Embellishment: beads!

Sometimes a piece just doesn't look finished when I'm done sewing--it cries out for something more. Angelina fiber, beads, buttons, found objects, chinese fortune cookie fortunes--you name it! Here are some of the shiny, glittery pieces that really wanted some sparkly seed beads.

This is one of a 3 piece set titled: "Studies in Orange and Blue". Lots of shiny stuff here. I used seed beads to highlight a curve here and there.








Here's a detail at a higher magnification.


This piece is a long horizontal panel that depicts the different stages of the sun throughout its daily life. I called it "Celestial Vedas." Each sun and its rays are all accented with matching seed beads. Man--this one took me FOREVER to bead and finish but it was worth it.



A detail from one of the last panels.












Another close-up shot.

The Baldwin Park Art Stroll

Last night I participated in the Baldwin Park Art Stroll despite the ominous weather. There were storms all around us and lots of thunder and at 5:00 pm it looked pretty iffy. But my assigned location was under a generous building overhang so I decided it was worth the risk. My artist friend Cheryl Jones Evans also attended and was gracious in sharing her display panels. We mixed our pieces all together on them and I brought along a table to display my note cards and christmas cards. And, of course, my famous postcard rack!! Here are some pix:

My table and card set-up. That's Cheryl in the black blouse. I couldn't have just that ugly table bare to the world so I covered it with my "Midwest Roadmap" piece. Bright! Those are my smaller pieces and name sign on the panels on the right. I sold the black one on the lower left at the very end of the night when we were packing up.


Here is the front or street side of our "H" panel configuration. We thought one of my brightest bigger pieces would be a good eye-catcher.


My table from the front and there's my awesome postcard rack on the left. It sure caught a lot of people's attention. I ended up selling three postcards.


The back side of our "H" had 2 of my pieces. A lot of folks stopped and read my litany of annoyances that I had written all over the "What really bugs me" quilt.



On the other side of the "H", Cheryl displayed some of her hand crafted journals. She sold 3 of these.

So, all in all, I think the show was a success. Cheryl and I both had some sales and we had a good time gabbing with each other and with friends and family that came by to support us. Thanks Leslee and Julie for coming out! And thanks to the folks who purchased some of our art! Double thanks to friends who came by AND purchased art! In this economy, discretionary spending has dropped off the map, so every sale is a precious commodity indeed. Thanks also to the organizers of this event! Brad Biggs--you did a great job. Hope I can participate again!

And yet another blue strip...

Today I completed another blue strip. That makes 6 down and 4 to go. I really can't wait to sew all of these strips together and make that damn background already. Cut out some more of the seaweed leaflets also. But I am still in a quandary about what animal form to include with the seaweed in my underwater scene. Realistic fish (or other sea life) is not grabbing me as a concept and mermaids are too cutsey-poo. Some other fantastical undersea creature?? I will have to quickly cogitate upon this and come up with a plan.

I also did some work on The Blade Garden. I need to finish that off as I am considering submitting that in some sort of venue.

Chop, chop

Sometimes an idea just doesn't come together. Not a problem if I'm still in the planning stage but it seems pretty daunting if I've already done a bunch of sewing and assembled my top. Maybe I've even gotten to the embellishment sewing or (gasp!) quilting stage. Now what? Here's what I do and it usually works for me: I chop it up and resew it! Often in some sort of "crazy quilt" configuration or just however it seems to fit. I open myself up to the design possibilities and listen to the piece. Then I embellish, quilt or add elements. Some of my favorite pieces have undergone this process. Here are a few:


Only the floral centers of the blocks are crazy quilted here. The technique adds lots of textural interest. Then I just added strips and borders in matching or contrasting fabrics.


Ohh, I labored over this one. It started out as an exercise in working with a monochromatic color scheme. It was ok, but not great. Then I chopped it, sewed all the resulting pieces together and added the sun. Perfect!


This little beauty resulted from a leftover paper foundation pieced strip that just didn't work on the original piece. So that strip was removed and reassembled into what you see here. Its a jewel of a piece with glittery accents in seed beads, lurex embroidery thread and a bit of Angelina Fibers.
Love serendipity!

Fabric Collage

When people ask me what kind of artist I am, I usually answer "textile artist" rather than "quilter". Its what I put on my business cards, too. The term "quilting" just conjures up too many images of grandma's log cabin bed quilt and thats just not my main focus these days. And when I do make something in a more traditional theme, I still try to shake it up in some way with radical colors, additional techniques or materials. Textile artist covers it much better since most of what I do can more accurately be described as a fabric collage. I just don't use glue to adhere my separate pieces (well, actually, I do sometimes use a gluestick for temporary positioning), I use thread to sew down the pieces. The thread also becomes part of the design, so that's an added bonus. Here are some examples of my fabric collages.


A pretty simple design relying on the punch of bright colors on a black background (I do that a lot). All of the rays were adhered with iron-on adhesive and then the edges were stitched down (raw edge applique.)



Here's my textile stab at the trompe-l'oeil style of painting popular in the late 1800's. This "fool-the-eye" style was often used in a still life composition that included dead game piled up along with the more traditional fruit and flowers of a still life. I call this piece "21st Century American Still Life". American because of the turkey--can't get more American than that. After I finished the "painting" part, I decided it really needed a frame too. I like how it turned out--rather unexpected. I'm waiting for the right venue to exhibit this one.


And here's what makes it 21st century. Hah!



Here's a large passionflower I began in a workshop I took a couple of years ago from the outstanding quilt artist and fabric designer, Jane Sassaman http://www.janesassaman.com/homepage.html. She's all about large scale florals both in her quilts and fabrics so I was definitely spinning off of her energy when I designed this one.