Barbara's Green Quilt

Doing a mono print using different shades of green set me on my path to this challenge.  My favorite color is green so this was a joy for me to work on!  I seem to be drawn to more and more hand stitching these days.  There was one technique that I have admired in some art quilts and have wanted to try.  Our challenge, being small, was the place to try large running stitch parallel quilting with perle cotton thread.  I love the ridges that form in the fabric!

I decided not to name this piece even though my family came up with some great names.  I want the viewer to see whatever they see and not be swayed by the title.  My goal this time was mainly to focus on green and not a visual subject.

I have three photos.  The first, above, is the finished quilt.  Next is the mono printed fabric.  Last is the three tools that I used in the mono printing process to remove paint from the Gelli Plate.

 You can see each Gelli Plate print clearly in this photo

Kathy's "THINK GREEN "

 

     After much thought and debate with myself about how to interpret "Green" I knew I had to go with an environmental / recycling / re-purposing approach.    Every part of this small quilt has been recycled / repurposed from things I have in the studio, except for the limey-green mottled fabric on the top that I found at the Boys and Girls Club Thrift Shop here in Gatesville, TX.  The fab was in 4 small pieces, so I re-cut and squared them up, then stitched them together at right angles to each other to make the top.

     After sandwiching the top fab with batting and backing (recycled from other projects), I cross-hatched the quilt with a very heavy (10 weight) olive green Madeira "Decor" thread.

There's no way to get that heavy thread through the needle, so I "couched" the thread onto the quilt using the Bernina No. 21 Cordonnet (or couching) foot.   Madeira monofilament (60 wt.) was in my bobbin, and I used a lime-green Madeira "Neon" thread (40 wt.) in my needle to zig-zag over the heavy-weight Madeira Decor.  

   And now (for me!) the most difficult and time consuming part of the quilt - hand sewing all those small green beads onto the quilt .. all 113 of them !   I actually spent more time on the hand sewing than on the rest of the quilt, but I love the sparkle and definition the beads lend to this small Green Peace !

     On the back of the quilt, I used a piece of fab I'd rust-dyed in Alaska that actually speaks the entire message of this quit:  "Don't trash the Earth"  "Save Our Planet"  "Energy Efficient"  "Eco-Friendly"
                           And last, but not least........    "THINK GREEN !"

Linda's GREEN SCRUB

     Summer vanished. People came and went; and people returned to stay. In the meantime, I had to PAY for summers as a teen, playing golf and swimming in sunny Texas without using the lifeguard's zinc protection on the nose. It was the 50's, of course, minus the vast information about sunscreen protection we have today.

     This August I had some MOHS minimal surgery to make repairs, to stem possible damage to my nose. The good thing was it provided me a topic for my Material Mavens challenge: GREEN. All I could think of was money and grass, but nothing personal. I usually like an emotional connection, as in a journal notation, and an edge to create a piece of art. When I hit the surgeon's office, there were GREEN SCRUBS all around with purple accessories. I was excited to finally have a topic!

       I have used this excellent surgeon in the past. But before beauty there are some ghastly appearances such as swollen jowls and purple flesh. I won't show the big bandages that I crafted out of brown paper tape every morn to cover the wounds. I had neat stitches down one side and a beaded circle to heal by itself on the other. If I added the tape you couldn't see what I am illustrating. The jowls are padded, the stitches shown with bead and thread, and waves mimic my nerves. On the backside, I embroidered a hypodermic needle outline to stand for the interminable shots of lidocaine, the bubbles for one! Also, there is a clock to symbolize the 8 to 5 I was in the surgeon's office. I believe in humor to deal with most problems.

Carol's THE GREEN MAN

Let me introduce you to the Green Man - subject of my latest Material Mavens Challenge. The Challenge word was GREEN, I thought about this a bit and while walking in the woods the other day, got my final idea.

Luckily it was finished yesterday, right on time, but I still feel like I skidded to a stop at home plate, breathing hard to get this done :)

This is my second rendition (the first I just wasn't happy with the outcome,) so this time I did some mono-printing of the leaves I had found on the trail. 

His face was fairly easy, but the "feel" of him being a part of nature just wasn't there. He looked more like a green sun to me, so I just had to think a bit harder.

Lois on being Green

Birds are the ultimate Green  recyclers!  Green housing is being promoted as a new trend but birds  have done it for millenniums,building their abodes with whatever they can scavenge. They are also a good measure of how well we are doing in protecting our environment. When there are less birds around, there is often  an environmental problem.

