Play on words

My friend Bill creates these wonderful little sketches and keeps them in a stack in his office as if they were just other pieces of paper. When I was introduced to them I knew that at least some of them needed to see the light of day. I offered to stitch some of them as an embroidered collage. Here is the result with thanks to his wife Gloria for the photography.

Art Quilt Workbook - Shoe Series

Started working through the Art Quilt Workbook. I have decided on shoes as my theme and the colors of red, black, ivory, and a hint of blue as my controlled palette. Here is the start of my first quilt. I'm trying out different backgrounds; I'm leaning towards the grey blue.

Art for Quilters

Well here is the result of lesson 2 - to intrepret a famous artist's work. I chose Mariana by Millais. I have over simplified but overall I kind of like the way it turned out. I especially like the woman figure and the way she curves next to the orange bench (love those legs even if they are different from the original). Here is a link to the original painting http://www.libfl.ru/pre-raph/img/Marianna.jpg and the post of my interpretation.

I have started a class with Quilt University called Art for Quilters. Lesson 1 was on shapes and their relationships. Here is the piece that I created. It uses sheer organza for the vase, appliqued flowers and butterfly, and the flower stems are drawn in with fabric inks.

Bottoms Up Moonflowers

Making progress on the bed of leaves and a redo of the sleeping pansies. Gloria was right, they weren't bright enough!

The realization of my idea started with the sleeping flowers in the bed. They are constructed as ribbon flowers with boat leaves as nightcaps. The bed is intended to be covered with leaves. I found a fabric that had exactly what I wanted but it cost $200/yd (ouch). So I decided to make it myself. After some consultation with a knowledgeable sales person at the fabric store, I created wonderful sheer organza leaves with metallic edging using water soluble fabric. When they are cut out they curl up in a wonderfully natural way. I think I'm going to need about 50 of these to make the bed!

The first pansy flowers turned out to be too dull but I've posted them here to show the idea. I can't decide if I should include the nightcaps. These are a bit heavy handed; perhaps something lighter...

And here is the image I drew based on the poem: This piece evolved from a short poem that I wrote this summer. After seeing the wonderfully blooming moonflowers in my friend's garden, I was inspired to write this little ditty:

As the garden tucks in for the night
they drink in the evening light
bottoms up moonflowers