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.