Alice's Tear Quilt: A Torn Fabric Collage

This is late, I know, but perhaps a few others will come in late too!  I started to call this quilt “Michigan Memories.”  The fabrics in the collage are scraps from a queen-sized quilt I made for our new summer home—an apartment in our Michigan family’s new home, which was finished last September.  This is the first summer we’ve spent three months here and away from Waco.

I had zero ideas for this quilt, but then Andrea suggested a torn fabric collage, using the few fabrics I happened to have here.  (I am really missing my big stash!)  I had such a busy weekend with many baseball games to attend that I had no time to act on Andrea’s great idea.  Then yesterday was packed, too, so I just about gave up on the idea of making a quilt this time.

BUT…several others I am expecting haven’t yet been posted, so I thought that today I’d give it a try.  I tore some of the scraps into strips, applied Wonder Under fusible on the back of the strips and then laid them out on a piece of batting.  When all were arranged to my satisfaction, I fused them down, then trimmed to the 12X12 size.  I used a blue and yellow quilt block from a Guild project, one I wasn’t crazy about ,for the backing.  Top-stitching the strips down sufficed for the quilting.  I used the same fabric for the binding that I used for the queen quilt, my favorite fabric, actually, that also appears in the collage. 

Maybe you’d like to see the queen quilt that provided these scraps, so I’ll post a photo of it here, as well as a few others.

The queen-sized quilt in our bedroom.  I used a myriad of blue
and yellow fabrics, some of which I purchased in the
South of France when we were on a riverboat cruise!

Our bedroom opens through French doors into a wonderful
sun porch!

Here is a block from the quilt that uses that navy fabric that was my favorite.
It was a wonderful border print that I also used later in a lap quilt that
we use in our Waco living room.  A Kalamazoo machine quilter,
one whom I've used many times to quilt
for me, quilted both of these quilts for me.  She said to me that she and the
others in her store had never seen many of the fabrics I used in these two quilts.
When I explained that many came from France, she then
understood why those were totally new to her!

For those who thought my quilt looked like a shelf of books,
here's how I actually constructed this quilt.  Now that I see it here,
perhaps this way is best????

Kathy's "Tear / Tear"

What an absolutely wonderful theme for this challenge !  As I may have mentioned in a group e-mail to the Material Mavens, I thought it was interesting that we'd have a choice of how to interpret this word:  Could it be "TEAR" as in weeping ?   Could it be "TEAR" as in being torn apart ?    Or... perhaps a combination of both ?

I chose to do a combination !

The "Background" for this quilt is made from strips of beautiful taffeta fabric that are frayed and kind of "worn" at the edges.  There are lots of hanging threads that further emphasize the torn edges.  I wove the strips to create a "basket weave" piece of cloth.

The beautiful "Tear" in the forefront is actually two separate pieces.  I copied the background image onto Silk Fabric; carefully cut out the "Tear"  and then fused it to my background fabrics(s) using MISTIFUSE.  (This is one of my most favorite products; one that I've GOT to have in my Studio at all times  !)

To provide the shimmer and beautify of the "Tear,"  I traced the image onto beautiful "be-jeweled" sheer fabric, carefully cut out the image, then top-stitched it over the "Tear" using Monofilament Thread.

The binding and backing of  "Tear / Tear"  is the same beautiful taffeta that was used for the woven strip background.

As it turns out....  "Tear / Tear" is one of my Most Favorites of all the themes we've had !

