Eukalyptus Leaves Quilt - WALK OVER!

This time I have not been able to make the 4:th Eucalyptus Leaves Quilt. I really have tried hard and a lot, but all my ideas and samples were not good enough, so I have to make a "walk over" this time.
The other day I got round to reading this phrase "The iterative process - reworking, reworking and reworking again - learning something more each time, giving innovations a chance to emerge - and through failures, building resilience". I hope to be able to come back with my final Leaves Quilt another day! Instead of pushing myself to make the quilt in time I got hooked on something else. In October I viseted Ancient Messene in Peloponnesos in Greece.

(Wikepedia)
Most of the area of Ancient Messene contains the ruins of the large classical city-state of Messene refounded by Epaminondas in 369 BC. This Messene, is today´s Ancient Messene. Currently the substantial ruins are a major historical attraction. Much of it has been archaeologically excavated and partly restored or preserved for study and public viewing, as well as for various events. The site was never totally abandoned"

Below are some photos from this beautiful place.

 The Olympic Stadion. All seats are numbered and still visabel after thousands of years.

The theatre above is even used today playing old Greek Dramas and below is a detail from the ancient watering system.

Here on one of the stones at the old theatre I found some interesting patterns which I thought was absolutely lovely. 

I  loaded it up on my computer and printed it out on a  piece of white cotton and started to embroider on it. Lots of french knots, beads and buttenhole rings.

The rings  were made  by winding the thread several times  around one, two or three fingers in an anticlockwise direction and then work  buttonhole stitches with a tapestry needle  left to right (if you are right-handed) over the threads around the thread ring. This idea I got from the book "Stitch and Structure. Design Technique in two - and three-dimensional textiles"  by Jean Draper.

 I have also used rusted fabric to make the pebbles/stones - Timtex on the back as a stiffener, batting on top of it and over this the rusted fabric.  This technique is described in June/July 2014, Quilting Arts Magazine.

Close ups

Leaves á la Art Deco

The theme I have chosen for this year´s 4 quilts, is leaves. The challenge this time was Art Deco. After some research about Art Deco I have tried to interpret this challenge by using strong colors and stained-glass, which resulted in these 3 geometric, colorful, abstract, eucalyptus leaves and its seeds on a background with rectangular forms surrounded with black strips.

The black parts  in the leaves are kunin felt - under the circles, as well as under the red square shapes -   and black cotton fabrics.

The black lines in the background are bias strips. The background is pieced and the leaves are appliquéd as well as raw edge appliquéd. The piece is machine quilted and some hand quilting is made on the light grey background pieces to obtain some texture.

Size: 15 x 20 inches

Green Leaves

The theme for this quilt was GREEN. As an inspiration I have used a photo of mine with a foliage of Eucalyptus leaves. A section of the photo that I thought had some interest was cropped and enlarged which helped to simplify it. As a background a grey satin cotton fabric was chosen in order to make the green leaves and the magenta, purple and violet leaves veins  stand out.
The quilt is pieced and the leaves are raw-edge machine appliquéd and machine quilted. The perimeters of the leaves are hand stitched with gold thread and chain stitches and the background are hand quilted with seed stitches and gold threads in a kind of Kantha stitches.

Size 15 x 20 inches

Above are some close ups.

In order to get some differences in the texture I have machine quilted the leaves in different ways.

Scandinavian Runes & Greek Letters

During my 2 years as a member of this group, this theme "Lettering" was the most challenging for me, even if I earlier had made 2 quilts containing letters, Every Day and Marks.

The idea of letting the Scandinavian runes and the Greek letters come together in a quilt come to me
as I often pass a couple of  rune stones when out walking in Sweden (Mariefred) and in Greece (Messinia) where I often pass a small "Monument" with Greek text reminding of the war.

For the Greek theme I chose to use different shapes of urns and fig leaves together with Greek lettering.

For the Scandinavian runes I just embroidered letters by hand saying, Latitude Quilts November Two Thousand Fourteen and after that 3 extra letters (X,Y and M) just in order to fill up the piece.

The Greek background fabric is a Procion dyed linen whole cloth stamped and stenciled with gold and white textile colors, discharged paste and oil paint sticks. The urns and fig leaves are machine embroidered with Metallic and Rayon threads.

The runes are hand embroidered on a piece of sturdy cotton fabric painted with a gold acrylic paint.

The main colors of blue, white and gold was chosen with the colors of the Swedish and Greek flags in mind, even if they do not exactly correspond to the true blue and yellow colors of the Swedish flag and the blue color of the Greek flag.

I know what you will answer

What a capacious word LOVE. 

It has so many meanings: love to children, love to man, love to parents, love to nature, love to quilting and so on and so on.

The idea came out really quickly. I wanted to dedicate this quilt to our love – my husband and me. I wanted to do a lot of handwork so “boro” style has been chosen.

Colours and forms of scraps symbolize our characters.

Very often while sitting together quietly I ask my husband: ”May I ask you?”

He:      I know what you will ask.

I:          I know what you will answer.

He:      Yes, I love you!

I:          I love you too.

Is this love?

Sur le cou-de-pied

I started by analyzing Balance, and several ideas sprang to life, but one settled. When I was younger, classical ballet was a great part of my life. And the most important part of ballet is balance. In every movement you have to find the balance of your body.
Next, I had to find how to express this, my first thought was to use an image of my old battered shoes hanging on the wall. But they did not express much balance. But this position, "Sur le cou-de-pied", pins the body to the ground when it is in balance.
I decided to go for stenciling this time, and made two stencils out of freezer-paper, one of the feet and one of the shoes. I used acrylic paint with textile medium. Then I added shadow with Paint-sticks, quilted the shoes and filled the background with ballet-terms. I finished it all with some hand-stitching to suggest the floor.

 And some close ups: