Andrea's Refraction Quilt

Hommage To Freddy Moran

"She's A Rainbow"

11" x 14" fused cotton, rubber stamps, tulle

 

I know I am stretching the theme, more like 'refraction by association'! The quilt I was intending to make was based on a photo I took at a Friendly's restaurant a couple of years ago. I was served a large glass of water with a red straw that visually both refracted and distorted the straw, which was fascinating. Even though it was the perfect subject matter for this theme, I really didn't feel like representing it in fabric. My next thought was to do something with a rainbow, as they are an "optical phenomenon caused by refraction" ( Wikipedia ), but I didn't want to work with rainbow imagery either. I'm sure I have mentioned before how intrigued I am with the creative process and for me, one thing usually leads to another. Just after dismissing the rainbow concept, I had a few errands to run and the first song that was playing on the car radio was The Rolling Stones' "She's A Rainbow".  I not only took this as the universe telling me to stick to the rainbow concept, but when I thought of a rainbow representing a person, I immediately thought of Freddy Moran, who sadly died in August at 94. Literally within a 10 minute timespan, I had the beginning of an idea that I couldn't wait to start!

Freddy's quilts were colorful, joyful & whimsical. She loved polka dots, stripes and considered red to be a neutral color. Black and white fabrics became her signature, as I think her large red framed glasses.

I wanted to incorporate a house block ( Freddy's first book was called Freddy's House ) and I made it into a fascinator hat.

I am truly grateful to Linda Hicks for asking me, in 2011, if I would be interested in joining a new art quilt blog started by friends in Texas.  I was most honored that Alice Beard accepted me! Being a member of The Material Mavens has an amazing creative experience that I will miss.

Nedra's Refraction - Blue Velvet

 

I did a bit of research about refraction and learned that blue flowers and animals are very rare in nature. Part of the reason is that there isn’t really a true blue color or pigment and both plants and animals have to perform tricks of the light to appear blue. For plants, blue is achieved by mixing naturally occurring pigments, very much as an artist would mix colors. The most commonly used are the red pigments, called anthocyanins, and whose appearance can be changed by varying acidity. These alterations, combined with reflective light can create some spectacular results: delphiniums, plumbago, bluebells, hydrangeas, morning glories, and cornflowers. 

Instead of pigment mixing or alteration, blue is achieved in many animals by making structures that change the wavelength of light or refracting it. For example, the blue morpho butterfly gets it's color from the fact that its wing scales are shaped in ridges that causes light to bend in such a way that the only wavelength that reflects is blue. If shaped differently the blue color would vanish. I thought the butterfly was stunning and decided to depict it for our refraction challenge. 

The butterfly is made collage style and then attached to the background. I used machine stitching, watercolor pencils and paint to add the identifying marks. The background is a batik which I used to make 3 dimensional leaves that are machined stitched. Sticks were gathered from nature to make the setting for the butterfly. It is machine pieced and bound and attached to a canvas. My husband made the sycamore frame. I very much enjoyed creating this piece for our final reveal.  I compared it to my first reveal and realized how much my creative process has improved!!  I must thank Andrea for inviting me to join this group and for Alice who was our original and fantastic leader!!

Tricia's Refraction

Tricia's Refraction of Sankaty Lighthouse 

Even though refraction was my chosen word I struggled with what to create. I must have forgotten what I intended to create. We have a hanging glass star that I photographed with the sun coming thru. I wasn't completely happy with my image but was going to work with it. Then I opened the Nantucket newspaper and saw the photo below by Dan Lion. The caption said "East End Light Show. The beacon of Sankaty Head Lighthouse shines and refracts in the fog Sunday night, creating a strobe-light effect." I thought this is just perfect. I contacted Dan Lion and he was happy for me to use his photo.

My base fabric was cherrywood's hand dyed grey. I used tulle as one or two layers over the white fabric to create the fog. I also painted with a Sharpie paint pen on the edges of the white fabric to soften the edges to help give the image of the glowing fog. 

I have enjoyed being part of this group. Thanks for all the inspiration!

Alice's Refraction: Wine glass with Red Pen  

I confess I had to look up the definition of "refraction" in the dictionary.  Not that that helped me much!  I was still confused about just what this word meant.  My next step was to Google "images that depict refraction."  Aha!  That did help immensely.  I saw a photo of a glass of water with a straw or something similar in the glass.  Suddenly the definition made sense to me.

So I filled a wine glass with water and placed a red pen in the glass.  Then I "posed" this still life on a table with a blank wall behind it and photographed it.   (Wish I'd posed it against something to make the wine glass more obvious!)   This photo was then printed off onto  some cotton fabric which I had adhered to paper with a fusible product.  

