The Decorated Surface

I’m sure that everyone would agree that blogs are best when the blogger contributes often with interesting tidbits.  When this blog began in March, I really did mean to update regularly, and I haven’t.   SSSooooo, there are huge amounts of art to upload - in fact, whatever I’ve created since May is yet to make an appearance.  I’ll start at the very end of the year and work backwards, not necessarily in any order.

The first pieces I’d like to add were created for the 12 Days of Christmas swap, hosted by Lelainia Lloyd from BC, Canada.  I participated last year as well, and the artists are SO talented that the gifts are just amazing!  What a great run-up to Christmas and a wonderful artistic end to the year!

As I’d decided to make mini art quilts (approx 6″x9″ finished size) for everyone, and their colour preferences and favourite themes varied quite considerably, I decided to create different quilts for each recipient, based on a similar format.  Here is a pic of some wrapped up and ready to be posted off to their new homes!

Here are the quilts I created for each of my 12 Christmas-ers!

For Arlene:

For Barbara:

For Cece:

For Crystal:

For Debra:

For Deb:

Well, that’s about half of the quilties.  I’ll upload the rest very soon!

I just wanted to stop by quickly and wish all my bloggy friends a very Merry Christmas!!!  I hope that you all stay safe, healthy and happy over the Christmas period - thanks for all your support throughout the year.

 xx

These fabric postcards were made as part of a swap with the theme ’serenity’. Other players (Ruth, Debbi, Karin and Coralee) made gorgeous postcards using all shades of blue, some green and some ochre - all very beautiful, and interesting how blue predominates as the colour for a serene theme.  Mine were created using a base of sky blue felt, which already had a nice stiffness to it, middle layers of threads and fibres in all shades of blue, laid in a wavy sort of pattern and a top layer of blue netting.  All over this top layer, I sewed randomly to hold everything in place, then added the blue muslin and the butterfly image from Paper Whimsy.  Then lastly, an edging of satin stitch.

In a few weeks I’ll be teaching a class at my local quilting store Apatchy Quilting on art quilts.  Here are three samples I’ve put together as possible options for participants to select from.  Two use bali batiks as the base fabric and the third uses more traditional quilting fabrics.  The images are all from the Divas D’Este.  For some reason, and although I have resized it many times,  the second quiltie is too large for the space below - you get the general idea though!  (I’m still quite the blog novice!)

This 5×5inch fabric page was made for my friend Kasha.  Unlike the other participants in the swap, Kasha specified no theme and no colour choice, so I was given free reign to play with some favourite colours!  Whilst a theme/colour will normally give initial direction to a piece, it’s sometimes nice to just play with whatever takes your fancy.  I used two images by Paper Whimsy with a background of bali batik in my favourite colour range of turquoises.  Still a bit obsessed with embroidery stitches too - used my favourite new Stef Francis silks and cottons!

Well, it’s been a few weeks since my last post, so I thought it must be time to offer up some more goodies.  Over the last 12 months or so, I’ve been involved with a small group of six Australian fabric artists who did a round robin quilt exchange - called Quilty Conscience.  We each specified a theme for our quilties, then went mad every two months creating something for the next recipient. 

This piece titled ‘Inside the flower patch’ was my last contribution - it was for Stephanie Grant’s quiltie set, with the theme of ‘Inside…’, one which I just felt I had no direction with, until the creative process had already begun.  As I was working my way through an online embroidery course at the time, hand stitching was on my mind, so that is the direction that started me off.  I placed hand dyed muslin over a felt background, then played with a couple of pieces of black organza over the top, stitching them down with a bit of pleating and a lot of intentional puckering.  The result appeared as two large flowers emerging from opposite sides of the piece, so there the title and my theme were born.  All the stitching, beading and decoration from then on added to the flower patch theme and created quite a bright rainbow piece, despite all the black I’d used.  I’ve added a couple of close-up shots here as well, to show some extra detail.   

This is a 5×5 inch fabric page made for Jo for an ongoing swap I’m in.  Her theme was vintage children - one that is very close to my heart - so it was lots of fun!!

I chose 3 gorgeous fabric images from Paper Whimsy, along with batik fabric, rayon ribbon, ric rac, beads, a velvet leaf, buttons, hand dyed scrim, a word image from Artchix Studio and hand dyed cotton perle.  The venise trims were also ones that I’d hand dyed.

This egg-shaped quiltie was made for an Easter swap - so much fun to do.  The size is about 6 inches from tip to toe and as I thought the edges would be difficult to stitch, I bound them with rayon ribbon and stitched it down.   Other ingredients were beautiful images from Divas D’Este (which actually provided inspiration for the colour selection), batiks, hand dyed scrim, fabrics and trims, silk threads (Colour Streams) from The Thread Studio and beads.  Dyeing trims is something I’ve always wanted to try, so I dipped my feet in a little with the green and purple venise lace trims - it was SO easy, and I was really happy with the results!

I jumped into the world of inchies yesterday - little one inch squared pieces of art - and created my first set in white for a swap.  Although these are fabric pieces, I’ve seen many examples of paper inchies online and would like to try my hand at them next.   I thought ATCs were small, but these are extreme miniatures!  In contrast to everything else I make, it felt quite strange concentrating all my energies on such a teeny tiny palette, but there was the advantage of course, that they are SO fast to make!!

I’ve just finished a fabric page for an online swap, with the theme ‘Sunshine and Summertime’.   April Cornell’s Sonnet fabrics just pop when used together and I was lucky enough to find a Stef Francis silk thread that was perfect for the fabric colours.  Loved doing all my buttonhole stitching - hand work is so relaxing!