 For me the robin's nest is an iconic symbol of spring green, and new growth  As a child living in the Northeastern US spotting the first nest with those vibrant blue eggs was magical.

I decided my project this month would be done only with things I had or could scavenge. So my materials included a scrubber pad, old scraps of fabric that I ripped into thin strips. After dipping them in melted candle wax it gave them a crinkled form.  The strips held their shape as I randomly hand  stitched them together.

I also added yarn scraps, and did a bit of beading for the pebbles that you often see in the nest.  I debated at length including a tree limb for the nest to sit on. I decided it took away from the design,so I kept it simple.  I used a piece of found hemp rope that I attached with a decorative stitch on the machine using  a variegated embroidery thread, so it would look more natural. And the binding is just layers and layers of that same thread zigzagged around it.  The top quilting was done by machine in the most random pattern I could generate. I wanted the chaos of the random pattern to depict the unpredictability of the natural environment.

I thoroughly enjoyed this months challenge, and look forward to seeing the reveal today!

Tricia's Luna Moth

I found the theme green to be really challenging.  After thinking about it awhile and talking with friends about it.  My sister suggested looking at the Luna Moth.  What a beautiful moth.  I picked out a chiffon fabric that was two layers -one side was green and the other a yellowish green.  They were woven together a various points which gave the fabric a color that shifted in with the light.  It's hard to see in the image.  I also picked up a white chiffon with dots.  I sewed both layers together.  I wanted the wings to be three dimensional.  I first sewed the bottom of the moth onto the backing fabric.  To create the wings I sewed them separately with telephone wire along the edge to give it shape.  I then attached the wings on the top with a satin stitch.  I also create the "eyes" with seam a seam and ironed them on.  The bark  fabric was machine stitched around the knot images. 

Alice's Green--Two Geckos

My quilt was not inspired by the Geico commercials, though I do enjoy them!  My husband Bob and I often spy little green geckos on our window or door screens.  Sometimes one of the lizards will get inside, and then I carefully scoop it up in my dustpan and let it loose outside.  I’ve long toyed with making a lizard quilt and even thought of using the word “critter” when I chose the theme, but then I changed my mind.  As soon as I heard what our theme word was this time, I thought about making a quilt featuring green geckos. 

I found coloring book images of two geckos of different sizes, which I used for templates and cut them from two different green batiks.  These I fused, using Wonder Under, to another batik that had blue and green jungle-like foliage on a black background.

I layered this to cotton batting and then began hand quilting with embroidery stitches, following the designs of the foliage, using either blue or green floss.  I started out quilting just here and there, but somehow I just couldn’t make myself stop, so it ended up having a lot of hand stitching.  Next I added tiny green beads to both lizards, and I used orange beads for their eyes.

To finish the edges, I stitched small, closely spaced, zigzag stitches around twice with black thread, and then once each with blue and finally green, using rayon thread for all.   The backing is a fabric I absolutely adore—a lizard print that I’ve had for some time, which in addition to the little live geckos that often visit us, served as an inspiration for this quilt.

So now at long last I have made a lizard quilt!

Carolyn: Sea Green - Coming to America

The Karenni
and USA flags

When I thought of the color green, I kept thinking about a little girl named Sea Green who is a member of a Christian refugee family that my husband and I are mentoring. Sea Green is a vibrant 5-year old who reminds me of a sunbeam, spreading love to everyone she meets.

Sea Green’s mother and father were in a refugee camp in Thailand 19 years.  Her parents married in the camp and she was born there.  Their families came to the camp from Karenni, a poor and isolated state in Burma.  Karenni was independent from 700 BCE until it was invaded by the Burmese military in 1948. The Burmese military burned their villages, tortured them, planted their fields with landmines and abducted their children for military service. Sea Green and her parents left one set of grandparents in the camp to come to America 10 months ago.

My quilt is in honor of this family’s transition from a refugee camp in Thailand to America.  I used hand-painted and batik fabric to construct the quilt.  The ocean at the bottom represents their journey from Thailand to a land of freedom.  Flags from both nations – Karenni and the U.S.A. were photo transferred and placed on the trapunto quilted mountaintop.  A fabric printed picture of Sea Green’s face stretches over the mountain and water in a sunbeam effect representing her parents' hope for the future.  The background is free-motion quilted with tiny circles representing their circuitous struggle to reach freedom.

