Monday, May 3, 2021
The Migration Composite
Saturday, May 1, 2021
Judy S.- Fabric Migration
Migration brought to mind the normal thoughts of birds, butterflies and people, but nothing was popping for me and I did one with flying geese in the first year for "South". This one needed to be new and colorful. I realized that the one thing I have experience with is fabric. I made up this game in the 11"x14" format.
Friday, April 30, 2021
Nedra’s Migration -- Loons of True Cove
John and I became snowbirds 8 years ago when we he retired. We began "migrating" to Georgia for the winter. Our summers are spent on a lovely lake in Maine where loons frolic and serenade us nightly with their haunting calls. Almost 20 of the loons on Lake Cobbessee call our True Cove home. Losing their gorgeous black and white coloring in October for gray, they begin the journey to the coast for the winter. Spring comes and with it are the beautiful loon. An annual loon count is made every summer and includes the number of chicks that hatch. Gray chicks can be spotted on the backs of the females until they are capable of swimming and fishing on their own. Migration suggested our annual journey as well as the loons.
My piece is an original block influenced by traditional bird, geese and swallow blocks. I choose blues and gray to represent the colors of the water and sky and the baby and migrating loons.. Cotton fabric is machine pieced and machine quilted. An outline of a migrating loon is stitched in gray in the middle in addition to the straight line quilting. .
Carolyn's Migration
I thought of all sorts of things that depict migration, but I finally decided on hummingbirds since they, and Carolina Wrens, are my favorite birds. May and June are the months that hummers make it to our area of North Texas on their journey back North.
I first viewed photos of all of the different species of hummers, and found to my delight that they come in a multitude of colors – everything from hot pink to green to purple, variegated and even a deep blue. And so my journey began into the fascinating world of hummingbirds.
Hummers are the smallest of birds. One species, which is only 3 inches long, makes the longest migratory journey of any other bird in the entire world. These tiny birds fly all the way from Alaska to South America on their Winter journey, and then migrate back again the next Spring.
My colorful hummingbird is made of various colors of hand-dyed silk fabrics. The flowers and leaves are from a Kaffe Fassett cotton. The bird was designed by fusing all of the various colorful components on top of each other one piece at a time with Wonder Under 805. Then all of the components were fused onto a hand-dyed 100% cotton background, and finally stitched with a variety of threads by Ricky Tims and Aurifil.
And best of all to my delight, I had my very first hummingbird visit to my feeder today!
Kathy's Migration Quilt
Alice's Migration: Flying Geese!
Two ideas occurred to me for this quilt. One simple, another more complicated. Waiting until this week to work on my quilt, I thought the simple plan would be most practical. But alas, simple came out looking simplistic. Even childish. So I laid it aside and began working on complicated.
The old traditional Flying Geese quilt block design was my second notion. But I wanted something more flowing, more swooping, more like how geese actually fly. Google came to my aid and I came across a tutorial by quilt teacher Gail Graber for constructing flying geese along a curve. Her step by step instructions were just what I needed.
First I drew the design, using a tool I've had for years but never before used--a flexible and curveable ruler. Of course it took much trial and error before I came up with a design that I liked. Once I did, I copied it onto drawing paper. This was my master. I then used regular printer paper to trace the design for paper piecing.
Some years ago at the Houston Festival I bought four or five different half yards of an amazing fabric that has gradations of colors along its width, from dark to light and back to dark. I used several pieces of this fabric for this quilt. I knew I wanted my current quilt's background to be blue, so for the flying geese I chose a fabric for the "sky" part of the flying geese that, interestingly, had gradations that moved from yellow to orange to deep red and on to a dark red purple. I did put in a few pieces of darker violet for the bottom few flying geese. For the geese themselves, I used a gradation from lightest purple or lavender to dark violet.
When I started the paper piecing, I paired a light goose with the darkest "sky" background, then moved around to a dark goose with the lightest "sky" background. Once the paper piecing was done (and I had tediously removed all those tiny pieces of paper!!) I decided to use reverse applique to apply the curving flying geese to the quilt's background fabric. For this I used another piece of that gradation fabric that was primarily blue moving through pink and then purple. Again, Gail Graber came to the rescue, as the second lesson in her series about making curving flying geese included excellent instructions for the reverse applique process, which I had never done before. I bound the quilt with the same fabric I used for the quilt's background.
Links to Graber's instructions:
https://betteroffthread.com/2013/06/11/paper-piecing-curved-geese-a-tutorial/
https://betteroffthread.com/2013/06/18/reverse-applique-tutorial/
Andrea's Migration quilt
Tricia's Migration
35 years ago when I first moved to Lincoln I noticed a few roads were closed on the first warm rainy night in March for "The Big Night". The Big Night is when the yellow spotted black salamanders and wood frogs cross the roads to get to the vernal ponds. At some point they stopped closing the roads and encouraged people to drive slowly. Not sure how one can really see a black salamander on asphalt at night.
