Even More Eclipse-Inspired Quilts, with No-Bleach Discharge

It's nine months since the one-in-a-lifetime lunar eclipse last August, 2017, and since then, I've made a bunch of eclipse-inspired quilts, here and here. Below is number #3, a small piece measuring 6.5" x 8.5", all batiks, with 1" squares as the background....

Number 4, at 15" x 22", more batiks...

...For added atmospherics, I threw on some sparkly gold tulle...

...and purple netting from a vegetable bag....

Finally, #5, the piece I wanted to make from the beginning, 

It measures 12.5" x 7", and was inspired by the photo my friend Anne took of an Atlanta sidewalk during the eclipse. 

At a glance the photo shows sun shining through leaves, but at a second glance, you see the sunlight is shaped like tiny moons. To interpret the scene, I used a process called "discharge," similar to bleaching - removing dye from colored fabric  - with a product called deColourant* which is safer than bleach, for fibers and for people. 

I began by sewing together strips of brown and purple batiks to serve as the background. With an x-acto knife, I cut tiny moons from freezer paper. Ironed that stencil onto the patchwork, and applied two kinds* of deCoulerant - one that removes the dye, leaving white moons, and another that removes and replaces the dye with gold. 

I moved the stencil several times, after waiting for it to dry between applications, to cover the whole piece.

 Once dry,  I  pressed everything with a hot iron, which triggers the dye removal.

 Peeled back the freezer paper, washed out the fabric, and let it dry.

 Just for fun, I added leaves, flower petals, and an eclipse.

I laid the top onto batting and backing fabric (the purple-and-white batik you can see along the bottom and right), and strewed the leaves and petals about. With a temporary glue stick, I swiped some of them and stuck them in place.

 ...Then carefully laid a piece of dark purple tulle on top and freemotion quilted around the moons, leaves and petals.

I cut the three layers even, and satin-stitched around the perimeter a couple of times with purple thread. A purple marker took care of remaining white bits.

 And there it is, all done! It has a nice sculptural look around all the internal shapes. I think I'm finished making eclipse quilts, but you never know!

*The deColourant product recently changed ownership and formulation. The plain and metallic gold versions I used for this quilt are no longer available. Learn about the new products here, or for an informative PDF, click on: "deColourant and deColourant Mist FAQs". 

Look, Up in the Sky! Eclipse? Fruit Cocktail?

For the NASA eclipse art challenge, discussed in my last two posts (1,2) I planned to do something serious and dignified, in keeping with cosmic awe, science, wonder and all that. Inspired by austere NASA photography, it would probably involve discharge (chemically removing dye) from black fabric, which creates this kind of a mood...

...(from a years-old stamping-discharge experiment stuffed into my stash), except less wrinkly.

But a funny thing happened on the way to austere dignity, and I wound up making this:

It all started when I started to create the patchwork background, inspired by my friend Anne's photos of the eclipse reflected through tree leaves on tiled Atlanta sidewalks, which I showed last week.

I figured I would discharge the moon shapes onto a pieced sidewalk. But blacks and greys seemed too dull. Instead, I cut shadowy brown and purple batiks into 1 1/2" strips. I also cut strips of used packing paper to 2 1/2" x about 15". (Never throw away packing paper - it's also great for drafting freemotion quilting designs). Pieced the fabric strips on the paper at an angle - half had the strips going from upper left to lower right, and the other half with the strips going the other way. In process, it looks like this: 

 Cut off the tails.

 I wound up making five.

Stitched the rows together. (I wanted it rectangular, like a sidewalk, so I only used four).

 Then tore out the paper. The background was done.

Time to bring in the moody moons.  That would require rummaging through my craft supply closet to locate my jar of preferred discharge agent, Decoulerant. (no financial affiliation). But I happened to be at my cutting board, where there were some batting scraps. Just for fun, I cut some crescents and strewed them on.

Below is the next photograph in my camera. I'm not sure what happened between these two photos. Maybe I blacked out. Or maybe there was another eclipse. When I awoke, I'd done this:

OK, I didn't black out, there was some logic that got me pulling colorful scraps from my batik scrap bag and raucously cutting them into moons, planets, telescopes, eyewear, sidewalk leaves, etc.

I viewed the eclipse from the Caltech campus in Pasadena, CA, where my husband works. It didn't get very dark, so, at least as impressive as the teeny waxing and waning crescent in the sky was how it drew people together, joyfully grooving on the vibe. In 1967, when I was 10, I went with my parents to a Be-In in Central Park. The eclipse was like the Be In, but without the cannabis, protest, or big hair. People were getting high on astronomy.

So, dang the cosmos, I let myself quilt a colorful celebration. 

After looking at what I'd made for about ten seconds, I was a little bummed to realize that my crescent suns look just like bananas. 