Nedra's Green - An Amazonian Jungle

Despite choosing the theme, I spent a lot of time on what I would choose to represent "green".   Green houses, green thumbs, green sleeves and green doors were some of my first ideas.  While perusing quotations using the word green, I came across this one from author Ed McBain: "eyes as deeply green as an amazonian jungle".  I immediately imagined lush green foliage with an eye peering through and I set out to portray this scene.

My background was made by fusing mottled green batik rectangles randomly on top of a leafy green batik.  I was inspired by Gloria Loughman's technique to create backgrounds as in her book Radiant Landscapes and used a modified version.  I created the eye by fusing a green batik for the iris and black pupil onto the white eye.  Green tuille was used to soften the brightness of the white and I then stitched the eye to the background.  I machine quilted flecks of lime green with stitching in the iris and added some beads for sparkle. Navy tuille was used to create an eyelid and lashes were machine stitched with black thread, then enhanced with pigma pens.  The background was then layered with batting and backing and machine quilted using a serpentine stitch. A few leaves of organza were stitched on top of the background just above and below the eye which are more visible in the close-up.  

I like the effect of the organza leaves on top of the background and plan to use this technique as well as the background process again.  The quilted background was then wrapped around a wooden frame. 

Ok, this is where the jungle took on a life of its own!!!  In order for the eye to "peek" out, foliage had to be added.  Leaves of light and dark green were fashioned using batiks and fusible interfacing and then veins were machine stitched.  Real branches were added and attached with hand stitching and vines of fabric covered twine were wrapped around them.  I then added the leaves and loosely tacked those to the background so they remained as three dimensional as possible.    

I had a LOT of fun with this theme.  I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

Andrea's Green

"Page 7"

screened, fused cotton, machine stitched

I knew as soon as I heard the theme that I wanted to use it as both the color and the word.  I love working with text and this allowed me to include a dictionary definition which came from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, published by the G. & C. Merriam Company 1963.  My next thought was of the pair of bright green shoes that I bought in Paris in 1967.  I now had a concept of the images that I wanted to work with but needed to come up with a context to put them in.  The idea of a children's coloring book emerged.  If I were to design a coloring book it would be shoe-themed, and this quilt is what the "green" page might look like.  My original plan was to include a "flat" green crayon, but then started to play with making a 3 dimensional one.  After a few attempts, I finally constructed a crayon that I was happy with, but then thought that there was too much green ( sorry Nedra! ), so decided that the quilt "needed" a purple one instead.  

background stitching

Rita - It Isn't Easy Being Green

First Joe Raposo wrote the song “Bein’ Green” in 1970, then Jin Henson made it famous by letting Kermit the Frog lament on Sesame Street and The Muppet Show that “It isn’t easy bein’ green!” the same year. And now, in 2013 the Material Mavens can see their own version of bein’ green on a lovable Schnauzer to be exact. By the way, Benny can’t sing, he just barks.

In 2010, I took a class to learn how to do a self portrait in fabric.  Ellis Bennett, the instructor, said we could do the portrait in any color and it would still look like ourselves, because the key to this process is the value of the color, not the color itself.  Colors and challenges and portraits and Benny, who belongs to close friends, as described in their words, “A two-year old in a fur coat” and I had my quilt square for this round.

The technique:  Start with a black and white photo enlarged to the size needed. Next overlay the photo with a clear sheet of plastic.  With a fine tip permanent marker, trace all the lightest areas of the photo and label those as number 1. All of the areas traced must be enclosed areas because they will become the pattern for cutting out the patches of fabric in the lightest value.  Continue tracing the values on the photo with the number 2 being the light medium, the number 3 being the medium, the number 4 being dark medium and the number 5 being the darkest value. It is helpful to place an up arrow on the traced shapes so that when you are reconstructing the image you know in what direction they are to be positioned.  The medium value will be the background on which the other values will be placed.

The next step is to trace the separate values onto a sheet of freezer paper, grouping all of the #1 value shapes together.  Do the same for each number.  The freezer paper will then be ironed to the right side of the chosen fabrics.  Then iron a paper backed fusible web to the back side of the fabric.  I use Wonder Under by Pellon.  Remove the paper from the fusible web and cut out the shapes keeping each value separate.

First fuse the large medium value piece to the background fabric.  Then using your tracing on plastic as a guide, position the rest of the values on top of this shape.