Peace and blessings to all,   Kathy

Andrea's Tear Quilt

Tears of Laughter

11" x 14" commercial cotton, hand-dyed cotton, organza, screen printed

Failed!  This quilt is based on a 2005 email sent from a friend to the other quilt show committee members of my guild.  I don't feel it appropriate to publish the contents of the email, although parts of it are screened on the background for texture.  The email ( titled Mum-a-Mia ) recounted the "adventure" my friend had when picking up fourteen 8" chrysanthemum plants to display during our quilt show.  To this day, it remains the funniest thing I have ever read.  This quilt is not funny, although what it represents to me is, sort of.  I wanted to represent a shopping cart full of mums rolling down a hill in the pouring rain, which I don't think it does.  Although the quilt is technically "done",  I'm thinking of adding beads to see if that will give more of the rain effect that I was going for.  The metallic thread that I quilted with does not.  What I do like about the quilt, which was totally unintended, is that it pays homage to a sign that the store no longer uses.  They moved and enlarged a few years ago and have different signage now.  It is a family run business started by a father and son who emigrated from Italy in 1910, and purchased a pushcart to sell fruits and vegetables from in Boston.  They moved to the suburbs in 1952.

Tricia's Tear

Over the Fourth of July we had a crowd of family and friends visiting.  We had a wonderful time with 11 adults, 5 dogs and a cat. The last morning that the first group left very early. After boarding the ferry they noticed it was very foggy. Josh Ledbetter took this photograph from the ferry. After seeing the photograph I decided to try and recreate it with only torn fabrics.

I created the water from tearing the blue fabric. I used silver thread and tsukineko inks to create the shimmer of the sun on the water.. I found a piece of white silk for the sun and free motioned stitched the yellow edges. I then tore batting fabric in small pieces for the clouds. I layered them on a background of blue sky fabric. I machine stitched the batting with invisible thread. To create the shadow I used shiva paint sticks.

Nedra's Tear - Tear of the Twiga

Giraffes are my favorite animal as many who know me are quite aware.  They have been a source of inspiration for many of my original quilts and once again for this theme.  Because of this fascination, I have many pictures and drawings that I've planned to turn into my own artwork.  One of those drawings was perfect for this theme.  Twiga is the Swahili name for giraffe and the title represents the sadness these beauties feel when one of their family is killed.  The inspiration was this drawing I had previously made of a giraffe's eye.  I intended to do a close up of their eyes as they are so big and beautiful with the longest lashes!!!

I forgot to take a picture before I cut the fabric but these are the scraps of the rust dyed fabric I used.  It was purchased long ago and intended to recreate the spots of a giraffe. I traced my drawing onto this piece of fabric from my stash .

This is the drawing I had made long ago but never worked with.  All I had to do was add the tear!!

I used Shiva paintsticks and inktense pencils to embellish the spots and for shading to create my close up of the eye.  When I was pleased with the shading and dimension, I sandwiched with batting and backing and then machine stitched to add details and more shading.  It was then bound.  The tear was added last and is made from an iridescent fabric with pearlescent sequins glued onto it and then attached to the piece.

Carolyn - A Tear For Those Torn

This is my very first attempt at a Sacred Quilt.  I have been thinking about focusing on this type of quilt for some time, and this theme was the perfect time to start on this journey.

I have been reading books this summer that deal with family conflicts and separations, including “Educated,” “Before We Were Yours,”  “Lilac Girls” and “Where the Crawdads Sing.”  

While reading them, I became keenly aware of families, near and far, that are torn apart for one reason or another.  Then came the Crisis at the Border and the photo of the young toddler and father who drowned just steps from freedom in the Rio Grande River very near my hometown.  I could not get the images of children in distressing conditions and those desperately risking their lives in search of freedom out of my mind.  So I decided to base my quilt on these families.

I had small pieces of silk on hand, and chose colors with special meanings: 

            yellow for danger,

turquoise for misfortune,

purple for compassion,

orange for endurance, and

muddy green for misfortune.

I tore each piece into strips, and then pulled apart the yellow strip, painting the split area with strokes of dark blood red and dull white. I mounted each strip on a bright red background, the color of violence. Then came the tears, in white, for love –the love of God and the love we share for those in need. It is quilted with Aurufil thread. In creating this piece, I have interpreted the theme in two ways: tear –to tear apart, and tear – to have empathy for others.

The Serenity Composite

Another outstanding interpretation for one more interesting theme.

I had all the quilts on one page and couldn’t see a pattern for the composite, so I started placing them on the page. Judy’s came first, mostly for the overall thought, “spread the ………..”, and I really liked the emotions, “praise, prayer, joy, or a place to receive all that is amazing.”