I pulled some red and brown fabrics from my stash and cut them into strips and did some fun string piecing.  I then pinned the photo of the wine glass and its red pen and appliqued it to the background.  I bound the little 12" x 12" quilt with more of one of the red fabrics.

So, fellow Mavens, this group that began over a decade ago has come to an end.  Endings are always sad, and I'm sad about this blog's last postings.  It's been for me a mind-stretching experience to come up with little art quilts that depict scores of different themes. How very appropriate that this current theme was one I had to struggle with!  Talk about mind stretching!

 I've met some wonderful fellow quilters from places as different as Massachusetts and Arkansas!  I remember with delight the various times we've gotten together for retreats and reunions.  Once most of us met in Houston during Festival, and then there were the fabulous times we had together in Nantucket and Arkansas.  Thanks again to those of you who made those gatherings happen.  I will miss 'seeing' all of you on the blog!  I plan to be in Houston for just one day in October; I hope to see some of you there!

The steering committee who came up with the idea to start this blog was made up of Judy Steward, Rita Schormann, and myself.  How I miss Rita, who died suddenly and unexpectedly in October of 2022.  I'd like to dedicate this final blog in her memory.  Without exaggeration, Rita was the most talented, meticulous,  and creative quilter I have ever known.  I will always miss her!

Happy National Quilting Day

 

Fall Composite

 

Here is the Fall Collage 

Participants Nedra, Tricia, Karen, Andrea

Andrea's Fall Quilt

 

OOPS

( or Fall, Falling, Fallen! )

11"-ish x 14"

Hand-dyed and commercial cotton

Anytime I can use shoes in a quilt or art project I will.  Not really wanting to make the season of Fall my focus, I went with a tongue-in-cheek ( or dark, think Agatha Christie or Hitchcock! ) interpretation, where a pair of shoes could represent someone who has taken a fall!  Slipped on a wet leaf perhaps?  Or maybe the person is sitting and watching the fall leaves flutter in the wind?

Karen's Fall

 Bare Tree 111

The tree is constructed with many different strips of brown batik which I heavily stitched in place. 

The leaves were made from double sided batik. I stitch the veins in with smoke colored monofilament thread. I let them curl and stitched them onto the back ground in just a few spots 

so they would keep the curl. 

The back ground was a perfect commercial fabric that I strategically quilted. 

This is an old piece that I pulled out and added the fallen leaves to the bottom of the tree. 

Added more quilting in the ground. 

It's nice to revisit old pieces!!

Tricia's Fall Scalloping

 Fall Scalloping

Last month I used a tree and leaves for my ancestry so I struggled with a new idea for fall. As I usually do when I'm stuck, I ask a family member for suggestions on the theme word. My daughter's first reaction was we always go scalloping in the fall. On Nantucket Family Scalloping opens on October 1st. 

Scalloping on Nantucket is a treasured tradition for families but also the commercial fisherman. These are  the sweetest and tiniest bay scallops. The bay scalloping industry is dying everywhere. Nantucket has put a huge investment into saving and keeping the industry. This past year the investment has been paying off. The amount of scallops that are being harvested and seed that is in the harbor has increased. We have reason to be hopeful for the continuation of the bay scallop in Nantucket Habor.

Now to my journal quilt. I find it difficult to portray people and especially faces in my work. The first weekend in December our friend Nick and his family came to Nantucket for the Christmas Stroll. (so technically not fall). I had mentioned to Nick that Nantucketers very often go scalloping on Thanksgiving morning to have a scallop dish for Thanksgiving. It was the first weekend in December and Nick said lets go! He put on our wet suit and went out to Jackson Point. My quilt is from a picture of Nick coming in with a basket of scallops. Even after a hot shower he was cold for a long time! We enjoyed a delicious scallop dinner that night.

I printed the photograph on fabric, free motion stitched the grasses, created the basket from wire and filled with real tiny scallops shells that I have collected over the years. The scallops rake was made from tulle, metal and a dowel. It is 10"wide x 13"high

Nedra's Fall - Vermont Gems

 

Vermont Gems

Raw edge applique, hand painted, commercial cottons, machine quilted

12' X 12"

I moved to Vermont in 1979 and was thrilled to experience many "firsts" there. Some of these included seeing many feet of snow, below zero temperature, snow skiing, sugar on snow parties, snow shoveling and of course Fall Leaf Peeping!! The colorful leaves looked like gems on the branches to me after having seen little more than brown leaves in Louisiana.  

I choose to spotlight the leaves and their glorious hues in this piece.  I hand painted most of the fabric.  I did use one commercial batik for the sweet gum leaves but dabbled a bit of paint on those.  The leaves are machine stitched onto the background.  The larger ones that extend beyond the edges are double sided and 3 dimensional.  I used a commercial fabric for the background and scattered them over it to look like they were on the ground in the woods.