This piece was minimally quilted, outlining the body shape, the outline of the legs, the nose, the mouth, etc.  I then stuffed portions of the body, cutting a small slit in the back and adding FiberFil.  The words, “It Isn’t Easy Being Green” were stitched with the embroidery feature on my sewing machine.      

Janet - Our New Word Comfort

The new word is comfort. I wanted a word that meant something different to every living being on earth. Think about that, billions of people all with a different idea of what it means including the birds and the bees. In Texas you can live in Comfort, all 3.2 square miles of it, watch the bats come out at night and drink something with comfort on the label, not a lot to do in Comfort. I'm looking forward to seeing what memories are created for our new word.

Cell Quilts Composite

Thanks to Rita's husband Randy, here is the composite of all the Cell Quilts!  I've had this for some time but left for California right after Randy sent it to me.

Now I've got a breathing space and have time to post it.  As usual, Randy is a true artist in the way he has arranged these quilts! 

I will be in touch with all your Mavens when I get home, and after I send off the Canyon Quilts postcards, which I've had for two months, to see how many of you would like a postcard or two or three of these quilts.

Happy summer to all!

Kathy's Cell(ular) Structure

 

Note to Kathy and all other Mavens:  I volunteered to combine both of Kathy's posts from Reveal Day, the day she was having so much trouble posting and had to resort to posting two, Parts One and Two.  What follows is the combination of Parts One and Two!

 



Dear Mavens,  I'm so sorry for the late posting.   Actually I had all my text and pictures in our blog and ready to go, and then..... computer went haywire and I lost all my blog data.  "Shreck" (my MacBook) has finally settled down so I'm starting all over again with my Cell story.

I knew right away what I wanted to do with this great challenge word, and was able to use Google Image Search to find some wonderful images of cell structures.  I was looking for organic images and found spectacular "candidates" for our challenge, including the image below:

Another great image came to me through an e-mail advertisement for organic fruits and vegetables, and I fell in love with the image below that was described as "cellular microstructures."   I was definitely on my way with these images  :-D  

For the base of my 12 x 12, I used beautiful hand-dyed silk fabric that I brought down from Anchorage,  AK.   The fab was especially appealing because it had striations in it, some cellular "irregularities," and most likely some small amounts of bleach discharge here and there.

The screen has the same honeycomb images as the computer images I found Google Image Search.   I gathered all my screen paints, selected a luscious metallic silver, pulled the paint through the screen, and Voila !   My organic microstructure cell !

When it the screen paint was dry to the touch, I layered the silk fabric (that had been screened) onto batting, and then free-motion quilted around all the screened lines using Madeira "Jewel" metallic thread.  When the quilting was complete, I attached the silk onto black suede fabric using several layers of zig-zag stitching.  (The Madeira "Jewel" metallic thread was used for both free-motion work and the zig-zag stitching.)

To complete this quilt and enclose all the raw edges, I used one of my favorite binding techniques... the keyhole binding that I've used on so many of my other MM challenge pieces.  After attaching my label, and small hanging sleeve, I signed my name to the front of the quilt and began the process of trying to get my posting done.

Sara's Cell - Ameoba

I chose the theme Cell since I started my life fascinated with life and was captivated by microorganisms. In junior high we had "slam" books where people responded to questions that probed into their likes and dislikes. I was probably the only 7th grader who claimed Louis Pasteur as an idol. My graduate research revolved around election micrography of cells on culture. My textbooks have gorgeous images and I have often thought of developing a series of cell related quilts. I was also hoping that the word had usage in enough other areas that we could have a good diversity of interpretations.

I had planned on a quilt that highlighted a mitochondrion. This summer I started an online design course with Katie Pasquini Masopust. One of our assignments was on edges and I decided I needed  an amoeba   crossing over the field of the quilt. I looked at many images of amoeba           before I got started and saw that the amoeba has two areas of cytoplasm thus the 2 shades of gray. This cell is also drinking - you can see pinocytosis starting at the top where projections from the cell are creating a fluid filled vesicle. The green dots are vesicles filled with alga, the large yellow one is the contractile vacuole that maintains the fluid balance in the cell. The nucleus was constructed using scraps of thread covered with dyed cheese cloth and then held down with quilting. I intended to add seed beads for more texture but my husband talked me out of it.

