Imagine

I am posting a bit early, but this month it is a choice between too early and too late, so here it is!
Another thought provoking challenge theme....I started with the idea of the impermanence of the Tibetan Buddhist mandala, where they will spend days or weeks creating a beautiful, intricate sand design, then blow all the sand together before ceremoniously pouring it into a water source such as a river. The streamers of fabric at the base of my mandala represent the sands in the moment of blowing together.
However, the actual mandala design is based on the centre of a Turkish, Islamic design.


Despite using my trusting Kent set compass to draw up the design, it is far from regular. But then, isn't God the only one who achieves perfection?? I quite like the idiosyncracies.

The completed design reminds me of s stained glass window in a Christian cathedral, or a Native American dream catcher.

The colours in the photo are not quite right - the yellow is waaay too bold, but when I tried playing with it, I just seemed to make it worse!

The title is from John Lennon's song.

This is defenitively not what I had in mind

After procrastinating for a long time about this challenge, I finally found a mandala I thought I would like to use on the internet, so I could begin making my quilt.

My first idea was to paint the mandala with transferdye on paper and iron it on evolon, so I did and I got this, which I do not like at al:


I have pondered about ways to rescue it, but the problem is that there the pencil lines I drew first to see where the paint was supposed to go, somehow also got ironed on the evolon (this has never happened before), so I decided it would be best to just start over.

And because I am just not able to just toss my failed experiments, which then get the nasty habit of lurking in my sewing room indefinitively, I ironed some more color on the lutradur, cut it into pieces and made AMC's out of it:

For the mandala for this group I have a plan B, which is already being worked on, I have good hopes that this one will be more to my liking.
I wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year!

Greetings

Seasons Greetings to Everyone, hope you all have a wonderful time and a safe and happy New Year.
I'm looking forward to the unveiling of our mandela project.

My right arm

At the moment is this my right arm so not much quilting for me. I don't think my quiltlet is ready for decmber 31st, because the next appointment is at december 30.
I wish you all a merry Christmas with your relatives and friends.

Starting out

I have been playing around with photoshop and have come up with a design I like.
This is the photo I started with taken from the tower at the Otway Fly Walk in Victoria Australia.

and this is one of the images after I had fiddled with it, not the final one though.  When this one was printed it was far too dark and muddy.  I may need a better printer as this one is 4 years old.

My mandalas

My mandala is finished! Here is a sneak peek of the front and the back.

In the end I did not use the discharged fabric I showed here a while ago, but embarked on a very different journey... I'm very happy with the result, but you will have to wait until December 31st to see it!



I also made this small mandala (about 15 cm) for an international art exchange - you can read about it here.

Mandala - Grr!

Hi all,

Am struggling with this subject choice. I am so far out of my comfort zone. Marian (Mum) keeps telling me to go back to the pics on the web for inspiration and today it came.


I think it is my inner landscape, using the old kindergarten method of blobs of paint in the centre of the page and then fold the paper to create silly images.

No idea yet if it will be used. But when it is dry I am going to try and put my pic on fabric through the printer.

Wish me luck.

Hint of Things to Come by Lynn

I finished my mandala quiltlet today. First photo is of the back where you can see the machine felted fabric showing through...
and then the top...before it was finished... I've used wonderful velvets from Chris' Dyed Candy ETSY store! Her wares are amazing!
And I've painted fabric, machine needle felted and top sewn to my hearts content. But you'll have to wait till end December to see the full piece! I hope you are having as much fun making yours as I did mine.

I am also in the process of getting ready for my solo art show in Davis, CA. this coming Friday. The reception will be Friday evening as a part of this towns 2nd Friday Art About. My art will hang in an art supply shop for three days. I'm very excited about it needless to say!

Simone's mandala 2

I managed to put the photo I want to use to a fabric twice. First I made the picture larger, A3, so the printer will print in 4 parts. Above I put some handdyed fabric through the printer which I attached to freezer paper. Below I used Picture This, on paper copies I put Picture This and pushed it to the fabric. You get a transfer on the fabric like t-shirt transfers, it's a mirror image. I don't know yet which one to use, but these are my results so far, now I'm in the quilting stage.

simone's mandala 1

I worked with the same photograph as the last challenge and photoshopped some more. This is one I came up with, I am going to use someting like this. I'ts not a real mandala but it looks like it. I am going to put this to the fabric with Picture This, the same method Sandra Meech uses for her quilts. In her books is an explanation. To be continued..............................

