Category Archives: ISIS quilt

January 31,2013 Opening

Hello Friends,

  Here in central New York the wind is blowing up a storm as a cold front from the north hits a worm front form the south.   Trees are bending and swaying and  some tree limbs have blown down.  The snow has been blown  horizontally  off and on this afternoon.  I am glad to be inside working in my studio today!

The Opening was Sunday afternoon and it went well.  I was delighted by the many friends that appeared from all parts of my life.  My daughter and grandson appeared early in the afternoon and my husband along with several of the folks that he works with near the end of the event.  My friends from school, from Social Art and fellow quilters also showed up to support me and enjoy the wonderful banquet that the director provided.   I was delighted to discover that I have now sold two of my works, the second being the Kachina Sun quilt that was on the post card.    It can be very affirming for an artist like my self to sell a work to a total stranger.

I think that Spider Woman’s Spires looks really strong on the brick wall  background too.

 

 

 

The placement of Motherhood Maze so it is seen from the doorway as you enter the dinning area makes it one of the first works you see.  I think I talked about it more as an individual piece then any of the others.  I am still flying high from the experience.

 

Progress Report:   Play Day
Barbara invited me to the Turquoise Studio to have a play day on Thur last week.  We were working with gesso- stenciling and stamping with it .  I put on it on fabric and felt and Barbara mostly applied it to stretched canvas.  After the gesso was dry in the afternoon we painted the surfaces.  The gesso resisted the paint a bit and that changed the color as well as the texture.   I was so excited by the results that I created a top with some of the altered fabric already.

 

 

I am calling this Eventide.   I used all of one  of the  turquoise felt pieces in this as well as a second painted piece.   The white is the pure gesso.  The turquoise felt has been painted with purple and blue acrylic paint.

 

Pepe’   I started this quilt  before the show but did not get it finished.  It too is a goddess quilt as Pepe’ is  the Hawaiian goddess of the vocano.  I have started  the quilting with a copper metallic thread in a swirling pattern.   But the thread kept breaking so I put the thread  on the bobbin and I have been quilting from the back side.  It is just a little scary to do it this way but the braking is not happening now.   The ghost like color changes shown  here in this close up come from using painted fusible web that I painted orange and brown.   I keep learning new tricks along the way and that is exciting for me.     

   Painted Fusible Web     I went off to my friend Ethel and had a second play day this week.   She and I painted the fusible web.  I did blue, orange and yellow, black and a pink gold  pieces.  I do not know where I will use most of this but  it did the trick for the Pepe piece.   I sure had fun and one can never have too many tools in the creative tool box.

 

Soy Wax Resist     This was another thing Ethel and I played with.   We had both read  about this technique in the February/March  issue of Quilting Arts Magazine- issue 61.  The article is by Susan Purney Mark.  We followed the instructions  and did the sewing  step first .  Then we painted with soy wax on the mountains and tried not to get the wax in the valleys were the tread was.  The next step was to paint in the dye in thous valleys.  It is batching now so the final images will not appear until next week. This second shot   shows how the dye penetrates to through   the  batting to the back.  The dye will all wash away as the batting is synthetic and the dye will not adhere. The same batting can be reused for a second try of this method.  Ethel and I plan to do just that.

Tsunami Wash Up    I have been hand stitching down mostly plastic  objects like the ones I have seen in photos of the plastics that have been washing ashore on the west cost do to the Tsunami last year.   We are really polluting our environment and events like this really play that up. We have too much plastic in our lives. It does not break down into reusable materials like natural objects.  So were does it go?  Sure it gets broken and ground into smaller and smaller bits.  Sometimes birds and fish eat it.  What are the effects on those creatures?  Do we end up with it in ourselves when we eat sea food?  How dangerous  is that?   What are the long term effects?   I do not have any answers, just lots of questions.