I can't think of a cure for that. (Ideas welcomed.)

On further reflection, one might argue that there are also maraschino cherries and grapes.

Oh well. I added batting and backing, and freemotion stitched everything down. I hand-embroidered the location and date on the telescopes. 

I do still have one extra strip - maybe I'll try some serious bleach discharge on it.  

Or maybe I'll just throw on some more bananas. 

 You have until September 15, 2017 to complete your eclipse-inspired art work, take a picture and upload it to social media using the hashtag #EclipseArtQuilt.  There's no judge, no jury, no voting, just sharing!  It's a cyber-Be-In. 

• To learn more about the Eclipse Art Quilt project, go go.nasa.gov/2qoqTis.
• To see pieces that have already been posted (including fiber art pieces), use the #EclipseArtQuilt hashtag in a social media search engine, especially Twitter and Facebook. 
• Machine quilting guru Leah Day has a tutorial for making her cutaway eclipse applique pattern, here. 
• And here's a gorgeous, serene video of the event, with a lots of people oooohing and aaaaahing in various languages. 

Watching Blockbuster Skies, Brainstorming Eclipse Art

Nature put on two high-altitude shows last week, one astronomically stupendous, and the other meteorologically harrowing. We are all worried about people in the path of devastating tropical storm Harvey - they don't need quilts, but we can donate funds to a variety of helpful agencies. 

For those of you in need of a distraction from the storm news, let's discuss the eclipse. How was yours?  Here in Los Angeles, I felt a bit let down. At 62% coverage, the world didn't look any darker. Birds didn't flock, dogs didn't bark, everything seemed normal. 

But as an opportunity to commune with humanity, it was a blast! I rendezvoused with my DH at Cal Tech in Pasadena, where he works. This campus is normally so quiet that you rarely see more than one person at a time walking its shady paths. But on eclipse morning, it was thronged with joyful crowds. I had to park a half mile away, and hike in. The event sponsors ran out of viewing glasses long before I arrived. Fortunately, my DH had obtained some in advance.

Gazing through the glasses, I kept thinking: A little smiley face in heaven!

More thrilling were contraptions people made or enlisted into the effort to watch safely. There were welding helmets, and cereal boxes with aluminum foil patches. And I especially loved these two physics students' clever colander contraption:

Closer:

Now I am trying to figure out what kind of fabric art piece this inspires. NASA people to share their eclipse-inspired art, as I explained in my blog post last week. The deadline is September 15, and the rules are at go.nasa.gov/2qoqTis. (I am assuming that an art quilt fits into their "mixed media" category.)

My friend Anne Finkleman witnessed the eclipse from Atlanta, where they had 98% totality. Here are some pictures she took outside of her office building of the eclipse's shadows coming through tree leaves, which act like a giant colander. I think I'm going to base my NASA quilt on her very cool images (I have her permission!) That brick pattern is so similar to log cabin piecing.

 Here's another image she took of a different sidewalk. This sidewalk has squares on point.

That is a lot of smiles. Which brings us to the question: how to render this kind of image effectively. Applique? Thread painting? Last week, I mentioned bleach discharge as a way to get a spacey effect. 

Since then, I dug out and photographed this experimental piece made a decade ago, as a failed attempt at an astronomy-themed prayer shawl for my son's bar mitzvah. I ended up going in a different direction, but I still have it, made with Decoularant on black fabric (safer than bleach, no toxic fumes, no financial affiliation). It's over 2 yards long: 

It's based on this famous NASA photo of a spiral galaxy: 

I just painted on the Decoularant, did a little overspraying with more from a spray bottle, ironed and washed, and the results were pretty cool. Here's the front, center. 

And the back, center: 

 The back is even better, right? Below, the back, from a distance....

 Some cool blobs from the front:

And the back:

So you can see where discharge has potential for eclipse art! As does paint. Here's a Rosh Hashana postcard I made years ago with rubber stamps and white acrylic paint. 

That planet on the lower left? It's stamped with a foam circle in white paint.   Here are a couple more experimental foam circles made with paint for a different postcard (Just don't ask me why I put mah jongg tiles in space. I was young.)

More eclipse art: Oregon State University held a quilt show in honor of the event. The Quilt Show showed off some great images of art made BEFORE the big event, here.

If you need more inspiration for eclipse art, photos collected from private citizens as well as NASA scientists are on Flickr, here. If the photo is taken by a private citizen, you will need their permission to use it. If you want to view (and possibly use) NASA photos only, there's a wealth of images starting on this page. For example, here's a wonderful time lapse image taken for NASA by Aubrey Gemignani:

And below is another NASA image taken over Madras, Oregon. 

NASA's generous image terms of use are explained here. 