Discharged mandala

I made a freezer paper stencil with the photo shown in my previous posting and used discharge paste to get this print:



Do you like it? I may use it for my mandala quilt or try some other things. I have a few more ideas...

Mandala chair

Last week I visited the museum Boymans van Beuningen. One of the items on display was this chair:
It's a beautifull inlaid chair made in 1900 by Carlo Bugatti.

Mandala?

Three days ago I posted this photo on my blog - one of a few pics of our mini-holiday in the beautiful Sunshine Coast Hinterland. Do you see the mandala? I think I may use this photo to make a freezer paper stencil, and apply my favourite technique of screen printing to the mandala quilt!

Thanks for all the kind comments!

on my quilt.

In response to several requests, I am posting some more photos, which I hope will show more detail – but as I have even less idea about digital photography than I do about computers, it may not work. Unfortunately the quilt is too big –nearer A3 than A4] and too lumpy to scan.

The backing is a piece of curtaining fabric, layered with wadding and craft Vilene to stiffen it.

Challenge for last quarter of 2009

The next challenge is (drum roll)

MANDALA

I found this web page with 100's of examples and an explanation of the meaning of Mandala.

This challenge is due to be posted on December 31st 2009 looking forward to viewing our own personal Mandala.
One thing I forgot to mention when I announced the next challenge is the size, because a Mandala is a circle the size should be either a 12" square or a 12" circle.

Giant's Causeway

I have long been fascinated by basalt formations though out the world especially the formation called the Giant's Causeway in Ireland.

I hope to find my way to this location someday and to the Inner Hebrides of Scotland and The Isle of Staffa to see Fingal's cave.

The Basalt rocks were created on a piece of hand dyed fabric. I machine quilted and then embellished the "rocks" with Paintstiks, fabric markers and colored pencils.

I hope you like my interpretation of "Where Sea and Land Meet"

Chris Daly - Wisconsin - USA

when or where sea and land meet

This time I wanted to keep it simple, and focus more on composition.

When or where sea and land meet it can be a busy place. You will find seaports and big ships and lots of trading. I saw numerous pictures to inspire me, like this one:






So I made a scetch of a place in the harbour and inverted this in fabric. It was machine quilted and then silver paintstick was used on the containers to get a more old look.
A chain was added to complete the quilt.

land and sea meeting

This picture I made during our family-vacation in Normandy, France last summer.
It's my husband with our three daughters walking on the beach. This spot is twice a day land en twice a day sea. We were looking for shells and shrimps.
I photoshopped this picture and I ended up with a black and white picure, that I printed on some handdyed fabric and stitched by hand and machine.

Bushrangers Bay

This is the image I worked from...........



I thought about this quilt for a long time, but as usual, I started the day it was due. I knew what I wanted to do but didn't know how I should do it. In the end I decided to strip piece with ripped rather than cut fabric as I wanted the edges frayed. The stitching was straight sewing on some pieces and varying fancy stitches on my machine. A little beading was added as well as some shells. This is a special place, Bushrangers Bay, not too far from where we live. The shells on my quilt come from here, I bring some home everytime we go there. Our son Michael's ashes are scattered here. Mike loved to snorkel here with his friends.

land sea alchemy

the fourth challenge quilt for the art quilts around the world group and for me the most straightforward - all of its major parts were former experiments that came together to create the triptych. i was trying to capture the feeling of borders and transitions - the alchemical spot where the water meets the land - where coastlines change and magic is washed up

the base is indigo dyed recycled blanket

the land is rust dyed silk - the silk salvaged from an old shirt

the sea is a felting experiment which includes silk and wool roving, yarn offcuts, sequins and heat treated painted tyvek felted onto a piece of old sari

the middle section is my handspun yarn knitted with copper wire (a gift from my Mother's cellar and probably belonged to my dad back in the 30s).

