Net Play

"Net Play" is my creation for "Games". After spending most of our two month creation time making numerous sketches along the theme of games I settled on my favorite game and sketch. I wanted to try a new technique, new to me, so I used Terri Stegmiller's mosaic technique for my background. (You can see one of Terri's pieces that inspired me over at my blog.)

 I did some measuring and transferred the marks to my background for net placement.

With the background completed it was time to see if those sketches transferred well to fabric. I tried some of my original placements for the balls and spent a LOT of time trying to come up with the right fabrics for the balls, even considered using some wallpaper samples as the colors were right.

After days of playing with fabrics, paper, placements and photos of each one, my husband asked what it was I wanted to convey with this piece. I wanted the viewer to enjoy the visual design of the piece and if they considered the title and the elements of the piece they would see it was about tennis. He suggested I include some court lines but literal placement only added busyness so I decided to use another technique I had been wanting to use. I used three layers of tulle to create a translucent court outline and put it in the area that needed another element of design.

I was happy with the added court but the balls weren't working well. I wanted to create depth and a single path. My two sets of balls created confusion for me. Finally when looking at the photos I'd taken of numerous option, the winner jumped out at me. I had thought I would add quilting or stitching lines to represent the tennis balls but decided against that as I like the idea of balls or bubbles as well as tennis balls moving across the piece. I didn't want literal.

Thanks team for a fun and enjoyable two months with our first challenge. I'm looking forward to our next!

One Step, Two Step- Beverly

 'One Step, Two Step, I Step, You Step'

 I wanted to depict the word 'Games' because it conjured up so many childhood memories for me.  My family played card games, my grandmother would get down on the floor with me and play jacks.  We raced and jumped hurdles in our large back yard.  We played Scrabble and dominoes.  And we played board games, which is the concept I finally chose to work with.

We played Monopoly and Life.  I played Chutes and Ladders and Candyland with my children when they were young.  What you see here is my own invention which my daughter claims looks like something Dr. Seuss would have come up with, hence the name.  I suppose that, given more time, I could have devised some nonsensical rules to play on this board!

I usually like to use my own hand-dyed fabrics, but somehow the bright commercial prints seemed right for this piece.  There is one bit of hand-dye, can you find it?  The background was quilted first, then the 'road' appliqued on.  I wanted the quilting to be a contrast to the curvy lines of the road, but with some variety to add interest.

I have wanted to use buttons in a quilt for a long time, and this was the perfect piece.  I was lucky enough to find a pair of button dice, the final touch.  The 'road' is edged with fusible metallic flat thread, then zig-zagged with monofilament.

Once I settled on a design, I had a lot of fun with this one.  I knew I'd succeeded when my eleven year old granddaughter looked at it for the first time and said, "It's a board game!"

Alphabet Soup!!!!!

My recipe....

starts with a word game for inspiration...

(I looooove word games!)

and then....

1.Mix glue and water, place freezer paper on flat surface (ie floor)

2. Rip up tissue paper

3. Cut up a crossword puzzle book

4. Glue down tissue paper and crossword pieces onto muslin background

5. Create paper cloth (a la Kelli Nina Perkins)

6. Create a grid on freezer paper

7. Lay grid on paper cloth

8. and 9. Use a variety of mixed media (including Lutradur, Transfer

Artist Paper, painted fabric, hand dyed fabric,
diluted fabric paint, rubber stamps,

water soluble crayons, stencils, paintstiks, punches,
paper cloth remnants, painted baby wipes, stitching)...
and create ~1 inch alphabet squares (121 of them)

10. Make a mess!!!!
 11. and 12. Fill up the grid with the letter squares and then adhere with gel medium

13. Remove grid and stitch around all the letters (that takes about 3 hours!!!)

14. and 15. Quilt the words from the Word Search

16. Bind quilt with painted muslin

and then,

you have Alphabet Soup!!!!

Now I'm ready for Round #2!!!!

Ready or Not!

- 99 - 100! Ready or Not, here I come!

I choose the game of Hide and Seek and have used a variety of techniques, including raw edge applique, yarn couching, painting, stamping and free piecing, as well as thread painting and quilting to define the different images.  There are somethings I`d definitely do differently if I were to do it again - it is after all a learning experience, but all in all, I`m very please with how it has turned out!

made good use of a previously woven piece for the background around the fir tree, and thread painted branches on water soluble stabilizer, raw edge applique on stamped leaves in background

I see you!  raw edge applique, thread painting, paint and coloured pencils

This was fun!  bring on the next challenge!

Cheers,

Janet

Who's Who of Tangled Textiles

I am not sure how the idea of a crossword puzzle came to me, it was probably something Beverly wrote in her email describing the challenge. Once I had a format in mind the challenge was how to develop it. I wanted to focus on the group members and their blogs as a way of getting to know the members better.

Once the crossword puzzle questions and answers were constructed I explored several laborious methods of  transferring the puzzle to fabric and decided the most logical idea was to scan the completed puzzle into Photoshop.

The biggest hurdle was printing on fabric. There were problems with color saturation, paper misfeeds and ink smudges.  Perseverance paid off and I finally printed something that was usable.

I used a pillowcase finish for the first time and this technique worked well. All in all, I am pleased with the finished piece. More details are available on my blog.

fifteen-love

on the 15th of June, our first reveal date!

To say that making my first little art quilt using a theme was quite a challenge is the understatement of the year. You all made me feel so welcome in the group and I really achieved my goal thanks to your ecouragement.

