Finding New Purpose

My compositions don’t usually stick to traditional quilt conventions, but my materials do.  Typically I use just three main ingredients: cotton fabrics, batting and thread.  So I guess anything outside that short list would be unconventional for me.
At the moment I’m experimenting with ways to incorporate my overall theme “Reflection” into this challenge. Reflective objects and materials might satisfy both requirements.  Hmmm…  I’ve been gathering a lot of random objects that I find interesting and/or have the potential to work somehow with fabric and thread.  So far there’s a lot of stuff on my floor and not much on the design board!
Coincidentally, my son Luka is attending “Camp Invention” this week. Grade school kids spend their days learning about science, engineering and critical thinking. They play games and work on design challenges using found objects, recycled items and various household appliances that they’ve taken apart to repurpose. (Here’s a photo of the computer tower and exercise bike Luka & Tom disassembled… in my living room). So yeah, I am anxiously awaiting the whole Putting-Things-Back-Together phase of this creative journey.
               

It's all very strange!

Unconventional materials?  They all very strange and alien to me. I do not use unusual materials in my quilts.  I use hand-dyed cottons, in particular cotton sateens, and I use specific palettes for consistency, each palette dyed by a different specialist artist.  I have my own hand-dyed palette as well, although I do very little dyeing myself. I like consistency!

I have really been scratching my head as to what I could use as unconventional materials. I have stacks of paints which I haven’t used, and other odd materials such as Evolon and Lutradur, which I collected with the idea of using them, but haven’t.  Some of them are still in their original packaging.

I have one or two ideas about what I may do, which actually do appeal to me.  But new ideas and methods require some experimentation, rather than slapping odd things together, to meet a deadline.

I’m just too busy in July and August – the busiest months this year - with shows to attend, lots of teaching, a jurying process, a couple of trips abroad, and making one quite big quilt and several small pieces, for forthcoming exhibitions in the Autumn, with deadlines in September – not to mention it is school holidays, so I help look after the grandchildren.  Experimentation requires a mindset which is related to availability of time and mental space. Which in fact is something I have planned to do later in the autumn.

I suppose I am giving notice that I am very unlikely to make the end of August deadline for Challenge 3…. Sorry about that!  But better late, and good, than never, or bad.