Sunday, January 15, 2012

Sara in the South


I started thinking about the theme "South" in terms of my personal experience. In 1969 my father decided he hated NYC and my parents packed up the car with me and my younger siblings and headed SOUTH. He remembered liking Miami in the 1940's so our destination was Florida. When the reservations they made in Miami were not real, we initially settled in an efficiency in Hollywood. This started my family's long stay in Broward County Florida. I thought of that trip and that once south of Maryland, my dad ordered grits every chance he got. When we crossed the Georgia/Florida border there were Palms trees that surrounded a welcome to Florida sign. The only thing I remember about them is that they were rather sad looking since they probably would have been happier in South Florida, not on the border with Georgia.

For this challenge I wanted to use photoprinting with Kalideoscope Creator. I've owned the software for a while (I have version 1.0 and 2.0 but the current version is 3) but I have never used it. There are no coconut or royal palms around me in Houston but we do have Sago Palms. I do realize that Sago's are not really in the same family as the Palm but they do have the same frond leaves. I used a great picture I took in New Braunfels of a Sago Palm and printed a 12 inch image in tiled format. I discovered the results were not stable 6 inch squares so I think I will experiment with this more before I make anything bigger with it. Of course, now that I have used the software once, I have an excuse to upgrade to the newest version to see if that works better.

7 comments:

  1. Sara,I was very happy to see what can be done with a plant photograph using Kaleidoscope software. As an avid gardener, this intrigues me with its possibilities for my future art quilts. Thanks too for including the second palm plant photo ~ not something an Alaskan is likely to see! Nice southern quilt rendering.

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  2. Another great, personal story. I love how you manipulated your photo as the basis of your quilt...has very much the same "feeling" as the palm. I've never heard of this software, but will now investigate. This is a fascinating piece.

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  3. Oh how beautifully you have captured that Sago Palm! I love your back-story, too, and it was neat to learn about software I'd never heard of before. This is an intriguing quilt, and it was fun to click on the photo to see your stitching. Very innovative and creative!

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  4. Hi Sara - What a beautiful transition from the photograph to your actual quilt! I loved your story, and loved your innovation in transforming the photo to fabric to quilt. Super job :) Kathy

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  5. Sara, I am going to look at kaleidoscope filters with a new eye.
    You have a definite style with your works. I especially enjoyed the tale of leaving NYC and eating grits at every stop. You have captured a lot of mixed feelings in this piece.

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  6. Sara, thanks for sharing your story with us! That must have been quite and adventure for your family.
    Was the sago palm photo taken when you were at quilting adventures? I don't remember any there, but that doesn't mean they aren't there in abundance. I do remember the mountain laurels blooming one time because I took some photo's of them.

    I know what it is like to have software and not try it. It just takes so much time to learn and sometimes I'd rather quit then keep clicking on things:)Glad you made a quilt to share with us using it!

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  7. Hi Sara. What a great story and a wonderful use of imagination. Congratulations on trying something NEW for our reveal quilt. I think your use of the Sago Palm and your design are very clever indeed! By the way, grits also kept popping into my head when I was thinking about "south!"

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