Etude 1

I like abstract pictures, fotos and quilts with a clear geometric design. In opposite to this strong formal design I like it when such quilts show details like fine quilting and/or  embroidery.

For this series I decided for rectangles as the main design element. 

When the colour "Green" was announced as theme for this quilt, I remembered that years ago I embroidered a semicircle with beads in green! I always wanted to integrate it in a little abstract quilt. Now its time had come :)).

The green fabrics in the quilt are selfdyed, the stripes of the background are scraps from old bought fabrics.

Only one semicircle in a quilt with straight lines looked odd, so I added two smaller semicircles. These pieces are made from painted bondaweb. I put some fabric scraps and Angelina on it and fused it with organza. When I embroidered it with some beads, sequins and handstitches.

Lines of green sequins connect the green rectangles, beaded semicircles and the background.

This quilt is 60 cm x 42 cm (24'' x 16,5''), the quilting is done by machine.

Wild Scraps

Gabriele Bach - Wild Scraps 

Wild Scraps - detail

When I read the theme for this challenge, I thought, I just have made a real wild quilt. "Backside Mystery", my quilt for the last challenge, is wild.

Ok, this is a new challenge, there are waiting more "wild" ideas. See also my post "TOO MUCH" .

I have a box full of little fabric scraps, which I can't throw away. I often try to use them but it is very difficult. They are a wild mixture of colour, pattern and style. Now their chance had come. I looked for dark red scraps and used them just in the size they were. With some trying I got a pleasing design. Again the seam allowances are on the right side and the thread ends are not hided, but short cut. 

I embellished the quilt with little red feltballs and when I embroidered very much beads. Sometimes I throw a lot of beads on my quilts and then I don't have the heart to embroider them. I fear it may be to much. This time I did the opposite and got wild with embroidering beads. I just set a space, there the beads should be.

The background is self dyed cotton.

Here Be Dragons

Wild was a great opportunity to conciously explore abstract design and then colour it using all the colours of the rainbow, paying attention to Design Principals. 

It started well, three sheets of paper, black, white and grey were cut freehand using an 80/20 proportion of curved to straight lines. That was hard, the ratio went off but never mind, it's freehand.

Some of these pieces were then arranged and pasted on an A4 sheet of white paper: Good design, good balance of value. It's still abstract and my brain is creating shapes, a boat on a surging storm wave! Rearrange them to a square format and it looks even better. I really am being quite wild in staying on track.

 Here is where it all took on a life of it's own, no wild colour, crazy quilting, beading or metallic threads. At this point the complimentary colour scheme, restrained quilting, beading and metallic threads insisted on their presence, Here on the edge of design Be Dragons.

Techniques: Appliqué, beading, metallic threads, machine and hand quilting, commercial and hand dyed cottons

TBCBEM

Memories, how do you chose one? I couldn't.
So I decided to try and represent them all using colour and then  explore the way memories are formed, reinforced and then lost through fragmentation. Research of scanning electron microscope photos and the explanation of the formation of memories  gave me the starting point for the quilting patterns.
The colours: walking through long grass, misty mornings, joy, pain, all can be captured through colour.
The strips and dots are memories, some overlapping, some being reinforced and some disintegrating. The quilting well that's the science and then the recall of events. Hanging from the bottom are the ends of the binding cord with a knot, so I won't forget.
And that weird title, that happened when my daughter, a psychologist, walked in and saw the quilt and said that's the bio cognitive basis or explanation of memory It's unwieldy but the perfect name and it stuck.
The quilt is made from cottons, some commercial some hand dyed, Super soft polyester wadding, cord, beads and 100 weight invasafil thread. The background is pieced and the surface fabrics stitched down with straight stitch close to the edge. this will allow the fabrics to fray over time much as memories do.

 

Margy

Holiday

This theme was quite a challenge. There were so many thoughts about this word, many positive and some negative, so my first thought was to make a weave of positive and negative memories, printed words on dark and light fabrics and then weave them together.

The word "Memories" also made me think of all those lovely holidays I and my family spent in Italy every spring for many years , about 35-40 years ago. Trying to interpret this lovely time I painted, with acrylic paint, a seascape with sand, water and sky. The beach is stamped with  irregular circles also  seed beads and some cotton beads and stitching were added in order to attain texture.  Parasols, sun and glitter were fused. The piece is hand quilted with silk and metallic threads.

My intention for this quilt was to make a simplified seascape which should give an impression of a peaceful and lovely time on the beach.

This was the first time I made a wholecloth quilt painted with acrylics.

Material used: Cotton fabrics, acrylic paint, seed beads, cotton beads, silk and metallic threads, cotton and polyester batting.