Judy W's: Cellular World

Several ideas came to mind with this theme but part of my goal in whatever I make is trying to use supplies and leftovers from my studio.  The focal point of Cellular World began as a screen print about 5 years ago when Kathy and I were experimenting with fabric art and surface design methods.  I hand dyed a white recycled bed sheet and Dover Publications provided the copyright free clip art from which I made a thermofax screen to print from.  It was some time ago but I believe I used bronze Lumiere fabric paint to silkscreen the image.

Wonder Under fusible was ironed to the backside of the dyed/screen printed fabric, then with pinking shears, the smaller circles were cut from the left over border surrounding the large circle.  Finding a suitable batik background was far easier than laying out a pleasing arrangement of cells.  Thanks to fusibles, the decision was permanent!

Using black monofilament for both top and bottom threads, I free motion stitched all the circles including the dotted batik background.  Overall, I am very pleased with the result, especially since my brain cells seemed to be entirely focused on golf this summer and my dismantled studio has not progressed toward my intended remodel since spring!

Tricia's Cell

I found this theme to be really difficult.  I talked about the theme with several friends trying to get an idea of what to work on.  My daughter Eliza suggested looking at normal cells versus cancer cells.  After looking at cell images on the internet I came up with this idea.  The center circle is a normal cell.  The outside ones are how the same cell changes when it has cancer.  I put a cancer cell for every member of my and my husbands immediate family(my father, brother sister, niece and my husbands father, brother and nephew) that has had cancer. We have 4 survivors!  Cancer has affected all of us in so many ways.  My husband will ride in the Pan Mass ride in three weeks that raises money for cancer research.  I then machine quilted all of their names around the quilt several times. 

Judy's: Brain Cells

I knew that I didn’t want to try to replicate real cells. I would have to be more precise about how it looked and I wanted to just play with the cell theme. There was a piece of fabric in my stash that I could see cells in, but the colors were too harsh. I decided to play with some of my Jacquard Dye-na-flow. These dyes are already mixed up and are easy to use. The colors come out intense but soft.

I was torn on what to call my piece. As I was quilting it, I chuckled when I thought of it as my brain cells. I am involved with so many things and then there are the things I want to do, but don’t know how to squeeze them into my daily life.

As you can see there are some area’s that are crammed with lots of little cells and yet there is some open space that can be filled. I just hope I am taking time to relax in that open space once in awhile. One part I enjoyed seeing come to life is the funny bird with the long legs running out of the quilt. With this piece it is almost like looking at the clouds and seeing animals and shapes in them. The bird is really defined, but I can find sheep, funny creatures with antenna’s, hearts, flowers, and even a fried egg. Take some time and see what fun things you can find in my “Cell” quilt.

Lois' CELL Quilt

I decided that I would use this theme to explore working with Angelina Fibers.   I literally ironed swirls of different colors of the fibers together again and again,and again,and yet again.  Layering the colors on top of one another.  Then I went outside and burned holes in the patch of ironed fibers where i wanted the parts of the cell parts to come through. It was a little precarious putting a candle under it and quickly stomping out the flames, and the smell was not great, so I did it outside.   I then cut the outside of the patch to the shape of the outside of the large cell and then re burned the edge to give it  more of an irregular natural look   I made two cells this way. The fibers have an iridescent quality to them and I thought that that helped with keeping the cells look fluid like. When I tried to  make them out of fabric, which is how I started, It just didn't work for me.  I've always wanted to try working with these fibers, that Tricia introduced me too years ago, but never had the right project for it. This was it.   I then appliqued it onto a watery looking fabric, and went to town machine drawing all over the cells to get the look that I wanted with different colors of thread and combinations of different stitches, over each other until I got the look that I wanted.  It was a challenging theme, but one that I really enjoyed puzzling out the best way to get where I wanted to go.

Barbara's Cell - Under the Microscope

Under the Microscope began with a Google image search of the word Cell.  There were soooo many images of human, animal, plant and I can't remember what else!  I used my memory to create these not so real cells.

I began cutting batting shapes for each cell followed by playing with fabrics that reminded me of the cell images.  All the fabrics are raw edge (no fusible) and stitched by hand with # 8 perle cotton through the batting circle shape only.  I had help from my husband and daughter to arrange the cells on thick gray felt (the background).  Each cell is stitched to the felt and I added stitching on the felt to add interest.  There is no batting or backing behind the felt and no binding.  The squiggly green shape on the yellow cell is a handmade felt stem that I made in a wet felting class.

I had the most fun finding the fabrics and doing the hand stitching!