Showing posts with label Brigitte. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brigitte. Show all posts

Monday, January 26, 2015

A Final Challenge - COURAGE

For us, our challenge this time is not one that is easily portrayed but is a challenge never the less.  Since our group began in 2011 under the mentorship of Diane Perin Hock, one of the Twelves, let's see what we've done.  In each of the collages below from upper left to lower right our challenges were; games, celebrate, tools, look up, balance, green, architecture, beginnings, blue, remnants, open, music, artistic license, mystery from Lisa, and process.

These were Beverly's offerings;

Brigitte's offerings;

Gina's offerings

Janet's offerings

Judy's offerings

Lisa's offerings

Vicki's offerings

Although Nicolette was not with us for long, these were her offerings

Such a wonderful compilation of creativity and artistry.  So the next challenge?  Hard to know what it will be.  You see, our little Tangled Textiles group will be untangling and heading off in different directions, pursuing paths that hopefully lead to their creative hearts' desires.  We have been stretched creatively and been amazed by what we have managed to produce in the short time that we have collaborated. It's been an inspiring 4 years.  It's always sad to see things end, however....

It's also a happy time.  We have formed friendships that have encouraged, supported and cajoled us into becoming confident fiber artists.  Happy because each of us will stretch our wings and take flight in whichever "updraft" comes along. It takes courage to strike out on unknown paths.

It takes courage to admit each of us is now ready for a change, a new path, a new adventure, and it takes courage to follow where it may lead.  We have come to know each other through our musings, creative stumbles, and artistic victories and have had the courage to share them here.  Your comments have been treasured.  We have reached a crossroad.  It's been quite a ride, hasn't it?   We invite you to follow us on our personal blogs as we go in different directions.  Our next challenge?  COURAGE to follow that path that is calling us.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Dad's Spirit Pillow

Until now you have been reading the process I have used to create what I'm about to reveal today.  You read about the inspiration here, and the process of its creation here, here, and here.  Please indulge me a little more.  Here in its entirety is the rest of the poem that inspired my piece.

This song my friend, please understand
is from my heart, about my land.
My country young and great and wide,
two might oceans on its side,
And looking north, when clear the nights,
it's marked by our Northern Lights.
Where love and energy I give
with pride and pleasure, here to live,
in peace, in Canada, my land.
Please keep it that way, not to end.
I wish that it shall always be,
the country that it is for me.
A favour though, I'd like to ask
should you be charged a certain task.
When spirit moves to greater heights
my destination Northern Lights;
Just gather stems of wheat and hay
no matter what some people say,
Some twigs of cedar, birch and willow;
I'd like these for my spirit's pillow.
Then intertwine them, make a wreath, 
adorn it with a maple leaf;
Then place the same upon a hill
and know, my spirit is here still.
©   A.H.E. 

The final steps in the process included the addition of some thread stitched cedar boughs;


and of course some free motion quilting.


The process now being complete, here at long last is the end result.


I hope I did my inspiration justice.  Oh yes and thank you Vicki for this "theme", I'm getting better at documenting the PROCESS!

Friday, November 21, 2014

Some final steps...

and my PROCESS piece will be ready for quilting.  I added some hand embroidery to represent wheat.

I want to add some dimensional work so I attempted to create cedar branches with stitchery.  I photocopied a branch I picked from a local cedar tree so that I had a sample of how the branch should look.

I free motioned the cedar boughs onto a wash away stabilizer called "Wash 'n Gone".

Now that three boughs are stitched, I need to wash away the stabilizer.  In order to keep the branches from becoming a jumbled mess of thread, I have had to pin each of the needles to a styrofoam board.  I used left over meat trays from the butcher.

I'll add some more embroidery after I see how the boughs look.  Whew! Almost there.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Spirit pillow - progress and process

At my last post, I had designed several Celtic knot wreaths.  Next step in the PROCESS was to narrow it down to one of the designs.  This is the one I selected.