When we downsized a four years ago, we moved to one of the roads that has a salamander and wood frog crossing. We now go out and walk up and down to road on the first warm and rainy night in March to help the salamanders and wood frogs cross the road before cars come. I wanted to create a quilt with the sign, a salamander and wood frog for our theme Migration.
I took black fabric with highlights and machine quilted it to try to get it to look like asphalt. I photographed the sign and the wood frog and then printed on printed treasures. Unfortunately we did not see a salamander this year. I created the salamander from shinny fabric and fused yellow spots on him.
Friday, February 5, 2021
The Majestic Composite by Randy
I decided to do a background image this time to reflect my definition of the majesty (noun) or the majestic (adjective) nature of our world. Some years ago my son and I were traveling to Colorado Springs to visit my brother. He was driving. We were somewhere between "The Springs" and Pueblo and there is not much to the east but grasslands and flat country. I looked out the window and saw a pattern of 5 stacked rainbows--left to right. Yes, I took a photo, but I can't find that image. It is still somewhere in my collection. If you will notice the large, first, rainbow, are the colors you all know, top to bottom: red, orange, green, blue, indigo, violet. Check the outer rainbow. The colors are reversed. The red is on the inside and violet on the outside. That is because the second rainbow is created by sunlight reflecting through raindrops inside the first rainbow--reversing the colors. Enough science; let's talk quilting. Another majestic creation!
The composite came together mostly by format.
I placed Nedra's striking image in the middle because it was the only vertically oriented quilt. Nedra, I have a story to share. Many years ago, while I was teaching biology in Southern Indiana, we were privileged to have 7 students (6 young men and a young woman) attend our school (Vincennes University) from Swaziland, South Africa. All 7 of them were children of King Sobhuza, but each had a different mother, but that's another story. All spoke some Swahili and all spoke perfect English.
Alice and Tricia's quilts then tucked nicely on either side because they were perfect squares and each fit a common theme: the majesty of the great outdoors.
Often at looking at an image, a small detail will attract the eye. I didn't notice until later, but the top row illustrates this point. I placed Andrea's and Karen's images up top because they were both horizontal rectangles. However on second and subsequent views, how often have we seen firework displays around tall spheres in the sky? Also, the Eiffel Tower is a magnificent achievement by man in its setting. Then notice the white line in Karen's quilt that draws attention in contrast to the white line in the tower, causing you to look again at both images.
Carolyn and Kathy's quilts anchor the composite to say "This Land is OUR Land." Our land is majestic. Let's take care of it--please!
What a treat to see your creative work.
Randy
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Kathy's "Majestic"
Nedra's Majestic - Aziza
Majestic has many meanings including 'of impressive beauty and dignity". That definition is exemplified by the Masai of Kenya whom I observed on visits there. I chose to portray a majestic Kenyan woman I named Aziza, which means stately, grand and beautiful in Swahili.
I studied many images of African women and found a tile mosaic in the Flickr account of Judit Bozsnar (a Hungarian artist) which she calls Black Princess - Homage a Jacques Leconte. I assume he is a French artist, although I could not find any info regarding him or his work. I did find his series of works of beautiful African women in colorful graphic attire on several sites. I tried to contact Judit for her permisssion to replicate her image in fabric and post a picture of her mosaic, but have not received a reply. I give credit to Judit and Jacques for the inspiration for my version of Aziza. When I saw Judit's mosaic and Jacques' works I knew I would portray her using bright graphic Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mabley fabrics. And here she is!!!
Brown and orange were chosen to represent the dry African landscape with the lime green and purple for accent and black for contrast. The piece is fused and machine quilted and bound. Black beads were used for embellishment. I loved this theme!! I find the photo the most difficult part of this challenge. I still have not learned how to take an "square" photo.
Andrea's Majestic quilt
Alice: The Majesty of Birch Trees
I struggled with this theme at first. All I could come up with was "purple mountains majesty," but I feared that someone else might use that one. Good friend Linda Hicks, one of our first but now former Mavens, suggested I look up quotations using the words majesty or majestic. Then she sent me a batch! I loved one by American writer Washington Irving that says in part: "There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery. . . "
Knowing that New Englander Irving likely often saw birch trees in woodlands near him, I recalled a length of batik that I treasure that depicts birch trees. (In fact, I've used this fabric twice before in my MM quilts, for the themes Translate and Boundary.)