i layered the silk and felted piece over the blanketing, put a thin layer of appropriately coloured synthetics and organza and then free motion quilted over the top, breaking four needles in the process on the sea part which is quite thick - (don't read this bit Mum) this alarmed my 14 year old so much he moved out of range as there were bits of needle ricocheting around

then i sewed the knitted section down and added a number of glass and pearl beads and bits of paua shell. there would have been more beads but i was holding some in my mouth (never a good idea) and swallowed some - which rather put me off beading.

roll on the next challenge :)

When sea and land meet

The theme made me think about how fossils of sea creatures are often found in the middle of deserts, thousands of kilometers from the nearest ocean, and how the earth itself is constantly changing and shifting. That also led me to contemplating how life evolved in the oceans before some species moved onto land.
I have represented an ammonoid fossil in free-motion thread painting, using 6 different colour threads. I hope the detail is clear enough to make out the stitching! I then appliqued this incredibly heavily stitched quilt (yes it had a top, bottom and batting!) onto some home designed, printed and tea-dyed fabric for the background. I loved biology in my final school year and was rewarded with an exam score which secured me a university place in my chosen profession. The textbook is an absolute classic (any other Aussies use "The Web of Life"?), and has been the subject of an ongoing debate and point of connection for my husband and I for nearly 30 years. I was thinking about this book in making the quilt - in fact the colours are subconsciously similar - when I found a copy in an old Op Shop. I flipped through it, and it opened at the page on fossils, and "life in water", "life on land". I brought the book for that one page alone, which I tore out to make a collage for the background. (It's Ok - we have my original textbook intact on the bookshelf!). I wanted the background to look like old documents, so I tea dyed it and left it crumpled. Some people say the tea dyeing causes the fabric to rot in the long run, but I think that will just add to the look.
I have since been scouring op shops for a battered old "academic looking" frame to mount the quilt. I can't really describe what I have in mind, but I will know it when I see it!

Where Land and Sea meet...

... you often find a lighthouse!



My goal in making this quilt was to try out a new technique - free-hand quilting a scene on PFD fabric (plus batting and backing fabric) and colouring it in with Inktense pencils. I wanted to do a fairly simple image and suddenly, when I was brainstorming about the theme 'where land and sea meet' I thought of a lighthouse.

Googling 'lighthouse' for images to use as inspiration for my drawing resulted in a wealth of websites on lighthouses, enough to inspire a large series of quilts!



Cross-posted at Q

Where the sea meets the [Is]land.

When we go down to any local beach and look out to sea – we don’t see sea and sky – we see sea, land and sky. The land is the Isle of Wight, known locally as ‘the Island’.

This piece was inspired by the work of Kurt Jackson, especially his ‘Solent Project’ which is a series of paintings of the Island from the mainland, and the mainland from the Island. [The Solent is the stretch of water in between – if you have ever seen film of liners leaving Southampton, you've seen the Solent.]

So this is my tribute to Kurt Jackson – and to winter walks by the sea.

Hand-dyed fabric, quilted onto flannel and washed to shrink it slightly, then embroidered and beaded, applied to a quilted background – which isn’t as pink as it appears in the photo.

Jane - where the sea meets the land

This quiltlet is an ongoing sea, I don't want the lovely blue water to stop! There are waves that are coming to the beach but they all stop before they reach their destination. It is hand stitched thread on a satin background, inspired by the beach at Brunswick Heads, one of my favourite places. The beads are hand stitched on.

I had many ideas, but found this one difficult due to time constraints and other projects. I am a bit of a lst minute queen, and just ran out of time! I promise to work harder next time and earlier.

Serendipity Beach

This art quilt just evolved, it was not even intended for this challenge. It started with my curiousity about needle felting by hand.After creating the sea and the sand, it was put aside for weeks.In the meanwhile I was searching through my many seascape images looking for somethig I wanted to use for this challenge. I went back to the felting and went looking for some sky fabric and found a piece that I had painted for a previous project.Perfect!The foreground is from the coconut palm in our yard. The nature layered fibre is wrapprd around developing fronds. The batting showing as the matt happened because while deciding on the proportions for the border,I had laid the quilt top on the batting and could not find any fabric that gave the texture I was looking for, and I liked the centre flowing out of it's surround.

I have used wooltops , silk tops soy tops. Coconut fibre, silk and cotton fabric, feathers and shells.

