting in the background tells.
Also, my picture is a bit hard to read, and this, I think is due to the shiny gold affecting the other colours in the picture, like glare.
So that is my piece!  As I said, it was quite an experiment.

As open as you can get

so here I am again.  very late.  Unfortunately, I was up really late last night, not working on this, which I finished a week ago, but on a larger piece that this one suggested.  when the muse is there, you just have to go with it!
of course that meant I slept the morning away.  so here is my open piece.

in some ways, this piece is along a direction I have been moving along for about a year now, since being inspired by melanie testa and then deborah boshert.  i suppose you could say it is a cross between the two...with a bit of leah day thrown in, but my technique is a bit different to all of them.

All of the fabrics are silks and satins and sampes from the recycle depot.  basically I just place them all down and play 'til I like them, but since i am going to do a silhouette over the top i am not too picky.

the silhouette in this case is of some bluebells, which Ijust sketched, in a midnight blue organza.  i free machined that down, then glued the seam line, then cut it out.

after that, I free motion quilted in the different spaces of the collage (well, most of them).

Then square up and bind, and there we go!
I suppose we could say, that as spring is here and the flowers are opening, it is along the lines of the open challenge, but it didn't begin as a challenge piece at all.  I have a couple of half finished pieces as well, one that I will just cut up and reuse and one i will finish eventually.....
This piece is just over A3 size or 11 by 17 in, so that is open, too.
hope you like it1

a very long time ago

A very long time ago, when I was just into my teens, I started an english piecing quilt.  It has travelled with me all these years (and there are quite a few) and gone through many incarnations, but I thought some of the pieces would be perfect for this.
Because I have just turned 50 (oops), I selected 50 hexagons to use in my piece.

Originally, this was how I intended to lay them out.  I spent a long time trying to arrange 50 pieces symmetrically, but I now know that that was impossible.

This is what I came up with.  I had a piece of satin with painted fusible on one side and a torn edge in the middle ready to do a landscape and I arranged the hexagons along the changeover between the two blues.  I wanted some little escapes to represent where my life is going and where it has been.

Of course, when I got down to piecing the hexagons, I came up on the same problem I have always had and that is that they are not all the same size, so instead of piecing them, I covered them with bridal tulle and sewed around them with my favourite god thread from the recycle depot.

You can see here the gold thread and how they don't all line up, but I just went with it.  I extended the lines beyond the hexagons to represent all the futures that might be.

Even my stitching wasn't perfect, but I went with that, too, as it went with the imperfect arrangement.

These fabrics are remnants of my past, they include fabric from my softball uniform, my school uniform, my favourite dress (that was when I WORE dresses, lol), the dresses my sister and I wore to my older sister's wedding, my first sewing assignment at school, my staggers jeans, my hessian bag I took everywhere and lots more.  I left the basting and papers in, too because they were full of history and meaning.  Originally, I intended to put a pin in each hexagon.  The pins were collected in my travelling days and are from all over the country, but I decided that was a bit too much.

This is a bit different from the type of thing I usually do, but finally I have done something with my oldest UFO!

Ruby's Remnants

Since I have absolutely nothing to post about the challenge, I thought I Would amuse you with the following photo

These are what greeted me when I woke up this morning.  My puppy, Ruby likes to bring all her treasures up onto the bed and these are the remnants of this morning's foraging.  As you can see, she likes to chew and tends to leave a trail of mangled remnants everywhere she goes!
Now back to my challenge, which I haven't lifted a finger on!!!

True Blue...

Well, we all survived our latest challenge 

(thanks Beverly)

despite the many trials and tribulations 

some of us encountered along the way!

But we will go into the wide blue yonder for a bit

until Brigette announces our next challenge!