Then, the only other quilt that had a person depicted was Tricia’s and it fell into place next. I needed a foundation. How about Kathy’s stone sculpture? Works, doesn’t it?

Notice how Alice and Karen and Carolyn’s quilts so perfectly represent Serenity in theme, color, balance, and outdoors. The top row is now complete.

So, two quilts remained, Nedra and Andrea. The colors of all three in the bottom row really work.

Then I leaned back in my chair and felt the Serenity because, more by accident than planning, this one seems to work well.

Serenity my friends – thank you – the tranquility and peacefulness of the 8 quilts is wonderful.

Job well done,

Randy

Alice's Serenity Quilt--Carol's Serene Lake

This is a substitute quilt for the first one I posted.  I wasn’t happy with that one, since technically speaking, it wasn’t truly an “art quilt.” For one thing, I didn’t originate the design; it was a traditional block pattern

Recently my cousin Carol Harrison, an artist who often works in watercolors, posted one of her paintings on Facebook.  I fell in love with this lovely serene painting, and I thought, “Maybe I could replicate that design in fabric.”  I emailed Carol and received her permission to use her image.

I was determined to use only fabrics in my stash, many of which are batiks and were backed with fusible already.  I used as a base a blue ombre with graduated shades of blue. Then I began the process of selecting the fabrics for the other elements in the painting.  These I cut out free hand with scissors or two different rotary cutter blades.  As I finished one layer, then I overlapped the fabric strips to make the next layer.  All went well until I got to the water, specifically, the shadows of the trees in the water.  Green shadows look fine in the painting, but green fabrics just didn’t look like shadows us.  So I switched to blue shadows, using various batiks.  But still they didn’t look shadow-like to me. 

Sue Benner taught one workshop I’ve attended, and her method was to use multiple strips of fabric to compose her landscape quilts.  I went to her website and studied how she treated water and shadows.  Following her example, I overlaid tiny cuts from other blue batiks onto the shadow shapes. This looked much better.

After the quilt was finished, I machine quilted, changing thread colors often, chiefly sewing down the fused edges and then doing some echo quilting.  After all the quilting was done, I thread-painted the red-brown grasses at the bottom of the quilt.

I’m happier with this quilt!  Carol’s painting is below.  Beneath is, a detail of the water and the shadows in the quilt.  

Judy's Serenity

With this little quilt I just wanted to create the feeling of “Serenity”. I started by painting a background that is soothing and joyful with the colors of a sunset.

I looked for hands that were in the praying shape, but most of them were at an angle so that you could see that they were hands. Then I came across hands open and it felt right. I then had to decide what I would do to create movement. I thought that I might use flowers, birds, and hearts, but that seemed too chaotic and serenity would be gone. Next it was hearts and I was cutting they out of all kinds of colors. Again, it was getting chaotic and cluttered. Three fabrics were chosen and then grouped together to make them flow upwards.

I have great peace when I think about others, so the hearts symbolize the love I send out to everyone when they come to mind. I love the hands open because when I hold my hands open they feel so right and they can be in praise, prayer, joy, or a place to receive and rejoice in all that is amazing.

KATHY'S SERENITY

Several years ago we were spending some rather blissful days in Hawaii with our Adult Children, and our Grandbabies !      As we were strolling down one of the streets, there, on a rather small, kind of isolated area of sand and shore was a beach... very quiet and calm, and yet right in the middle of "down town."  

On that special beach were numerous 'collections' of Round Rocks that had been carefully stacked and assembled to form beautiful and (to me !) mysterious structures.   

*Where did those rocks come from ?
*Who put the rocks together to form those unfamiliar structures ?
*How do the rock structures maintain their positions ?  

            With cement ?  Glue ?  Other ?
*Will the structures remain after the tide(s) roll in and back out ?
*And if they remain, what's going to happen to them ?

       
                                  WHAT ARE THEY ???

