needlescape

Another birthday postcard

2011-11-17T13:59:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

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

SAQA Auction Donation

2011-03-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-25T07:45:00.001-07:00

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

2009-12-26T11:10:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

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

2009-08-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-15T19:28:00.000-07:00

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.

Cyber Fyber Exhibit

2009-01-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

About a year ago I participated in an international fiber postcard exchange. An online exhibit as well as a gallery display of all postcards has finally been mounted. You can see them all at
http://cyberfyberonlinepostcards.blogspot.com/. Mine is #83.

UPDATE : My entry was selected as one of six honorable mentions in the juried show. You can watch a video of the juror describing her selections at http://cyberfybervideos.blogspot.com/2009/01/winners.html

Play on words

2008-10-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-02-17T15:09:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-03T18:34:00.001-08:00

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

Holiday Fiber Postcards - 2007

2007-12-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

Another round of holiday fabric postcards just made it out at the 11th hour for greetings to special friends and family. Here is a sample of my 'bird of Christmas'. Antique laces and crocheted designs were used. The background branches were done with paintstiks. Fabrics include silk, lame, cotton, and velvet. Tails are made from wired ribbons and odd trims.

Test your creativity

2007-08-18T16:08:00.000-07:00

You Are 87% Creative

You are an incredibly creative person. For you, there are no bounds or limits to your creativity.

Your next creation could be something very great... Or at least very cool!

How Creative Are You?

Finishing those UFOs

2007-08-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

Well I got inspired to finish some of my UFOs. I've actually decided to have these pieces framed. The first is my landscape quilt that I created in Michael James master class last summer. A mockup of the layout planned for this piece is shown here. In the final framing there will actually be more openings in the mat. I really think that calling it 'Broken Ground' makes even more sense now.

The second piece was also done in Michael's class. Here I have done hand embroidery/quilting on the piece.

I'm a canna lily

2007-06-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

"You stand up for what you believe in, even if it gets in the way of what other people think. You are proud of yourself and your accomplishments and you enjoy letting people know that."

I am a
Canna

What Flower
Are You?

Night Layers

2007-05-09T17:43:00.000-07:00

I recently interloped on a creative writing class with my friend Gloria the week that they were exploring poetry. An exercise from the class inspired me to write a poem that in turn has inspired me to design a quilt based on it. The exercise was to research an activity (of course I chose quilting) and document a language for that activity and then write a poem using the language about a completely different subject. Here's my poem. Stay tuned for the quilt design.

Quilted Night

Flying geese dart across stippled light

Lone star rises over log cabin

creating shadow appliques.

Borderless, boundless background reveals

Night layers unfolding

Dual Tessellations

2007-04-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Dual tessellations depicts the mathematical concept of tessellation – the regular tiling of polygons across a two dimensional plane. This quilt considers the more advanced concept of dual tessellations where one polygon type (an equilateral triangle) is the dual of another (a hexagon). (see figure). The major triangles are constructed from either three equal triangles or three kites that also form the structure of the hexagon, allowing the bridging between triangles and hexagons while still tiling the surface. The quilt design proceeds top to bottom beginning with triangles and morphing into hexagons. Different values of purple in the dual-colored taffetas further reinforce the duality of the design. Finally, the quilt was not squared off as is typically done to further emphasize the fundamental tiling units. For more information on tessellations, and dual tessellations in particular, see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/DualTessellation.html .

Ode to Joy

2007-04-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

At a recent dinner party I described this quilt to several individuals who were interested in seeing it. Therefore, I've posted it here along with an explanation of its design concept.

This quilt depicts the musical composition Ode to Joy by mapping the musical notation to a color-based representation. Each vocal part (S,A,T,B) is shown on a separate line with multiple stanzas on the quilt. Each note on the scale is given a color. The value of the color indicates its octave within the piece with lower octaves having a darker value. The length of the note determines the length of the associated color of fabric. So a whole note is given a base unit of 1 with half notes represented by 1/2 the length , quarter notes by 1/4 etc. Flats are shaded with black tulle and sharps are highlighted with bright stitching. Finally a random free-form quilting of the word Joy is done across the surface of the quilt.

If you can read music and understand the mapping you should be able to play the composition by 'reading' my quilt!

Enjoy the Ode to Joy.

Holiday Postcards

2006-12-14T19:21:00.000-08:00

Well I've started selling some of my cards at two local shops and amazingly people are buying them! Here are a few more designs.

Winter Wonderland 2

Bare Branches

WinterStorm

Snowflake

New work & some old works completed

2006-11-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

More fiber postcards and some finalized ones. Actually they are just small works and I may stop making them exclusively as postcards. I have found a venue for selling these works and am anxiously waiting to see the response. Worse case I get them back and send them off to friends and family. I'm having fun so it doesn't really matter.

Michael's Master Class

2006-10-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

This summer I had the pleasure of attending a Michael James master class. I was in way over my head but it was a wonderful learning and freeing experience. Watching other serious fiber artists work helped me to see many more possibilities in my own work. While I worked using my conventional techniques I realized that I could create alot more of my ideas if I freed myself from a rigid design approach that allowed for mistakes and evolution of the final design. Here are two works that I created during this time (still waiting to be finished...)

This first piece was actually meant to be the leaf form of a plant. Michael suggested that I turn it on its side and create a landscape. I did not have any of the 'right' fabrics for it but somehow I managed to do it. I like what happened...

One of Michael's favorite lines is ' size matters'. Here I scaled up my distorted seed pods to a grand scale and created three of them, each one being at least 12" on a side.

Natalie's Workshop

2006-10-27T19:24:00.000-07:00

Recently treated myself to a quilting adventure by attending a Hudson River Valley Fiber Art Workshop ( http://www.fiberartworkshops.com/ ) with Natalie Sewell ( http://www.nataliesewell.com/) .

The first top is a stand of tall trees mixed with dogwoods. (Still need to quilt it).

The second top (a work in progress...)

is based on a picture of the Gardens of Lombardy

from a book of Italian Gardens that Edith Wharton loved.

FIber art postcards - first attempt

2006-09-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at creating fiber art postcards. I hope to complete these and more in time to submit to Fiberart for a cause (http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/index.html )

Homage2Matisse is based on one of his collages.

Secret Message is a study in black and white

Finally, "Black and white and red all over" is an abstraction and uses the scraps from the previous one.

Introduction

2006-09-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

This blog is meant to serve as an online journal of my fiber art creations.