Earth/Sea

Finally, a picture of my finished quilt. Trying to post a picture has taken longer than actually making the quilt. I'm sure that blogger hates me at times.

After debating with myself I have decided to post a picture of my unfinished quilt. There isn't a lot to do to finish off, just some more beading and the binding. I had hoped to get it done today and promptly went off to my sewing group this morning leaving the quilt and beads at home.

My quilt is based on the colours of the earth, sand and sea. I've used cotton fabric and glass beads.I will post a picture of the finished quilt in a few days.

The Oosterscheldekering

31 x 31 cm, hand en rustdyed fabrics, appliqued and quilted by machine.

Near the deadline, because today is the official unveiling, I finished the quilt that is inspired by the Oosterscheldekering. The idea came really quick, as soon as I read the topic I knew I was going to make something about the "deltawerken', but making the actual quilt took a long time. I did have ideas how to make it, but I discarded them because I did not like them enough. Last friday I discovered I didn't have a months worth of time left, but just less than a week, so I just started, which is the best way to proceed when you are in a rut. I took this picture, which I simplified to this sketch. After some experimenting I choose to use colours that are as realistic as possible and fused it to the background.



First I sewed everything down using a running stitch and then I put a map of the "deltawerken" on it and quilted it. The Oosterscheldekering is at the red arrow.


This post is crossposted at Margeeths quiltblog.

Where Land meets Sea

Here it is!

It is perhaps a very Australian perspective on the subject. Though we are an island, inland seas and deserts dominate our landscape. See earlier post for the satelite image that inspired this piece.
So, i hope you like it.
The left 2/3 is silk rods oversewn on cotton, the right 1/3 is the 'Lost Ship' block (my nearest coastline is called the 'shipwreck coast' - only a 4 or so hour drive away).

Where the Land Meets the Sea

This little quilt has been lurking at the back of my mind for years. I was so excited when this theme was posted as I knew exactly what I would make.

I have been collecting silks for years for it.

The quilt was made in two parts, the sky and the sea/ sand.

The sky was freehand cut scraps stuck to a piece of lawn with a dab of gluestick, covered with blue sheer and closely quilted. It was then cut in half and the sheer removed from the sun with my young grandson's soldering iron. The triangle for the sail was sewn in to be 3D.

The sea/sand was made the same way but without sheer over the sand and less quilting. The

two parts were sewn together sandwiching in the hull which was slipstitched down.

The waves are gauze bandage twisted and stitched. The scene is bordered with a wide navy silk

dupione border and conventional binding.

I love this little quilt which turned out exactly as I had always planned.

Sept 09

The Grotto. Where the sea meets the land I took a photo of this area along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria Australia between Angelsea and Warrnambool. This is a beautiful area along the coast famous for the rock formations, 12 Apostles London Bridge, Martyrs Cove and The Grotto, over the years the pounding of the waves has eroded all these formations and unfortunately of the 12 Apostles there are only 8 remaining one disappeared last week. The rocks are mainly sandstone which the power of the waves wears away. This area is on Bass Strait a strait renowned for rough weather. 1000 of years ago The Grotto was a cave in the sandstone cliff the roof fell in sometime in the past no one is sure when and left a walled area with the cave entrance facing Bass Strait. It was named The Grotto and the tourist council built a stairway down the side of the cliff with a platform at the bottom so people are able to look through the opening.
This quilt is 16" X 11 1/2" the background is 1 1/2" squares and narrow strips of fabric ironed onto Wonder Under the free hand machine quilted in place. The next step was to lay pieces of silk used for felting over the background I added Angelina fibres and in the shadow area a variegated knitting wool in shades of brown. I laid a piece of tulle over this to hold the fibres in place then felted them to the background. Sparkly shell like beads were stitched along the shore area. The next step was to paint the white caps of the waves and the waves breaking on the shore, plus add some greenery where plants where growing on the rock face and a few seagulls flying over the strait. Unfortunately the paint is not drying well and I have not been able to add the binding to finish this quilt completely. I will change the photo as soon as I am able complete this quilt. Below is a photo taken of the Grotto the rock wall in the foreground is the barrier to keep visitors safe, waves have be known to crash through the opening.