I assembled a background of sky, hills, and foreground using batiks, cutting them freehand and fusing these onto a muslin base. I sandwiched this background with batting and backing and lightly quilted it. Then I applied Steam a Seam 2 to a section of my treasured birch tree batik and cut out seven trees. These I then adhered to the base; SS2 can be repositioned, which is handy when composing, but ironing makes it permanent. I touched up the trees with black and white Fabric Fun Pastel Dye Sticks.
For the fall leaves I assembled small pieces of yellow, orange, and tan batiks and began cutting them into "confetti." This confetti technique Rita Schormann demonstrated to us at our first MM retreat on Nantucket Island. These had no fusible product applied, but I did apply some SS2 to a few larger cuts and then I snipped these into tiny pieces and stuck them down one by one to be falling leaves. The confetti pieces I scattered onto the tree tops and the ground.
To keep the treetops and piled up leaves in place for quilting, I covered the entire quilt with white tulle and then free motion quilted through the tulle at the top and bottom of the quilt.
Once the quilt was finished, I was in a quandary about what to use for binding. I auditioned many fabrics; all seemed to be too distracting. Then I remembered a technique I learned in a class taught by Marcia Stein. I pieced the side edges using the same fabrics that I used for the background, and for the top and bottom edges I used some of the yellow batik. At last I was content with my woodland scene quilt!
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Carolyn - Majestic Lake Moraine
Lake Moraine is located in a valley inside Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. Melting glaciers create the breathtaking azure blue color of the water. The lake is surrounded on all sides by 10 jagged peaks towering over 6,100 feet tall. It is a sight to behold!
My husband and I visited Lake Moraine in 1988 just before the area was "discovered" by attendees of the 1989 Winter Olympics in Calgary. With only 3 or 4 visitors in sight, we rented a row boat. As the sun was beginning to set, we rowed to the far side of the lake where we looked straight up to view the giant peaks. The tops of the mountains were covered in snow, and the water was so pure that we could see the pebbles resting on the lake's bottom.
My quilt is a salute to our visit to Lake Moraine. I used numerous scraps of hand-dyed, batik and cotton fabrics. The technique is raw-edge applique using Wonder Under. To create the water, I used a strip piecing method by Cathy Geier described in her book, "Lovely Landscape Quilts." The peaks are varying shades of hand-dyed fabrics with white tulle added for snow. I used a wide variety of drawing pencils and inks to add shadows to the mountains and to highlight the large stones surrounding the water. The green areas on the quilt represent wooded areas with trees packed closely together. I used a lime green pencil to achieve that effect. The tiny canoe with two people and a paddle were cut from left-over fabric from my stash.
To stitch the water, I used a technique described in Geier's book. For water she advises quilting long horizontal, slightly wavy lines. The lines toward the horizon are quilted very close together which adds depth and distance. The lines gradually get bigger as the water gets closer to the foreground. I used 3 different thread colors for the water.
It is said that Prince Harry upon visiting Lake Moraine for the first time said, "Why travel to Switzerland when you can go to Lake Moraine!" It is my hope that this little quilt will entice you to visit this magnificent treasure.
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Tricia's Majestic Snowy Owl on Smith Point
Snowy Owl on Smith Point
Karen's Majestic
Monday, November 16, 2020
The Round Table Composite
Thursday, November 12, 2020
Judy S.: Let's Shake hands at the Round Table
Monday, November 2, 2020
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Kathy's "ROUND TABLE"
I have to admit, when it was time for the "Round Table" Challenge, my very first thought was "Round Table Pizza !"
[ We lived in Anchorage, AK for 35 years, and believe me... "Round Table Pizza" was a pretty big deal for us... Delicious, readily available in just about any combination you'd want, AND... Free Delivery... A super great bonus because of our weather and road conditions ! ]
I kept pondering how to put "Round Table" into one of our Quilts, and had, "by chance" recently ordered a book on "Crop Circles" that have intrigued me for many years. How do they get those truly gigantic circles to be so perfectly "Circular" ? How do they accomplish the extremely complex designs ? How do they photograph the Crop Circles ? So many questions !
As you can tell, "Crop Circles" became my theme, and I had a blast making this quilt !
The book, "Crop Circles, the Bones of God" by Michael Glickman has been (and continues to be) an enormous source of inspiration and information about these phenomenal structures.
All the fabrics in this quilt were "Rust Dyed" using old, rusted pieces / parts we continue to find in our pasture; and I have to admit, any time I see an old rusty piece of metal I tend to pick it up and add it to the stash :-D
This particular Crop Circle, is called the "Angel Formation," and its one of my favorites. It was "created" in July 2001, and is about 700 feet in diameter !














