A Matinee with a Manatee

I have to admit, this one was a little tricky. I looked up the definition hoping to find a new angle, but there was none.

This is hand dyed fabric appliqued, then machine quilted. I forgot how much I suck at applique, but like I promised--it was real sewing this time :) I used gel medium to transfer a picture of a manatee.

Is Praire supposed to be any easier??? Maybe I'd better go back and do some of the words I thought were hard to do...they've now become not so hard!

Mother Earth Is Tired

This may not be considered a "quilt", so I apologize. I promise! Next month I'll do a three layer, stitched quilt.
This is my green quilt. I made the paper/fiber, dyed it in greens and made a face with it. You can't really see, but the bottom layer has seeds imbedded in it. You'll see bits of newsprint and other "trash", as well as bird feathers for the eyebrows.

BYU Blue

If you look carefully, you'll see the name of the quilt in there.
I saw this done and just had to experiment on my own. Everything used is polyester: felt, crushed velvet, and wonder under, except for the cotton thread. That way I am able to burn away everything but the thread holding it together.
I've recently started working on my basic degree through the BYU BGS program in Creative Writing.

Peace Coming

Still catching up...

This is Peace. I have always wanted to do one of those off white, lacy, Victorian sort of, weddingish type of pieces. They are always so pretty to look at. I tried to add a hot gun effect, melting away some areas...and that didn't really go well. I'll have to try that out on some other piece. I really enjoyed doing this one.

Comfort Spelled Out

Sorry, but I'm still trying to catch up. This is my comfort challenge and after seeing what brought about this word, I wish I had taken a more profound view, but this is what I came up with.

I love working this small, because it forces me to work smaller, getting all of my ideas in the allowed space and sometimes my brain says I can't fit it all in, but I did! I also am a lousy artist, but I just finished reading a book (called Remembering Isaac) about keeping a sketch journal, and drawing and writing your thoughts and ideas, and it inspired me to just go for it: mixing up the drawings (no matter how bad or silly) with words and ideas.

Just as a side note: Comfort comes as a result of seeing the success of doing something you didn't think you could do.

Nature's Chaos

Yeah, I'm with you Beverly. I wanted to get away from the obvious. With the Christmas season coming on, and a timely walk in the woods, I began thinking about Nature's Chaos vs Man-made Chaos and found a lot of beauty in Nature's way.

I took several pictures and found myself rearranging the leaves to fit just so. This piece is the first photo I took (before I thought to rearrange), and guess what, it was the photo that looked the most natural and that I liked the best.

The center is a photo of leaves, printed onto fabric, just laying along the path in Nature's way of chaos. I've machine quilted over some of the leaves and added rock-like beads. The fabric border was painted using whatever leaf-like stamps I had. For the added leaves, I sewed onto stabilizer and organza.

Frosty Bridge

I didn't notice until AFTER I looked at all of yours (and had already started mine), that all of us used a blue background-HONEST! and interesting...

So, this is my COLD piece. I'm not an artist, so the bridge is questionable; thank goodness for titles. My vision is looking under the bridge, so you don't see the top of the bridge. (If you have to explain your joke/art, it isn't a joke/art.) sigh...

I wanted to play with mixing machine quilting with hand embroidery. If I really wanted to do it justice, I would have piled on more handwork over more machine work, but I wanted to keep things simple, and quick.

As much as I love quilting, and especially handwork, I have to repeat to myself always...enjoy the process..., but I'll tell you, working small is great!