I made sketches about throwing marbles, Pétangue, sailing, surfing, labyrinths, pick up sticks, Monopoly, darts, games of the heart, chess and tiddledy wink, but after all these, I decided to go for the game of tennis.



Why? On May 22nd the Grand Slam clay court Tennis Tournament called Roland Gaross started in Paris. I’m a huge fan and always love to watch the matches. One day later I made some sketches. This idea grew on me as I played tennis myself for a very long period of time.



The image was inspired by the pictures they show on TV of the places a tennis player has hit the tennis balls during a game or set, but it also reminded me of the tennis lessons I took, hitting one ball after another to practice.



I used hand dyed fabrics from Africa and one commercial piece. I selected a part of the tenniscourt to create a Mondriaan like, abstract feel. I quilted wavy lines above the baseline, to represent the movements of the players, and I quilted straight lines in the left piece to represent the net. I bound the quilted threads together, to symbolize the broken strings of a tennis racket.



I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out, but taking pictures was almost as challenging as making the quilt. These colours are really hard to photograph!

The quilt represents me well, as I’m kind of a straight forward, what you see is what you get person. I’m not an embellisher, not in my clothing, our home decoration nor in my graphic work. I love minimalism. However... you never know what the next challenge may bring!

Nicolette

just a little tease

More later!

Nicolette

Finished in the nick of time!!

I never thought I'd make it, but I did it.  It's done.  Here is just a little piece.

I tried something new with this one.  You'll have to wait till later today to see the whole thing, though.

Pheeew!

I got it done! 

I don't think this will give anything away!

Until Wednesday!

Getting Close

I have finished the quilting and now have the edge treatment to consider. Yes there were lots of starts and stops and I have many threads to tie.

The quilting is not traditional and I am not using a traditional binding this time so this will be an experiment for me. Of course, the entire project has been an experiment, so the fact that I am not doing a traditional binding should not surprise anyone. With luck, I will be done tomorrow night, but I am keeping my fingers crossed, just in case.

Yikes

Can someone stop the clock!!

Do you see anything you recognize? Will it all come together? YES!!

Six Days to Finish

Will it all come together by the 15th?

Progress!

I have a sketch, a plan and some fabrics pulled.

Now I just need some time!
 Can you guess what it is???

Moving from Sketches to Fabric

I've finally started into the fabric preparation, collecting, creating stage. I'd love to share the numerous sketches and get your opinions and feedback but that wouldn't be abiding by our reveal day so I'll have to go with my own judgement whether for better or worse and you can let me know where I went wrong at reveal time! It's all a learning process and a fun one too!

Above are some Dyna-flow painted fabrics that may make it into my games quilt and below are some bought fabrics that I am so hoping will work out but if not I'll have a new journal or purse in greys and browns!

Lots to do

OK, time to send a little peek into my piece.

I have put together a materials list for you.

 Medium and heavy weight interfacing and lightweight fusible film.

 Organza (lots and lots especially shiny ones), chiffon, satin, crushed velvet.

 Tulle, Fabric for digital printing, japara, cotton wool.

 cotton fabrics

 lots of templates!!!!!

 Too many samples in my book

 Polymer clay, a piece of bark, some twigs and yarn.

lots of yummy thread.

and beads, beads, beads.

Well, sounds like I have work to do and only ten or eleven days to do it. OMG.  Stop procrastinating.  NOW!

Paper Trial

After having a delightful time with the grandchildren in L.A., it is time to get serious about  progress on the Game challenge.

I have printed a portion of the design on paper and the next step is to print on PFD fabric. Drum roll please!

A quick look

Well, I guess everyone has been busy with sketching, planning, and mulling over ideas.  Either that or everyone is finished and just waiting for reveal day.  So here I am...fabric still in one piece, plan laid out on paper and just getting ready to finally start construction.  Just to keep your curiosity up, here is my colour palette, or did I give too much away?

What do you think?

Peek-A-Boo

Thought it was time to check in and find out how everyone is doing.  Just in case you might be wondering, here is another clue of what game I'm playing.

If that one doesn't help, how about this one....

Till the reveal day then on June 15th.

"Sneak Peek" Sunday...

Hmmmm.....

I think I have started challenge #1

A few clouds on the horizon

Here are my first samples for my challenge piece.  I have been very lazy, or simply procrastinating as these have been on my desk for a week or two.  These are samples of the sky I am going to put in my piece, they are based on this photo.

The first sample is needlefelted.

The needle felting gives it a fluffy look.  On the right, I simply felted onto cotton with the white and tried to get the bumpy bits right.  On the left, I put down some pale blue before felting in a more loose manner.  This looks more natural and gives the fluffy edges to the clouds.
My second sample is appliqued and thread painted.

I applied sheer organza in layers using my heat wand with a very fine point (and not a high heat).  This allowed me to attach  the sheer and to get all the fiddly little bits on this cloud.
Then I simply threadpainted in circles all over the clouds, going over the edges a little bit to make it a bit puffy.  I can see in this picture, that I need to do a little more thread painting to merge the edges of the organza, but this is not  as obvious in real life.
Anyway, here are my first samples.  The reason I used this photo was that I liked all the little bits on the edge of the clouds.  These are totally impossible to do at this scale with an embellishing machine, but the felted clouds are more natural.  What do you all think?   There will be a lot of other thread painting, so the felting would add more texture, but I do like the thread painted one.