Finally, don't throw away your eclipse glasses. Donate them to Astronomers without Borders so needy young people can use them in the future!  Find the information here.
For those of you in Harvey territory: Stay safe.

Make an Eclipse Art Quilt! And Share it with NASA!

The good news: There's a once-in-99 years worldwide eclipse tomorrow! 

OK, that's not news, you knew that. What you might not know is that NASA is inviting people to make art quilts based on the event! The agency says, "You have until September 15, 2017 to complete your work, take a picture and upload it ...by using #EclipseArtQuilt."  To learn more about the Eclipse Art Quilt project, go to go.nasa.gov/2qoqTis. 

So now you may be thinking about whether you should photograph the eclipse. As a rule, it's a good idea for quilters to take their own photos to inspire their fiber art. But an eclipse may be the exception. You surely know that to protect your eyesight, you should not look at the eclipse without certified safety glasses. Taking direct photographs of the eclipse is also unsafe for your camera if it isn't outfitted with a solar filter. NASA's advice on safe eclipse photography is here. UPDATE: Even a cellphone selfie isn't safe for your eyes.

Fortunately, there's no compelling need to take your own photos. There are fantastic, abundant, royalty-free, and/or public domain eclipse pix - from the the past and tomorrow .

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has a long page of royalty-free photographic images of solar eclipses, at https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/images-videos.  You can't use them for commercial purposes, and must credit the photographer. Here's a simple-but-elegant time lapse photo from the site, taken by Rick Fienberg/TravelQuest International/Wilderness Travel, who had front-row seats to the event on a cruise ship off the coast of Indonesia. 

Is that not awesome? I could imagine creating an image like on fabric, using a discharge method that pulls the dye out of dark fabrics. Discharging can be done with anything from bleach pens to low-fume  agents like DeCoulerant, which is carried by many quilt shops. Read more about discharging on Dharma Trading's informational webpage, here. 

Below is another amazing Rick Fienberg image, of what astronomers call the eclipses' "diamond ring". According to AAS, the ring "appears just before the beginning of totality, when a single bright point of sunlight — the diamond — shines through a deep valley on the Moon's limb (edge) and the inner corona — the ring — becomes visible." 

Again, I could see translating his image with bleach discharge on dark fabric. Or maybe with a process known as sunpainting, in keeping with the cosmic theme. Or painting on white fabric with black and grey paints, using Mickey Lawler's addictive SkyDyes approach. Or  improvisational cutting of grey and black batiks. 

Want to review more images? Tomorrow, there will be an onslaught. According to NASA, "Viewers around the world will be provided a wealth of images captured before, during, and after the eclipse by 11 spacecraft, at least three NASA aircraft, more than 50 high-altitude balloons, and the astronauts aboard the International Space Station – each offering a unique vantage point for the celestial event.....Never before will a celestial event be viewed by so many and explored from so many vantage points – from space, from the air, and from the ground..." 

(Above is a NASA image.) And what if you can't get outside during the eclipse? You'll be working, or sleeping, or not feeling well, or a caregiver? NASA is going to televise the whole thing! Learn more here. 

Just for fun, I decided to google "Eclipse Quilts," and here's what I came up with. First, this Main Street Market pattern (it doesn't look anything like NASA photography, but is spectacular), 

And this really cool pattern designed by Sandy Brawner of Quilt Country, right now on Etsy, here. (No financial affiliation with this company or any company in this blog post!) 

The classic quilt book Strips'n'Curves by Louisa Smith has a slew of eclipse-ish quilt projects. 

When  you think about it, an eclipse is a process by which a full circle becomes a partial circle, and then recovers. If that's not quilt fodder, I don't know what is. 

Finally, super-quilter Carol Bryer Fallert Gentry made a famous series of Corona quilts,  Corona 1, Corona 2, and Corona 3 in the 1980s. On second thought, these quilts are so magnificent that I would now like to heave my sewing machine out my window. (Fortunately, I live on the ground floor.) So maybe you should design and finish your eclipse quilt, share it with NASA, and THEN look at what Carol made!

For more ideas on using public-domain astronomy photographs in fiber arts page, check out this earlier blog post. 

UPDATE: Thanks to a tip a commenter, below, I learned that the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY is showing Fallert Gentry's famous Corona 2 quilt, in honor of the eclipse. You can see it on the museum's website, here (as well as at the link above, on the artist's website). The museum will close for 15 minutes at midday so staff and visitors can witness the event! 

UPDATE: Thanks to a friend, I learned of a spectacular raffle quilt made by members of the Madras United Methodist Church in Madras, Oregon. Proceeds from the raffle go to a local food pantry. Learn more about it here (scroll down). This image is from their website. The raffle ends August 22. 

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