Another birthday postcard

For Mike's 80th birthday.  He told me that he carried it around with him to show others as one of his favorite gifts.  How sweet.

Birthday postcard

A little fiber postcard for my friend's 50th birthday.

SAQA Auction Donation

The Studio Art Quilt Association (SAQA) holds a yearly 12" square quilt auction as a fund raising activity based on donations from their members.  Attached to this note is an image of my donation to the cause.  It is based on a picture of an allium from my garden.   Techniques include: pen-based drawing and stitching of stalk and flower stems, free form random scatter of magenta silk and organza flower petals onto background and then free motion radial stitching of flower to background, with a satin stitch binding.  Be sure to wander to the auction site (http://www.saqa.com/)  in July and bid this one up !

Smithsonian Coral Reef Exhibition

My creations for the upcoming exhibit of the Smithsonian Community Reef http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/hreef/communityreef.html in conjunction with the traveling exhibit of the Institute for Figuring coral reef project. http://crochetcoralreef.org/ .

This is my 'piece de resistance'.  The yellow is star coral in Bonaire Antilles and the spiral shapes are Christmas worms.

Bonaire star coral with Christmas worms

and this is my interpretation. 

This piece is called a pseudosphere. It is done in an ever increasing spiral form in a multi-color thread and finished with a gray mohair picot stitch.  It was the first piece that I made for the exhibit.

This one is meant to look like a bleached (dying) coral. 

And this one is made from multi color green, dark green, and glitter green threads.

A tall piece made to look like a dying coral.  I mixed a thin black mohair with a thick white yarn to get the effect.  A black pseudosphere sits on top.

Some free form shapes that I made to go into the bleached reef.  I used different textures of white yarn and thread, holding multiple threads behind the work so that I could vary the texture at random as I built the piece.  I love the little tammy on top of the tall one. 

Transparency Revisited

Playing with sheer strips overlayed to get shadows and emerging shapes from the random layers. Based on an exercise in "Transparency in Textiles". But I used a basting spray rather than stitch each layer and used a sheer background on which to build the piece. Now I need to figure out where to place stitches and whether to do them by hand or machine - or maybe both.

Holiday Postcards 2009

Of course I have to have a bird motif for the holiday season (lame, glitter organza, rayon thread, painted beak and legs)




but, reindeers are one of my favorite motifs as well so here we have some miniature Rudolphs prancing across holiday postcards (cottons with rayon thread antlers and a 'paper moon')

Playing with Transparency

I've begun my exploration of working with transparent fabrics to create the value changes and shadows that I want in my work. This piece was just a playful little rapid creation using rough cut edges that I learned in Natalie Sewell's class for making bark-like layers for trees.

Bluebird

A little piece that I worked on today. Trying out a modified applique constuction technique. I think that I'm getting close to a technique that allows me the freedom that I want.