Hearts

When I read the theme of our new challenge two months ago I immidiately remenbered a sketchbook exercise that was part of the Creative Quiltmaking course I took a few years ago. We had to create an arrangement of a selected shape on the page then cut it out partially and fold it in order to see the page below.
After dismissing a few other ideas I took my sketchbook and looked for this exercise, then started to find out how to turn this paper exercise into fabric.

I replaced paper with lutradur to get enough stifness to be able to fold the partially cut-out shapes. I first painted the lutradur with setacolor paint. As the sprayed ink I had used in my sketchbook flowed I used wax pastels to paint the heart shapes, a dark red for the bigger ones on the yellow lutradur and a light pink for the small hearts on the dark pink lutradur. I first painted and cut out the big heart then put the second layer under the first one in order to align both hearts. Like in y sketchbook I cut the bigger heart in the middle to open it like a window to both sides and left a small bridge in the middle of the smaller heart.

Both lutradur layers were stitched between the top fabric layer (the surface) and a bottom fabric layer plus batting and backing.

Contrary to my sketchbook work I didn't cut out a window in the top layer. Instead I left a flap I was able to roll open more or less over the hearts to accentuate the idea of layers, that the heart shapes are under the layer of green fabric. I added a few stitched squares to give the impression that one cannot see everywhere what is under the surface and has to imagine it.

commercial hand dyed cotton fabric

lutradur

polyester batting

cotton thread

fabric paint and wax pastels

Sabine

PS the picture of mmy sketchbook page for this quilt is still in the gallery of Creative Quiltmaking on the homepage of Linda Kemshall.

Tastes and techniques change

A few years ago I belonged to another challenge group, the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. They have a challenge each month, with some parameters, wide or narrow, and the idea is that you complete the challenge within a week, no overthinking, lots of chance to experiment. It is always good to have a playday, even when you are in middle of a larger, more difficult work that is going to take weeks or months to complete.

I made this one for a space challenge, using lutradur through my inkjet printer, and a photo from NASA of the Orion Nebula. I have never used that technique since, and I was a little disappointed that the colours were not as intense as I hoped.

Luckily, time has passed, and I have evolved, so I wouldn't want to repeat that for the current theme.

The downside of the evolution is that we accumulate fabric, threads and supplies over a number of years, and then find it is not to our current taste, or, as in my case, I now use a lot of my own hand-dyes. What to do with all that commercial fabric in turquoise, magenta and multi-colour prints? Originally I imagined I would do some bed quilts using strips or blocks, but that is not going to happen!

Balance?

When this theme "Balance" was announced I thought there were so many possibilities that it should not be too difficult to find a good idea to interpret the theme, but with many options to tackle, it was not so easy any longer. What to choose? The balance practice at the gym was my first thing to ponder about, building towers with lego and blocks were another one, but at the end I chosen to build something with stones. I like stones and organic forms so make something with stones were a good choice, a bit of a challenge though, to make a balanced pile of stones, perhaps impossible?
As I wanted to give the stones different textures I used a lot of different materials, which are raw appliquéd on top of a background fabric dyed with Procion MX Dye.

Materials used are: cotton fabrics, Evolon, wool, paper, Lutradur, textile paint, foil and silk, metallic and wool threads.