(With apologies to Walt).  When I left you on Monday, I had managed to come up with a design to put to use the fabrics in the Drunken Quilters' Challenge.  I had an idea to do grass in those wheaten earthy colours (plus a few shiny fabrics of my own) as the ground beneath Mr. Rabbit; but before I did that, I had to make a backdrop for the focal point and adjoining elements - which meant I had to quilt the background.

(Well, I didn't have to, but for me lately, my process seems to be that I quilt the background first and then add elements - quilted or otherwise -  on top of it. )



I also needed to do something to convey the movement in the inspiration piece, and the best way to do that was through the background quilting.


Speaking of background, I wanted the fabric blades of grass to be the lower focal point, but I didn't want them to just be laying there on top of the backdrop relative to nothing, so I also had to quilt in some background grass for them - I mean they were practically there already in the rust dye - they just needed a little drawing out.


And you'll remember that my rabbit was a flying rabbit rather than a jumping rabbit - and since I had to use some of the Japanese paper, my idea was to use it as a kind of exoskeletan for the wings, laying it over some of the tulle fabric.  When I tried that, it looked like what it sounds like - some paper lieing on top of some tulle (no picture necessary lol); but having cut the fabric and not yet fused it down, I decided to do it the other way around - and put the "boning" under the tulle rather than over it.



Ummm, no.

I tried something else though - and it looks good from the back, right?



 To see the full reveal (seriously, I think it's one of the prettiest things I've ever made!) and to discover how I dealt with THE BEAD PROBLEM (dun, dun dunnnnnnnn!) - come back on Friday!

See you then.  :)

From Karen's blog:

It's STILL DRYING.  (In real time, and I started doing these posts 13 days ahead of when I posted them here!)

So, let's look at something else I've been working on, shall we?

No, no - that's not mine - it's Salvadore Dali's Down the Rabbit Hole. (Side note: I've always found this version of Alice's rabbit mildly terrifying. That looks like a rabbit that's really, really ticked about being late.  Not to mention, both the insect and the rabbit are like, a million times bigger than Alice - and I like things to be wee -  compared to me not the reverse. )

That said, I find the colouring in this painting amazingly beautiful, the fantastical elements thought provoking, and the movement is... wow. I mean, how do you convey movement like that without actually making swooping strokes with your paintbrush?  The guy's a "master" for a reason and I find this piece really inspiring. It's one of my favourites.

So, what does that have to do with me?

You may remember me talking about my little Quilt/Art group that I'm part of  ( BSP calls us "The Drunken Quilter's Society" 'cuz it's 3 friends and I having cocktails and dinner once a month and talking about our work ), well, Drunken Quilters decided that we're going to have a challenge this month. (Just like a real guild!)

We decided that it would be a scrap challenge and that we would each exchange a bag of scraps and ephemera with which we had to produce something for our meeting the next month.  We didn't have to use all of what was in the bag, but we had to use things in it that we've never used before.

This was my bag:


Aside from the lovely bits of fabric including a polyester snow dye (did you even know you could do such a thing? That's the lovely mottled copper and brown peeping out on the upper left hand side) and some really interesting rust-dyed fabric which practically yelled at me about what to do with it (does fabric ever yell at you to be used in a certain way?), there is Lutradur (eep!), Japanese paper (which I've also never used) and BEADS in that bag of tricks.  Those of you have been with me for awhile, know that beads are my Waterloo.  Which means, there must be beads in this piece. (Hold me!)

But aside from the things I'm going to use which I don't wish to (lol); when I opened this bag, spread the bits around on my table, and moved them around a bit - Dali's Down The Rabbit Hole popped into my head - something about the way the rust moved through the fabric spoke to me about it.

And so, inspired by Mr. Dali's white rabbit, I decided to make a fantastical flying rabbit who lives in a magical-possibly-dream-world too.



This is what I've got so far...

(And there are a LOT of resins out there.) I figured glazing resin as opposed to other kinds  would give me a nice skim coat without making it look like it was under glass.


So I made an enclosure for it out of an old cardboard box and masking tape, set it up on an old cutting mat, and poured the first layer of resin on.



So far, so good, right?  

I'm hoping to show you the finished piece on Monday, at which time I'll also share with you the trials of the resin (and there were MANY); I'll also tell you my learnings and do a run-down of the costs, but it may not be ready as I still have two more layers of resin to do and holy cow, it takes 12 hours to dry for the FIRST layer. But as you build them up? Longer and longer drying times.
If it's not done, never fear. I'll still have something to talk about 'cuz I haven't been sitting on my hands during that drying time!

