Seasonal Shift

Seasonal Shift

21 ¾” w x 40”L [55.5cm x 101.5cm]

I have been observing the seasonal colours in my neighbourhood and am amazed by the variety and number of flowering trees and shrubs even during a Queensland winter. Pale to rosy pink, bright and bold yellow, soft orange and many shades of green abound.

For Betty’s challenge I decided to work with a dyed merino wool pre-felt and black felt of unknown composition, as I hadn’t used these materials before in a quilt. It was interesting to note how the dense, soft wool fibres seemed to absorb light.

The felted piece was applied to the background with the corners and some of the other edges curling a little to mimic the exfoliating dead bark of the huge eucalypt near the local junior school.

Materials; cotton, batting, thread, wool, felt

Techniques; embellisher machine used for the felting, machine applique, machine quilted

Found

I was contemplating this challenge (unusual materials) and searching for inspiration when it showed up in my mailbox.  My friend and creative collaborator Carol Eaton had sent me a surprise gift – a piece of hand dyed fabric.  Carol had made it as an experiment and thought I would like the results (I do!)

That began a vague idea about found objects: buttons, a zipper, safety pins – things found around the studio. I took the piece on vacation with me and added to it as I found the time. At first I chose the safety pins as a way to incorporate “reflection” into the piece. But I found that I really enjoyed the repetitive action of pinning them.
A picture began to emerge in my mind – a gentle rain falling on some kind of plant or flower.  That led me to think about the way plants grow. As long as they have a few key conditions (water, sunlight, air) they grow wherever they find the space. The buttons toward the bottom are bunched together, in layers and clumps, as if they are competing for space.


Technical details: Finished size 18x40
Materials: hand-dyed fabric, various buttons, cotton and metallic thread, safety pins, zipper

Everglades Ghosts

I have been traveling extensively for work and my last three trips took me over south Florida. On each flight I’d lean my head against the window and beg for inspiration for Betty’s challenge. Certainly there was abundant fodder for the water element of my quilt, but how could I represent it with unconventional fabric?

With each trip I grew increasingly anxious. Such beautiful Atlantic and Caribbean views and still no viable ideas. On my last trip home – literally a week ago – I was panicked. Still no ideas and even less time.

As I gazed out the window on that occasion, I saw the Everglades, a 1.5-million-acre wetlands preserve on the southern tip of Florida. For those who aren’t familiar with the Everglades, it’s a national park made up of coastal mangroves, sawgrass marshes and pine flatwoods that are home to hundreds of animal species and over a 1000 species of plants. Many of the animals that live there are endangered.

From high in the air it looks marshy and barren. That is, until you fly over and the sun is just right and the muddy water shimmers blue and silver. Now, that’s the stuff inspiration is made of!

Once home I gathered leather and upholstery fabrics from a discarded sample book a friend had given me years ago. I vowed not to use any cotton – why make it easy on myself? Betty did say she rubbed her hands together evilly :)

I cut organic shapes in the leather and let the shape of the hide guide me for the edges. For the “water” I hand cut snippets of the upholstery fabric, loosely arranged them and reverse appliqued them to the leather using a polyester fabric and felt as stabilizer. I then wrinkled other fabrics and stitched them down as I quilted. At the end, I glued turquoise sequins in a few places to represent the shimmer of the sun on the water.

Not fully satisfied, I cut more shapes out of the finished quilt. Whatever is behind the piece will now show through. It was my husband’s idea to add the bamboo (salvaged from prior weeks’ yard work). Originally I intended to use it to hang the piece but ultimately preferred its addition to the front.

When I hung the piece to photograph it, I was struck by how much it resembled an animal head or perhaps something tribal. Any symmetry between the shapes was purely accidental but it gave me the name for the piece: “Everglades Ghosts”.

 

I made a few other ghosts in the process: some sewing machines! AUGH! I never knew leather could be so slippery and so stretchy and so finicky about which thread could hold it to another fabric. And don’t even think about fabric glue; I tried that and it doesn’t work. 

Given more time, I might make a few adjustments to the quilt but overall I am pleased. I learned a TON albeit it through gritted teeth. Thank you Betty and all the Viewpoints 9 members, it is such a wonderful experience to be challenged and grow.

Rethinking

Over the years I have incorporated some unusual materials into my quilts- plastics and plastic fishing lures and before it became more main stream used the wadding as a surface. But Betty is a hard act to follow with her wonderful incorporation of the unusual so I am rethinking my approach.

My theme is Around my Neighbourhood so I went back to this set of benches covered in the most fantastic ceramic pieces- a quilt in the making, but it would be heavy! The pieces have been impressed with native flowers and many of these trees grow near the bench seats.

A side view. Each side is covered and the colours are brighter as they are not so sun bleached.

I have taken an imprint on silk to use in my quilt with a few other "new" for me things to be used yet!

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.