I know I don't usually post my textile art pieces on this blog, but I've been so busy I didn't have time to finish a traditonal quilt for my usual Monday post. 

This was the 5th piece I made for the Three Creative Studios Challenge. Our word was "music". I decided to interpret it as "time to face the" music, and make my quilt about the ecological disasters we inflict upon our home and the culpability each of us holds in that.

On the left is smoke stack from a factory with an oil rigging juxtaposed on the front of it, a miasma of pollution surrounding it and the scorched sun, while a toxic sludge pours out of it running beneath the earth and seeping into our ground water.

On the right is a scarecrow, traditionally something to terrify without danger; however, you will note that the scarecrow has become a skeleton - a warning to us all.

Details on construction at textile art blog if you're interested: Coneflowers in Leslieville

and the fall 2010, Bloggers' Quilt Festival!



I'm so glad to have you here and want to begin by once again thanking our fabulous docent/hostess-with-the-mostest, Amy Ellis (formerly Park City Girl) of Amy's Creative Side for all her hard work as well as our wonderful sponsors including InLinks (how great is it to have pics in our links on Amy's site?) for having this great festival that allows us all to connect to one another in one homey but worldwide quilting community! I'm looking forward to seeing some great quilts and making some new friends!


I thought I'd share with all of you my favourite quilt that I've made this year (thus far), called "Of The Moment".  It  was inspired by a sketchbook cover that Gennine Zlatkis created about a year ago.  I've been a follower of her blog for a number of years now and always find her incredibly inspiring.

 

Within a couple of days of seeing it, I went out and bought the silks.  I knew that I would someday make a quilt using that colour pallette - I even thought I might do lilac sea urchins and shells on the coppery brown silk!

But what happened instead, was that a few weeks ago I was in my sewing room and out of the blue decided that I wanted to make a really contemporary quilt. One that was "of the moment".  Inspired by the color field painters of the early 20th century and Geninne's colour pallette above, I wanted to make a quilt that was modern, genderless; that would look equally well hung on a wall or draped artfully over a couch, and that was, above all: contemporary.

And so I designed a quilt that used bold colour choices that drew your eye off the "page", that used strong, simple lines to give it a contemporary feel; and speaking of feeling, used all silks and straight quilting lines to give it a wonderfully soft hand.

I wanted to make the back a little less serious, but still evocative of the color field painters, and so I continued the geometric patterns and swaths of colour, but added a little "wonk" to make sure we all knew it was designed in 2010. :s:

And then I was done - I'd made what I hoped was a truly contemporary quilt - one that was "of the moment".

If you'd like to see my entries in previous Blogger's Quilt Festivals, you can see my entry in Amy's very first festival (and the third quilt I ever made!) here, and my second entry last fall, here.

Check out all the participants in the festival and their quilts by clicking on the button linky below:

It is Wednesday, therefore, I WIP.






And here is my very Wippiest of WIPs - I don't think I've ever shown a WIP in such a state before, but I couldn't hang it outside, it's pouring rain and 90 km per hour winds!  My flimsy would blow away!

And, I'm very tired... so I just couldn't fuss with it too much. 

So here it is.  My Wednesday WIP.  I promise that it'll be prettier when it's done.

Really!

It was a busy weekend for me this weekend.  I made this little quilt on Friday night, worked on a queen most of Saturday as well as making the most delicious stock ever (I mean ever! Beloved Spouse wanted to drink it up just as it was); making cakes for birthdays and our anniversary and recovering from the cold I developed on Monday (of course, because it was my first week back at work, I got sick.)

Christine Brallier's work is completely inspiring - and her techniques could so easily be translated in fabric!

As soon as we got our word for the second challenge, I knew without a doubt what my quilt would be about. Although this was an emotional journey for me, I wanted to get the details right, so I did some research; studying maps and some historical sites.




For the background of my quilt I chose strips of black fabrics; wool, cotton, satin, lycra - many textures and shades to represent the many different shades of black skinned people who were brought in chains to the New World.

I chose many different earth toned fabrics to represent the countries on the continent of Africa and overlaid those countries with gold netting to represent the riches - gold, diamonds, precious metals, gemstones and oil - and then shredded and tore that netting to show how those treasures were ripped from the ground of those many countries.



The countries from which the human treasure was most often stolen are represented by the red beads - blood of the millions of Africans who died while being captured, died during the passage, died on the way to market, or died as slaves.


The chains that run from the coast of Africa through the ocean are the chains that bound my ancestors, but also represent the invisible chains that bind me to them, their passage, and their and my history from which I have been cut off, yet to which I am still bound, in that unknown country from which I came.


This was a quilt that wanted to be made by me, although I didn't know it - and I'm thankful I had the opportunity to do so.

Kit