Fabric selection was next.  I found a black/white striped fabric that I thought could work for birch and a brown/tan stripe that may suffice for cedar.  I also wanted some background that might give the impression of being "high on a hill"; you know "airy like".  A Northcott Stonehenge worked beautifully.

After tracing the Celtic knot to the background fabric, I made some bias tape and have started attaching it to the traced pattern like this

and like this
The bias strips are now all attached.  Next will come the hand stitching (lots of it).  Something representing a willow needs to be added.  There are a few more items to add so I'd best get going.  November 24th will be here before I know it.


Thursday, October 9, 2014

Over Under, Over Under

Okay, I've got the next step underway on my process.  If you can't recall my inspiration, you can read about it here.

I recently returned from a retreat where we learned to design Celtic knots.  Ahhh; an epiphany!  I could design a knot to use as the "wreath".  So here is where I started;

Took a square of tracing paper, folded it horizontally, vertically, diagonally until I had what I thought were sufficient "wedge" sections to create my envisioned wreath;


cut a single wedge and drew several organic intersecting lines; refolded the paper square and inserted the single wedge within the folds and traced the lines.  I had to remember to "mirror" the image in every other section.  This is what resulted.  Hmm...not exactly what I was looking for; try again.


Next attempt; better


Try another one; also not bad


I discovered that the more wedge sections there were, the more complex the resulting knot.  Hmmm...I tried a few more.  Now I just have to decide which ones to use.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

3 of 5 W's

What will I create?  Where do I begin?  When will inspiration strike?  Yup that's how my PROCESS usually begins.  

Where to begin; that usually takes place on the computer searching the internet for an idea, an image, a thought provoking article.  No luck so far.

When will inspiration strike; that usually happens when I'm down to the final days prior to the reveal.  Not this time though.  My inspiration came while looking through some old papers of my father's.  He was quite a poet, had written and stored quite a few, but never published them.  I came across an envelope marked "Please do this little thing for me."  I opened it and inside was one of his poems.  I won't recite the entire thing, but these lines inspired me.

Some twigs of cedar, birch and willow,
I like these for my spirit's pillow,
Then intertwine them, make a wreath,
adorn it with a maple leaf.
Then place the same upon a hill
and know, my spirit is here still.
--©  A.H.E.

What to create; hopefully a piece representing the picture created by my father's words.

Now some brainstorming is going to take place.  Stay tuned!

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Tumbling into the rear

Well at long last I have managed to finish my piece.  A family event had kept me from my sewing machine and the muse was having no artistic licence at all.  Nevertheless, I spent time trying to coming up with something.  I had recently attended a workshop by Sue Benner, where we studied various design concepts. One in particular, rectilinear design, nudged my creative juices.  I started looking at square, rectangular, and oblong design settings.  One in particular kept coming up.  Here is a picture of what I kept seeing.
 and another one

Numerous pictures of "Tumbling Blocks" quilts.

I had created some "odd" blocks in Sue's class that gave the impression of being tumbled.  They looked like this.

I had already given an idea to Lisa for this challenge so I couldn't use that one.  She blogged about it here. Yup! That's when the epiphany hit.   If artistic licence gives me the freedom to take something, change it, and still have it be recognizable, then here is my rendition.
But to get the entire effect of how I used artistic license here is the full picture.  You can read about it's construction here.
Go figure...I've called it Blocks Tumbling. Ta da, more artistic license!  LOL!  Thanks Judy for the theme.  It was a challenger.







Sunday, January 12, 2014

A Tribute to Frank Mills

So what do you think of when you think of music?  Opera, Rock 'n Roll, Jazz?  It was a question I asked myself when Janet suggested this theme.  First I thought of portraying a musical instrument; something like this:
 
But this wasn't striking a chord with me.  I thought perhaps rendering the image of a great musician might do the trick, something like this:
 
 
Nope this wasn't sounding the right note for me either.  Okay, more research and I thought, hmmm maybe a well know album cover, something like this:
 
 
This "mouldy oldie" was not going to play nicely in fabric.  Maybe I was taking this too literally, so I browsed my music collection and heard this:
 

 
This provided the harmony that I needed to get me started and on my way to completing a piece for this challenge.  So my tribute to Frank Mills is my interpretation of this particular melody in fiber. 
 
