Moon River

The process of making Moon River was challenging.  There were a few trial and error elements to this quilt that evolved over time.  Here are some pictures from the process as well as some detail shots of the finished quilt.  Since the exhibit and piece are all about the moon, that's what I started with.  I had a shibori resist piece done with large circles, so I used one of those circles, which were light blue surrounded by indigo, and printed with half a head of cabbage to give it texture.

In the first incarnation, I kept the indigo surrounding the moon as part of the sky, but wasn't happy with the sky so ended up cutting the moon out and making it a fusible applique on top of the reworked sky.

The river was the other important part of this piece and I had purchased several batiks that I thought would work, but as I auditioned them and went through my stash, this piece of pole wrapped shibori jumped out as being the right one.

Back to the moon.  It needed more shine than just the paint, so I fused some Angelina fibers together, then fused them on top of the moon to give it a glow.  The sky was redone with curved piecing and embellished with fibers.  (The first go round used raw edge strips that were straight; it needed the curved edges instead.)

The trees were cut from a batik, fused on and then stitched.  Those in the path of the moonlight were stitched with "shimmer" thread for extra sparkle.

In the bottom left corner of the quilt is a rock made from a hand dyed fabric and thermofax printed with a crackle screen.  Next to the rock is the silhouette of a boy, contemplating the river and where it might be going.  The song lyrics by Johnny Mercer are reminiscent of his youth in the southern US and his longing to expand his horizons, so that is my tribute to the lyricist.

Also in the corner is a QR code which, when scanned with a QR reader on a smart phone, links to a YouTube video of the Andy Williams version of Moon River.

I'm pleased with the end result, though it was a bit of a struggle to get there!

Fly Me to the Moon!

Sue is pleased to announce that her quilt "Moon River" was juried into an upcoming exhibit called "Fly Me to the Moon" which celebrates the 50th anniversary of man's first walk on the moon in 1969.  This project was conceived by Susanne Miller Jones who describes watching the moon landing and walk with her grandmother and cousin, and some family connections to the lunar project and astronauts.  She invited participation from national and international quilt artists through a call for entry early last year.  The collection includes 175 quilts, all 18" x 30", made by 142 artists.   Although specific venues are not yet nailed down, Susanne is working on that aspect and has interest from several.  It is anticipated that the quilts will travel through 2019.  (Due to space restrictions, not all quilts will travel to each exhibit.)  The quilts depict a variety of topics, including the first moon walk, the Apollo missions and astronauts, scientific moon images, moon idioms, songs, pop culture, myths and superstitions.  Here is Sue's quilt, "Moon River", based on the song that debuted in 1961 in Breakfast at Tiffany's and became even more popular when Andy Williams made it the theme song for his TV show.  She also remembers playing it on the piano.

  More about the quilt and its creation in another post.

Let it Snow!

Here in Northern Virginia we had several hours of fine snowflakes falling Sunday with no lasting results.  However, next weekend we might get a significant accumulation starting on Friday into Saturday.   The weather forecasters are even talking potential blizzard.

Let it snow—remember this plaque that Elizabeth made using the Silhouette Cutter last fall when she took a class from Susan Emory at Kelly Ann’s Quilting in Warrenton?

To prep for the possibility of the first big snow and snow-dyeing, Elizabeth cut PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric back in the fall and soaked it in soda ash when the weather was still good enough for it to dry outside.

Now it is time to try something new.  How about golf ball sized whiffle balls wrapped in fabric?

She took the balls and surrounded them with the prepared fabric, securing them with rubber bands.

Now to wait for the snow to fall.......

Discharge Surprise

Have you ever discharged a fabric?  This is a fun product and technique to work with for surface design, screen printing, or just plain altering a fabric.  Discharge, in the textile world, means taking color out of cloth and can be done with several products.  Bleach is the most obvious, but also the most harmful; you must use a bleach-stop product or risk damage over time to the fabric.  There is a product called Anti-Chlor to do this.  You can also use a bleach pen, spray, or even Cascade dishwasher detergent.  However the product we use most frequently is called deColourant by Harbor Sales Inc.  It's available from online sources like Pro-Chem and Dharma Trading and retail outlets like Artistic Artifacts.  This is a much more user friendly product in that the odor is greatly reduced and it is the perfect consistency for screen printing.

It comes both colorless (on the left) which merely takes color out so the end result is a surprise, and in colored versions (on the right) which remove color but also replace it with the color of the product, so you control the result, to a certain extent.  The most fun part is using the colorless because you never know what the result will be.  It depends on what dyes went into making the fabric in the first place.  We've seen turquoise discharge to purple, and other interesting results.

So why am I blogging about this?  Well, Sue's art group issued an "ugly" challenge in which we swapped fat quarters of an "ugly" fabric (and let me tell you, ugly is all relative, depending entirely on individual perspective), and need to use the "ugly" in a 12" square quilt.  I decided to alter my "ugly" fabric first by discharging it.  It is a batik, black background with brown cats.  Typically, black will discharge to brown, sometimes gray. So I set about applying the discharge paste through a screen with a crackle image, anticipating a brownish result that would add some background texture and blend with the cats.