Well, it was explained to me that the structures are made of rocks found near the beaches, and rocks that sometimes wash up on shore from other long-distance shores.    The Rocks are carefully stacked and balanced, and when the structures are finished, they become focal points that can be used during times of meditation and contemplation.... The "Quiet" Times in a person's daily routine.

In my mind, these Balanced Stones brought a sense of "Serenity," and thus my choice for this quilt  !

For the rocks, I used fabrics that reminded me of rocks with moss, rocks that had been weather-beaten, and rocks that perhaps had been traveling for a long time in order to become "Serenity Stones."    The backing fabric made me think of the sandy beaches, and some of the interesting wood, skeletal shapes, and sea shells you might find on a beach.

The quilting ....  Well, "Free Motion" is my passion, so I used the images in the fabric to suggest the quilting motifs.   Again - sand, shapes, and shells.

Notice the Free Motion detail in this picture !

Peace and Serenity to All !          MAHALO ! !

Karen's Serenity

Serenity Among the Birches

There is a peacefulness, quietness, tranquility to standing among trees. Birches are among my favorite.

Larger birches have folded edges, straight stitched down with clear monofilament thread. Triple batting behind to create trapunto.

Smaller trees fused on. Smaller trees and background stitched with smoke monofilament thread.

I am posting for Karen- Tricia

Tricia's Serenity

My daughter Michela and her boyfriend were traveling in the Vietnam this past February. They would post their pictures daily. It was such fun to see where they were. One day Michela posted a picture of her practicing yoga on a beach at Sunrise.  I thought it was the perfect scene for the Serenity theme.

I enlarged the photo and created the image with raw edge applique. I free motioned quilted it. It's hard to recreate the sunrise.

Carolyn's Desert Serenity

The desert Southwest is my favorite place of all.   I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas.  As a result, this part of the country pulls at my heartstrings.  For me, it is one of the most serene places I know.  My husband and I just made a trip to Big Bend National Park.  In springtime, it is alive with bluebonnets and blooming cacti.  The bluebonnets, a different variety from those in the Texas Hill Country, grow as tall as 3-4 feet.  Their color is a vibrant purple-blue.

My quilt was made with silk and batik fabrics and was quilted using Ricky Tims Art Studio threads.  The sky is a hand-dyed cotton by Mickey Lawler.  The cacti buds were hand embroidered using Laura Wasolowski’s hand-dyed embroidery threads.

Along with photos of my quilt, I have posted a photo of one of the tall bluebonnets of this unique part of the U.S.

Nedra's Serenity - Serengeti Sunrise

On our 2017 trip to Tanzania, we spent several days in the Serengeti. One morning the sunrise was spectacular as we searched for wildlife on our early morning excursion.  The sun was just emerging and created a beautiful sky over the verdant landscape.  We asked the driver to stop for pictures. We lingered there for a long time just marveling at the early morning painting before our eyes. I had such a feeling of intimacy with nature as we savored this scene in one of my favorite spots on earth. This picture exemplifies the serenity I felt savoring the natural beauty of Africa.  The top photo is the finished piece and the lower is the picture I printed on fabric.

My plan was to use a technique I had worked with before in a project.  The project included a  close up photo printed on fabric of a pointsettia and a pattern with petals and leaves surrounding the photo which filled out the larger flowers.  My own fabric stash was used for the background, petals and leaves.   I hoped to do the same with the sunrise photo by extending the image into the borders using fabric of my own.  The following  picture is the finished product and the second is the photo that was provided.

I chose a batik for the sky which I painted and shaded with inktense pencils to blend with the colors of the photo.  A green commercial cotton was over painted for the grass.  The texture of that didn't really look like the grass in the picture. I tried the snippet technique to add to the grassy landscape.  Stitching was added to create texture and tuille on top for shading.  Traditional binding was used to finish the piece.  I'm not really thrilled with the finished piece.   I believe this technique works better with closeups versus a landscape scene.  Closeups of .orchids I recently took would be a better choice for this technique and I hope to give a another attempt.

