Sara's Reach Quilr

This theme was a bit of a challenge for me. I usually like to think of several approaches and make sure I don't go with the first three ideas. Unfortunately, I only could think of one idea and I did not like that idea!

This summer my friend came over to use my embroidery machine. While we were waiting on an embroidery completion she asked if we could organize my work room. No argument from me - we are not done but things are much tidier. In the process I found a very old screen print sample - I think it was done with a crayoned resist and some rather thick paint. I hung it in the corner of my design wall.

While thinking about the theme, I looked up and saw my little screen print. I thought about how I always seem to want to extend my own reach. I seem to always be taking classes and going to lectures on fiber arts as well as other topics. I decided my that my screen printed birds are flying off to reach a goal and that I should combine them with a variety of swatches I created in classes. Last March, I was lucky to be in a class with Leslie Tucker Jenison where we created all sorts of fun printed and colored textures on fabric and paper. We collaged the results onto a base using Misty Fuse. I enjoyed this way of working - I believe the stripes were created in that workshop using a gelli plate. The light blue fabric seems to be dyed silk from a workshop long ago. The green fabric may have been a wipe cloth from a dyeing or painting experiment. I added some couched needlepoint thread to two sides.

Hence I have an image of birds reaching off to the sky and me reaching off to constantly increase my skill set rolled in to one (and as a side benefit, a little completed quilt is so much more visually satisfying over random swatches and samples!)

Sara's Strength

I loved the word Strength. I decided to dedicate my work this month to the massive effort I've been making on strengthening my body. I also am keeping in mind my self-challenge of trying a different technique to execute my concept each time in order to try out the many tools I've been collecting over the years.  This time I used a fabric collage technique I learned from Susan Carlson.  I took a picture of a set of dumbbells on my mat table in my home exercise room (a room I need to visit more often - not sure why it seems easier to drive to the gym :) ). I printed the picture out and traced the dumbbell outlines and light contours with a black marker on tracing paper. I brought it to the copy shop and had it enlarged it 120%. I then traced the enlargement onto muslin. I pinned the muslin on top of paper on a foam core board and sat down in front of it with a pile of brown fabric scraps and Aileene's Tacky glue. I cut and placed pieces of fabric on the muslin, trimming the fabric to my outlines as I went and filling in gaps where needed. When I was done I cut out my dumbbell image and tested it on different fabric backgrounds. I chose a piece of cotton from a sample given to me by my friend who runs a Fine Linen store - it has a flowery pattern woven into it and has lustrous texture. I tacked the image to my background fabric with the tacky glue and covered it with black tulle before quilting it with batting and backing. I quilted the image with a black thin thread from Wonderfil. The background was quilted with a  similar thread that matched the background. I chose a leaf motif for the background to coordinate with the flowery design on the background. I used wavy lines below the image in homage to the table the dumbells sat on.