Keep Creating

Carol

Crows January 5, 2012

Drawn by the sound of  crow calls I watched the birds take there flight in the early dawn this morning.    They  were commuting  against a strong  gusting wind as they departed from Oak-wood Cemetery were they roost in the winter, to each of their respective hunting grounds.    The flight is powerfully beautiful in its grace of movement as it was contrasted against a silver gray sky that was dotted with little blown  snow flakes today.  Living with the daily routine of these creatures has made me pay attention to their existence and has enriched my life.    I have made several quilts with crows as the stars.  Their simple dark forms show up so very well against so many surfaces that I always find it to be an enjoyable task to build a work around them.   Sense they are present so much around were I live I have many opportunities to watch them in their daily routines.    At the moment with the fresh snow they stand out quite sharply  as they dance around the ground in there search for food.   I like too how they cluster together in the evenings as they gather for the night.  All heads facing the wind  and raucously  shouting to one another filling first one tree top then another.   Then taking flight at the same time without a seeming signal as they then move a bit closer as a cluster toward the final roosting place.  All the time the numbers increase as they move toward a movable base and the sound becomes louder and louder as more birds stream back.    I have tried to walk to the center of were they gather for there night roosting- I have never been successful.   But that is the fascination of it for me.

Progress Report:

 DMC Challenge   Sphere System- 

This challenge started on my is visit to Marty in Oct.   I spent a lot of time this week working on the DMC project.

Two panels with different things pinned to the surface

This was one attempt with two partial copies of were I thought I was going.  I experiment by pinning things up and this is an example of that process. As it turned out I hated the layered X- cut fabric  on top.  I like the texture- and the idea – but it is not the place to use this idea.

So what I ended up with is this:Deep blue green, turquoise, and CrimsonThe irregular edges are proving to be a challenge, but I think I will work it out.

Machine Drawing

Chamomile

 Mock up of the quilt in half finished shate
I had originally though that this quilt would be done as machine drawing of Golden Rod.  But the silk thread was too heavy for the machine and kept creating a mess on the back of  the quilt so I took it all out.   I could not look at or deal with the work for several mouths.   Returning to it, I found I really like the fabric lay out, so I looked for a new subject matter.    I came across this card of Chamomile and used it as my inspiration instead.

Green background with machine drawing   I have only completed one of the plants in this photo.  I have sense put in two more- one on each side of this one.  the additional quilting adds to the final effect quilt nicely.  I am in the process of adding the facings to this work and I am sure I will complete it this week.

Twinkling Tracings

I have continued to work on the commission too. It now has a title and is called Twinkling Tracings.  This  is the first panel in the series. It is currently being pressed flat under my big cutting matt with half of the books from my shelves resting on top.  The two other panels will get the same treatment and then I will be done with the studio part of the job.

Gold and brown field with blue zig-zagging across
Twinkling Tracings-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ISIS Quilt

Horizonal quilt of Isis in gold on a cream filed surrounded by other Egyptian images
Isis
gold beetle on cream
Isis- close up

This is the Isis quilt all finished.  It came out quite quickly for me .  I think this will be the last of the Egyptian quilts for a while.  I do not think I even would have done this last one if I had not been reviewing my goddess series and wondering how I could go forward with that idea.    The question remains what will be the next goddess quilt?

 

 

 

 

 

Fractured- paper quilt  and  Fragments

We all have times when what we thought would work is a failure.  Well such is the case with this piece.  I started out making a quit that would feature a three dimensional tunnel shaped addition.  The back got created and the tunnel got created- but they did not work together at all.

Paper quilt in blue and white with gold ribbon
Fractured

So I created a cracked paper quilt to put the tunnel on.  They  did not work  together either……. So I played with the paper quilt . cut some triangular wholes- added some  paint and gold ribbon.  Fractured was born and I like it all on its own.  OK- so this exploration has lead to one more project.

I took the fabric quilt back that I had originally made for the tunnel and applied the flattened beads I had created with play dough  to its surface.  The beads were made as a play project with my grand son a few weeks ago.  I had stamped them with an Egyptian stamp and though they might be used on one of the first Egypt quilts.  But they did not work there.  Too much of a color contrast for those works.

Gold and blue background with blue add ons
Fragments
Blue playdought bead with silver paint
Fragments- close up

This detail shows a close up of one of the beads.  The surface was brushed with a white paint to high light the presses images.

I still do not have a home for the tunnel- but it may be like the beads, something that just has to shift around in the studio for a while before it finds a home.  I will be OK with it if that never happens because I know it was an experiment and  there are bound to me miss fires when one is playing that way.

 

 

 

I have had a good creative start to the new year and I hope I can continue to work successfully solving  the problems as they come my way.

Keep Creating

Carol