Andrea's Serenity Quilt

Untitled

12" x 12" snow-dyed cotton, resist, machine and hand-stitched.

When thinking about this theme in January, I decided to start with what I consider "serene" colors and came up with soft peach, pink, green and beige.  Then I considered a technique that I thought would fit the theme and decided that hand-stitching a whole cloth quilt for a few minutes daily until the entire surface was covered would work.  However, other "situations" presented themselves that distracted me from my plan.

In my stash of snow-dyed fabric I found two pieces that I felt would work, one with pinks and the with greens.  My love of working with circles continues so I designed a piece that would include resisted circles to slow-stitch.  As time was running out to finish, I very minimally machine stitched and then added a bit of hand-stitching for texture.  Even though I did not follow through with my original idea, this visually represents "Serenity" to me.

  

 

Detail 

How I Display my Favorites!

South, Treasure
Supercalifragilistic...Comfort
Time, Communications

Top: Harmony, Cell
Row 2: Surprise, Wilk
Row 3: Blues, Translate
Row 4:  Boundaries, Pun

Since the beginning of the Material Mavens online art quilting group and blog in 2011, I have displayed an ever-changing grouping of my own little quilts. Of course, these are my favorites!  I have a few favorites displayed in our summer apartment in Michigan.  Those tended to be the ones I thought my grandsons would enjoy seeing the most!

Anticipating a dinner party tonight in which guests might or might not (!) ask me about my quilting projects, I have tweaked the two display boards in and adjacent to my quilting studio.

The top photo shows the quilts that are right outside my studio.  There are quilts from Round One and Round Three of our group.  Top row are quilts inspired by the themes South (Round One) and Treasure (Round Three).  In the middle row are Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious [I spelled that correctly, right off the top of my head!] from Round Two and Comfort, from Round One,  On the bottom are Time (Round Two) and Communications (Round One).

The second display board contains quilts from all Rounds of our group.  At the top are two from Round One:  Harmony and Cell.  In the second row is Surprise from Round One and Wild from Round Three.  In the third row are Blues (Round Two) and Translate (Round One).  And then the bottom row contains Boundaries (Round Two) and Pun (Round Two).

One conclusion I can draw from these displays is that I favored the quilts from Round One (7 in all) and Round Two (5 in all) .  Why?  Did I think harder about the theme?  Work harder on the quilts?  Did I like the theme words better?  Perhaps all of the above!  Just to be fair--Round Three hasn't been going on all that long, so perhaps some future quilts will take the place of some of these.

The Treasure Composite

‘Tis the season we all have so much for which we are thankful – treasures. Be they “stuff” or best of all, memories of family and friends, places, things we’ve done, folks we’ve lost, and yes, things. This month your 7 quilts and your narratives captured a life-time of living.

Row 1. What better way to begin a composite with the subject of Treasures  -- family you don’t even have to know any of those people, artist or individuals shown because the quilt just says, this is a treasure.

Row 2. Karen, I agree, may the sun always shine on Serifina’s smile. May we all learn to smile more. Smiles are contagious. Alice, thank you for capturing the reason for all our treasures, so your quilt just had to go next. Rita and I saw Christmas 2018 through the eyes of a bright 5-year-old grandson and those memories will be unforgettable.

Row 3. I’ve been researching the old documents at our church, dated back to 1888, and I know the thrill of seeing that original handwriting. Andrea and Judy’s quilts speak volumes to treasures from the past in the stroke of a pen. Best of all, the documents give us a tactile memory also and often even tweak your sense of smell. Hmm, how about an occasional grease stain on an old recipe?

Row 4. Rita and I are transplanted Texans – got here quick as we could – and we have no plans to leave. Kathy’s quilt is a memory to that pride.  Andrea, what a wonderful, creative way to “treasure” your charms. Too often, charm bracelets go out of fashion or end up in a jewelry box and the memories are hidden away. You have discovered a way to combine your quilting talents with your treasure box and reminisce while so doing. 

Job well done – all.

Randy