Posts Tagged ‘wip’

First New Art Quilt of 2010

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

I finally got the creative juices flowing a bit yesterday, and finished the first FFFC (Fast Friday Fabric Challenge)  quilt I have attempted in a very long time. New challenges are posted on the 4th Friday of each month, with the idea of finishing a small art quilt by the following Saturday. I originally thought that this piece would be done before the next challenge was posted, but while double checking the rules for Challenge 40, I found that the next challenge had already been posted- yesterday was the  4th Friday of January- where has the month gone?

Cocoa Mix Box

For Challenge #40, we were to pay attention to product packaging  and how the colors used affect your perception and buying decisions of the products, and then use the colors from a selected package in a quilt. The piece was to be a still life, and be mostly plants or flowers. I drink hot chocolate every morning, and used one of the boxes for my color palette. I immediately thought of my favorite cobalt blue glass bottles, and wanted to include a couple in my composition.

Blue Bottles on Cotton

Photos of Blue Bottles Printed on Cotton Fabric

I am not great re-creating glass in fabric, so I decided to take photos of the glass and a spool of thread, and printed them onto fusible backed cotton fabric.

Cobalt Blue Glass Bottles

Group of Cobalt Blue Glass Bottles and Eye Wash Cup

Here is one of  the photos I used to arrange on the page to print onto the fabric. I placed them on, and backed them white card stock to take the photo. I love the gold design on the perfume bottle- my favorite.

Layout one.

Ist Layout Idea

This was the first version of the layout. I hadn’t remembered that plants or flowers were to be a big part of the composition. The original thought was to use the thread spools and some chunks of chocolate around the bottles… Not too hard to change direction a bit…. the short bottle could be a vase,  and I had thought of adding a white flower on the table anyway.

Quilt layout 2

Second Layout Without Thread

OK, to keep with mostly plant theme, chocolate and thread spools are out, bottles and eye wash cup still in. I found some great silk leaves in the perfect shade of coppery brown found on the cocoa box to back the white silk flowers. I added a stem into the open top bottle, ready for flowers. The chocolate colored fabric I had picked out was used for the stems and small leaves needed.

Art Quilt in Progress

More Progress

Here is what it looks like after flowers have been added, and stitching has been done. Most of the flower petals were stitched only down there centers, leaving them 3-dimensional.

Art Quilt Blue Bottles and Flowers

Blue Bottles and Flowers

Here is the “finished” piece…. The more I look at it, I think I need to figure out a way to make the white lace show up better. The bottles look a bit dull to me, and I may add a bit of gloss medium over them….. The flower centers could use some beads.  I guess I will have to hang it on the design wall for a while to see what happens.

Update- 1-27-10-  Well, after looking at it for a few days, I decided to add some beads in the flowers. Below is the most recent photo.

Art Quilt Blue Bottles and Flowers by Sue Andrus, Andrus Gardens

Newest Version of Blue Bottles with Beads Added

Art Quilt Blue Bottles and Flowers by Sue Andrus, Detail, Andrus Gardens

Detail shot of Blue Bottles and Flowers

This last photo shows more detail.  I even added a little gold butterfly resting at the base of the lower right flower.

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Black and White

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

I have been playing with black, white and gray fabrics lately, and have not even taken time to show what I have done here… The fibro has not been playing nice, so my brain has been foggy, and I have spent many months just getting through one day at a time. Finally feeling a bit better, I decided to show what I have done without color, and NO, your monitor has not gone wonky– I really have been working without color!!

Forest Ferns beginning01
Forest Ferns beginning01

Forest Ferns beginning
Forest Ferns beginning


Here is one of my mock-ups for my "Forest Ferns" that will be in the "My World in  Black and White" exhibition that will be travelling next year.

I don't usually work with blacks and grays, so I had to paint up some, and even buy some. I did the sunprints of  the ferns this summer, with black Dye-Na-Flow paint from Jacquard. I really like how they turned out- the ferns are definitely the focus in this fabric. When I use my colors, the color combinations and patterns also grab attention.

The first photo is one of the first tries- I had some laces that I wanted to use- here a white one on the sides, but when I had it critiqued, the comments  were to keep the ferns as the focus and the lace distracted. I also played with something else here- I took photos of the sunprints and turned them negative in my photo program, the printed them onto cotton. The corners show a couple of these.

The second Photo shows the final mock-up that I decided on, just before construction. This piece was fully designed on the wall before construction began- a change from my usual way of starting and adding.

I decided against the corner negative ferns, went in the back yard, and found some nice small Maple leaves. I used these for leaf prints. I used black paint on the gray fabric, and a silver metallic mixed with pearlescent on the black fabric. The outer border fabric has a design of leaves that resemble Oaks to me.

Forest Ferns
Forest Ferns

This is the finished quilt- 28.5 X 36" in size- Big for what I usually do.

While doing the quilting on this, I had to make thread decisions, and I am always afraid of ruining a good piece, so I had to make up an "guinea pig" piece to play with.

Black & White Study 1- SOLD
Black & White Study 1- SOLD

I had printed more fabric than I needed for the larger piece, so I put this little one together- it is 10" x 12.5" in size. I knew I was going to use clear thread for the sunprints- anything else usually takes the attention away from the prints. For the leaf prints, I thought of accenting the veining with thread, and tried it here. Most every Maple leaf is quilted differently. I found on both the black and silver prints, I liked the smoke colored invisible thread best. The black and silver threads made the images more stark, and that is not what I wanted for the larger piece. This did make an interesting little quilt by itself, it was available for purchase at my Art Quilt shop at Etsy, but is now SOLD. Check out the shop for other art quilts available. More B&W's are in the works.

While working on these, I also had ideas floating around for another black and white piece.

I still have the laces I wanted to try using, and also found a lot of white silk flowers. A design popped into my head, and if all goes well another piece will be done. This will be all flowers and lace. I began with the back side of a black printed fabric for the center oval. the background is two different black & white prints.

You can see a bunch of the flowers pinned to the wall beside the piece on the wall.

After a little more playing on the wall, I have gotten to where the final photo of this post is. I think I will use the gray fabric for leaves, and will have the white flowers arranged, spilling over the edges of the oval. The center oval will be edged in a heavy black lace I have been wanting to find a use for, and the outer border is a black with gray print.

B & W 3-1
B & W 3-1

There will possibly be more lace, and some beading somewhere, just not sure how far it will go. I will post more as I continue. I guess I've always been more of a "girly" girl, loving ruffles, lace and flowers. Hhopefull they will come together in this.

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