Chocolate Wrappers

Vinyl and Lindt chocolate truffle wrappers.  Size 16" x 15".  Completed February 13, 2019, for Quilt Lab Experiment: Unconventional Materials


The Quilt Lab group at Gotham Quilts in Manhattan has monthly 'experiments'.  Some are more successful than others for me, and I don't always complete a project.  This month was inspired by the Project Runway Unconventional Materials challenges.  Of course, I picked chocolate wrappers. 

A Lindt Chocolates shop opened on 34th Street; I pass by twice a day.    The truffles are arranged in bins by color and flavor.   I bought a bag of truffles,  and did the 'hard work' of eating the chocolates, saving all the colorful wrappers. 

I tried various methods of attaching the wrappers to a background.  Sewing wrinkled it, Ironing melted it, so I decided to glue the wrappers to vinyl.   I wanted to recreate a quilt block called "Candy Twist", so I carefully cut and

folded the wrappers to fit into a gridwork, I could see by placing the vinyl on my cutting mat. 

Since the wrappers aren't covered, they remain shiny, metallic.  

I'm completely charmed by this.

Peace. 

Damnit Janet

Pieced bargello-style rainbow wings, machine quilted. Completed February 9, 2019.  Size 14" x 16".  Made for Project Quilting challenge 10.3.  Click on that link to vote for your 10 favorite quilts this week 


This week we lost our amazing friend, Janet Mease  (center in this photo)  She was funny, honest, snarky, foul mouthed, loving, kind, and generous.  We met in an online group in February 2013.  

Adva and I went to visit her in San Luis Obispo a few times, and made a small quilt for her when she opened her quilt shop.  Here is a post about that quilt.

The night she passed (Feb 8th) I dreamt I saw her with wings.  Yes.  wings.  I'm not really spiritual in that way, so my response to that vision was: WHAT THE F*CK.  I have a feeling Janet would have said the same thing. 

I created this image of her for our FB group.  

Janet was colorful, in every meaning of that word.  She loved ALL the colors, especially yellow, which she used in her quilts as a neutral. (most people use white/gray/light colors as 'neutral'). 
  
I cut thin strips in a full rainbow,  sewed them into a strata fabric,  added a bright yellow to the top and bottom as my background,  then cut that up to create the bargello 'wings'  (I'm sorry I don't have process photos, this actually went together very quickly) 

On the back, I included a left over strip of Frond Tree of Life panel, which I used on the back of a 'get well' quilt we made for Janet this past summer.  

The quilting on this small quilt includes wings,  the words 'snowflake sister', which is the hashtag that original FB group uses on other social media, and a row of naughty bits, which I first used on Janet's quilt, and reminds me of her ribald humor. 





Godspeed Janet Mease.  
I'm going to miss that wild woman. 

Peace.

Valentines

Pieced hearts, hand embroidery, machine quilted to card stock.  Completed January 2019  Size approx. 5" x 6" each. Made for the week 2 challenge in Project Quilting season 10 - Red, White and Blue 

I made some paper pieced hearts (the ones with the white background, and also a few crazy quilt hearts.  I added hand embroidery. 

 The backgrounds are created by gluing some dictionary pages to card stock (those old dictionaries were about to be thrown away at work - they are in bad shape, so I love giving them new life.)  I padded the hearts a little by placing a small bit of batting under them before using fancy stitches on my machine to 'quilt' the heart to the card stock.  The dots are glitter glue, then I cut the edges using decorative edge scissors.  The back shows the stitching and the cut edge: 

            Its taken me quite some time to get comfortable in our 'new' hometown - since we moved to New York City 4 years ago.  This year, I finally have some new friends (book club and quilting) to whom I can give a valentine.  Friendship is so important.  

Peace. 

Hope

Fused applique, hand embroidery, machine quilted.  Completed Jan 12, 2019   Size 10" x 11".  Made for the week 1 challenge in Project Quilting season 10 - Hope. 

January is the season of the diet.  After the season of too much eating, many approach clothing with the 'hope' that it will fit.  Be kind to yourself.  You are good enough, even if you can't zip your pants. 

Peace. 

Implied Peace

Fabric collage, machine quilted.  Completed December 2018. Size 13" x 13" 

This is my response to a Quilt Lab (Gotham Quilts) experiment about LINE.  As a basic element of visual art, line can be defined as: "the use of various marks, outlines, or implied lines."  A line has "width, direction and length".  Lines can be straight or curved, thick or thin, short or long, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal or implied?.  Of all the definitions,  "implied" was the concept that intrigued me.  So I created this piece in which the lines of the peace symbol are negative space.  All the work is on the edges of those lines, to create the recognizable image. 

I started with a piece of hand dyed fabric by my pal Sam at Hunters Design Studio.  Then selected some bright multi-colored prints that had good contrast with the background piece.  I drew the peace symbol on the fabric, first tracing around a large plate, then carefully measuring and drawing the internal circle and lines. 





Next I planned which colors would go in each section, and started cutting out images from the fabric and placing them more or less where they would go.  




Some of the fabric has wonderunder fused to the back, which made it easier to work with.  Later as I was filling in, I didn't always fuse the back, sometimes I used a spot of regular glue stick (no, it didn't gunk up the needle when machine quilting!) 




To get the really sharp edges, I created these templates using cardboard to match the convex and concave curves, then precisely cut the pieces going on the edges using this line: 

Once everything was where I wanted, I ironed the whole piece, to set the bits that could be fused. I wasn't sure what heat setting the glue-stick would do,  but it didn't cause a problem. 

I considered quilting a piece of tulle over the top of the whole thing, as I had seen recommended by other fabric collage artists, but the tulle I had at home changed the color too much, so I just quilted directly over the fabric pieces, first narrow zig-zagging the edge, then looping over everything with a variegated thread.



 (notice what a difference lighting makes when photographing a quilt!)

       I faced the quilt, because I didn't want any sort of frame a binding would create.  Here is a photo of the back, so you can see the facing and quilting:



I've been meaning to try fabric collage (following the amazing work of Susan Carlson and others) so this was a little toe in the water of collage.  I'll do more to be sure.  This was very fun.

--- 

I'm not sure I explored LINE very much.  This does have a line (curved and straight)  and its implied which fits my original intrigue.  Mostly this piece is in response to someone who misunderstood my intent in an email.  She thought I was implying something I most certainly did not.  I learned that people see/read/understand what they want, so this message of 'peace', which is the way I've been ending all my blog posts for these 2 years and all my quilt related emails, is no longer 'implied' - I'm stating it here for the record. 

Peace. 

For you, for me, for our noisy neighbors upstairs, for the tormented souls sleeping on the subways, for the refugees, for the caravaners, for the politicians trying to make it work, for the marchers in pink knit hats, for those long marginalized in our nation,  for the men and women in uniform, for our fellow citizens who have gotten themselves riled up by fake news, for people I don't know who have their own everyday struggles.  

Peace.