 
Thank you Janet for bringing MUSIC into my studio. If you step over to my blog, you will see how I put it all together.

Friday, January 3, 2014

Musical Interlude

It's relatively quiet in our little group, so I thought a little musical interlude might be nice.  Here is a shared piece from YouTube.



On another note, just in case you're curious here is a sneak peak of what is waiting in the wings.

Picture is not as good as it could be, but it gives you an idea.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

The Right Key

Initially drawing a blank on where to go with this one I went for a drive to the park, passed several homes, and an industrial park.  Sat on a bench for a while and came home, passing that same industrial park.  This time however, I noticed a locked gate and thought, “you'd need the right key to open that one.”  Bingo.  An idea was germinating.  I had some painted fabric that resembled an industrial park and looked like this.


I cut it in half and used the lower half, hoping it might work to represent a chain link fence.  Keys? I gathered up old keys around the house.  Will they work?  How will I portray them?   Using a stenciling technique, I traced them onto freezer paper, cut out the shape, and pressed the resulting stencil to the fabric.  With Shiva paintsticks I got the images of keys onto the fabric.  I also remembered a pointillist technique I had learned.  I found an image of an old key and went to work.  This just might work.
 
 

I went on a hunt through antique stores, thrift shops and found an old skeleton key and decided that I would do a rubbing.  I didn’t like the result, so I set the key aside. The piece needed some hand stitching along with the machine quilting to add what I thought would give it some depth. 
 
 

 

It still needed something else, but what?  I added just what an old key would need; keyholes.  Next, I added the keys.  Everyone needs THE RIGHT KEY to open something, don’t they?  There you have it. 
 
 

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Remnants After the Fire

At the time I thought of our theme, there had been several fires in the news.  I thought of the effect those fires had on property and possessions.  I pictured the charred remnants of furniture, clothing, photographs, memorabilia of the families effected by the fires.   My idea was beginning to percolate.   Initially I was going to rust fabric, but that didn't work out.  Instead I came across a tattered piece of this.
an old crocheted dresser scarf.  Ah!  This could work.  I just had to add to (or subtract from) this tattered piece and I would have a remnant, right?  So I took the piece, grabbed some matches and attempted burn the piece.  I didn't quite get the effect I was looking for, but after a bit of rubbing with charcoal it started to look like what I wanted. 
I now had pieces that looked like they had been burnt. All that was needed was a background.  I remembered a technique I had learned for piecing curves and used it to create a background that would represent fire.
 To this background I added some free motion quilting to represent the fire's flames.
Next came the pieces that I had burned and rubbed with charcoal by FMQing them to the background.  Here are some detail shots.  You can see the burn on this piece.
and the charcoal on this piece
 
Like Beverly, my piece is also not quite finished.  It is missing the binding because I couldn't decide if I should use a binding or use a facing.  So I have left that decision to the rest of you TTs.  What do you think?  Here is my representation of Remnants After the Fire.
 
 
 
 


Thursday, January 31, 2013

All that remains...

is to tell everyone what the next theme is. 

Hmm…Let me see.  I'd just finished my dinner and desert.  I couldn’t eat it all so this is what was left.

While thinking about our next theme I turned on the TV and started "channel surfing"  There were programs about ancient civilizations;

about the results of war;

about renovating and remodelling;

and a documentary about forest fires.
 
I was starting to see a theme.  Have you guessed it yet?  If I add one or two more pictures like this?
 
 
Does that help?  No….Okay I’ll give you the answer.  The theme this time around is REMNANTS.

Just think, there are remnants of the past, remnants of time, not to mention the remnants pictured above.  So there you have it; our theme for this next round is REMNANTS.  I think because February is such a short month, let’s make our reveal date April 30th.  I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone interprets this theme.  Remember...take pictures of your process to share.  And if you run into a road block come back here to share