Hi all, today I'm being featured over at The Needle And Thread Networ (post it up now, sorry about the delay), and they've asked that in addition to a "Hi this is me" post over there, that I post a more comprehensive look at my body of work over here.

So, a la Billboard Magazine, welcome to The Hot 100!



I thought I'd start with an oldie, but a goodie - the second art quilt I ever made, called "Winter Moon" - inspired by the quilts of Naomi Wanjiku and St. Jean de Brebeuf's hymn called "Huron Carol".  This was long before I knew anything about fusing, so every piece is sewn down and then, I quilted the dog out of them!


For a little book-end, here's my second to last art piece - made with my transfer painted fabrics and hand-dyed fabric from Vicki Welsh, it's pieced, fused, and then, you guessed it - I quilted the dog out of it.  It was inspired by George R.R. Martin's book series, A Game of Thrones.



This quilt was my modern take on a crazy quilt - and is called "A Sparrow In The Rain" - silks, satins and Japanese cotton sateen (from the Textile Museum); it's an odd size, bigger than a twin, smaller than a double. But it was exactly the size it needed to be.


Called "Berkeley Square" - this quilt is made from wool, dupioni silk, random cotton floral and Ikea bird fabric. It was one of my "journeymen" quilts early in my quilt career - it's purpose was to hone my free motion quilting skills.



                           

Called "Passage" this was one of the very early art quilts I made - that same string background and a pieced (and broken) Africa to which I am chained - by my ancestors, my lost history and their middle passage - more on this piece here.

   
                  
"Stepping Stones", my modern mise en abyme quilt - made from the scraps of the very first quilt I ever made, which was made from the scraps of  30 years of sewing - it was my take on a "traditional" quilt.


The result of my first experiment with the fugitive medium of charcoal (which I then overlaid with water colour paint) back in the spring; I was pretty chuffed with it and intend to do more work in this vein in the future.




"Of The Moment" - a 100% silk oversized lap quilt inspired by an underwater scene painted by Geninne  and the colour field painters of the early 20th century, I took her colour palette and their swaths of saturate colour and made it my own.



"Transracial Abduction" - my very first piece that explored fugitive media - the background consists of pieces of my hand-dyed cotton, the flower is made from petals cut out of fabric that I coloured with pastels and once cut, over-drew on with gel pens and a gilt fabric pen.  I also included a poem I wrote several years ago about my experience of being an adoptee.

This quilt, called "Test Pattern" was inspired by the tv test patterns. Of course, after I'd done all those stripes, I needed a few dots to liven things up. :)

                          
"By The Sea" was one of my early experiments with needle felting and painted fabric (I hand painted the background with acrylic paint).
              
This quilt, called "Off To Oz" was the result of a challenge - and as you can see - totally outside of my usual oeuvre.  However, it was a lot of fun to design and whipped up in a flash!

     
This piece, called "Happy Wife, Happy Life" was part of my Charley Harper series - I was part of a challenge group who had to either copy or offer an interpretation of Charley Harper's work. I did three pieces - two "inspired by" and this one - a direct copy. The background and stripes are wool, the nest was a mix of hand dyed fabrics from Quilt Routes and my stash; all other bits and bobs were fabrics from my stash.




This was my first piece using a hand-painted acrylic background.  Up until recently, when I did this kind of work, I would randomly make pieces of fabric and then let the finished piece of fabric inspire the scene. Lately, I've been making fabric with something in mind - part of my new word of the year "Intention".



"Fractured" is a quilt in a new series I've been working on - about the various ways in which our lives are broken, shattered or otherwise fractured.  All velvet - inset stripes are fluorescent green satin.  More on this quilt, here.


             
"In Love and Hope" was the last piece I made in the style inspired by Naomi Wanjiku.  I may revist this type of art-quilting at some point in the future, but it feels very far away from what I want to work on now - so this may be the last.

                    

And lastly, this is a piece I made that helped cement my decision to begin art quilting for real.  Called "Once I Was A Child" - the subject matter helped me realize that there were things I wanted to say to the world that were best expressed through art, and this particular expression of it helped me realize that I could do so.


So, that's it - some of my work thus far. Not quite the top 100, but nearly 20.  :)

Going forward, I intend to continue exploring fugitive media and transfer painting - and may incorporate those "base" methods with encaustic and resin as I am in the piece I'm currently working on - although it's my first kick at the can, and so I used more traditional art quilting in it.

This is only the first layer:


But if you have a look at where I'm going with this, perhaps you'd like to come back later today and see the next post in the series - or next Friday to see the finished product!

See you then!