Here is the piece with the discharge drying.  After it dries, you take it to the iron (steam helps) and iron it to activate the color change process.  The more heat you apply along with steam, the more change you should see.  You can stop the process whenever you are satisfied with the result.  Well, imagine my surprise when I didn't get brown as I thought, but rather a blue-grey and light beige!

This coloration totally changes the fabrics I would use with it, compared to those I had pre-selected!  Plus, I can't honestly say I LIKE this combination of black-blue-brown-tan.  I think it's actually uglier than when I started! (Perhaps that would be the true challenge, to use THIS piece!)  I do like the effect of the crackle screen, just not the colors.

Here's the before and after.  Good thing I just cut a piece off the fat quarter, instead of doing the whole thing!  Not to be defeated, I had another deColourant with color added - called Natural Nutmeg.  So I decided to try another piece, smaller this time, leaving some of the original unaltered.

You can see the texture in the black background; its less visible on the cats themselves.  This is more what I was going for, though I do wish for a bit stronger color.  Maybe another round is called for - we'll see.

Here's a comparison of the brown discharge with the original piece.  Now to mull it over a bit and decide which way I'm going to go with the challenge piece.  Will I use the really ugly discharge piece, the slightly altered, or the original?  That remains to be seen.  You'll have to check back for the results later, after Feb. 3!

2016 UFO Busting

In case you couldn't tell, we are off to a very slow start in 2016.  The slow down started in December with the holidays and so far we have not really dived into the New Year, other than the previous inspiration posts - I hope you've found more inspiration from them than we obviously have (not)!  Of course there are reasons we are sort of stalled.  Elizabeth was on a two week vacation over the holidays, her entire school break, and returned home to go back to work the next day.  Not too much time for creativity there.  Sue has been in the midst of house renovations for several months, which pulls in one direction, and volunteer commitments to Virginia Consortium of Quilters pulls in another (Sue is president as well as co-chairing the biannual retreat coming up in April).  Consequently creative time has been limited.  Now that our VCQ annual board retreat has passed (still some follow-up to do), Sue hopes to work in more creative time, along with having hardwood floors refinished and choosing bathroom decor.

One way to get started is to commit to Vicki Welsh's UFO Busting again this year.  Sue's even behind in that, since Vicki was on the ball and did her initial post January 1, and it's already the 12th.  But it's never to late to join in!  Recapping 2015, Sue started out with 8 UFOs (that she claimed - there are others very carefully packed away!)  Over the year, one of those 8 was finished, and progress was made on some others.  Most of the finished projects throughout the year were new projects that were both started and finished in 2015 - looking back over the blog posts there were 19 of them!  I'd say that's an accomplishment, even if they were mostly small (wall size) projects.  Most were challenges - for magazine submission, art group challenges, and exhibit entries.

So where is Sue starting from in 2016?
Starting UFO count: 11
New projects started this month:
Projects finished this month:
UFO count at end of month:

The UFOs include 7 from 2015.  Five are projects needing to be quilted; one is a table runner and one is a wall hanging, but the other 3 are lap size or larger quilts, which is probably why I haven't tackled them yet.  One is the repair project I blogged about last year (30's bed quilt).  Two are piecing projects in progress.  Two are hand stitching projects, one of which is almost done, and then will need machine quilting.   The last is a 12" square that needs mounting on canvas - no excuse for that not being done, so hopefully I will get to report it finished next month.  Here are a few pictures - I decided if I pulled some out and took pictures it might motivate me to work on them. 

This is the repair project.  I have made some new "footballs" to applique over the worn ones.

This is a finished top.  I have a backing.  It needs to be sandwiched and quilted.  Lap size.

Another top; these were block lotto blocks that I won in 2010.  I have border fabric, which needs to be added, and backing.  The goal is to finish this by the end of April so I can take it for show & tell at the VCQ retreat.  Doable, if I make a point of getting it done.

This is a finished top, double size.  I have the backing so it too just needs to be sandwiched and quilted.  I made this for my daughter when she was in college - she switched from a twin bed to a double.  It didn't get finished then, and she's been out of college and on her own for 7 years and moved on to other colors, so I need other motivation.  I do really like it.  Maybe this is one that should be quilted by check.

So there you have it.  Check back each month to see how 2016 is progressing.

A Few Last Reflections

Here are a few final reflections for the start of 2016.

 "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.  Begin it now."     Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary."     Steve Jobs

"Beauty is the sense of life and the awe one has in its presence."     Willa Cather

"We have a tendency to obscure the forest of simple joys with the trees of problems."    Christine Collange

Whatever your creative pursuits, we wish you the fun of learning something new and the joy of creating in 2016!

Quotes and Reflection

The look back and and forward continues with these quotes and works from 2015.

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."     Pablo Picasso

"Let a joy keep you.  Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by."     Carl Sandburg

"We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.  The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out."     Ray Bradbury

"And so the hand of time will take the fragments of our lives and make out of life's remnants, as they fall, a thing of beauty after all."     Douglas Malloch

What creative endeavors do you have in store for 2016?