Combining Needle Felting with Quilting

The piece below is titled "Friday Afternoon" becasue it's a fantasy place my hubby and I would like to be each Friday as the work week winds down.

I love needle felting and I love quilting so combining the two techniques seemed like fun! I wanted to design a piece that worked with perspective and adjusting the basic Attic Window pattern helped create a feeling of looking into the horizon. The fabric I chose is from my hand dyed collection.

I knew I wanted to use needle felting for the bulk of the design and dyed wool roving specifically for this project. I didn't want any seams showing in the needle felting so I first created a border of batting that I could add the roving directly onto without the seam showing.

I'm partial to including aderondack chairs in my desgins beacue they represent unconditonal relaxing to me. I wove flax to create the beach basket and the towels are a piece of fabric I made using flour/water paste.... squiggly lines and spray paint - yah, I was totaly playing with that one!

When it came to quilting I let the design tell me where to stitch.

Fun with Fabric Manipulation

I gathered with my fellow fiber buddies for a day of dyeing fabrics and manipulating the color of fabrics using the discharge method. Everyone had a different approach and the end results were as unique as each of us!

I created a piece using "Softscrub" as the discharge agent and bubble wrap, stencils and old netting - nothing but the best for this project! Once the fabric was cleaned up it kind of appealed to me so I started playing with it. The end results are below.

I call this "Awakening" because it was so much fun to take average found objects and use them differently than their intended use. It truly awakened a spirit of adventure and excitement to keep trying new things and approach projects in a non traditional manner.

Below is a detail of the embroidery I added to highlight the Cali Lily. There are other embellishments of tube beads and iridescent beads from an old necklace my mother gave me (she gave it to me to use in my art... I didn't cut up a necklace she gave as a gift - I felt I should clarify!).

Our First Group Show!

Unitarian Society of Hartford

Presents

“Small Quilts for a

Sacred Space”

A collection of unique art quilts

created by the

Connecticut Fiber Arts Collective

May 22 – June 19 2011

Please join the artists for a reception on

 June 5^th from 12 - 3

http://www.ushartford.com/phototour.html

Chinese Lanterns

This 36" X 36" piece is titled Chinese Lanterns and created using a variation of the traditional log cabin block. Although I don't usually work within traditional boundaries I entered the Keepsake Quilting challenge this spring and the log cabin block was required. I was given 6 fabrics and had to use at least 4 plus add up to 2 fabrics of my own. The colorful fabrics are from the shop and the brown/black background is from my "discharge" collection. I embellished the background with some gold stenciling and stamping (I couldn't resist!). I didn't earn any recognition from Keepsake Quilting but I had fun stretching my imagination to create a traditional wall hanging with the log cabin block! Chinese Lanterns will be available for sale at Keepsake Quilting in Meredith, New Hampshire June through September. www.keepsakequilting.com

Dyeing with Fruit

 

We hope our first fiber artist group show will be at a CT winery this fall! As a "wine trail" challenge I'm dyeing fabric with grapes. My first attempt using the grapes was disappointing so I slowed down and remembered how to handle dyeing with natural products. I created a journal of what steps I took so I can repeat the process later - in theory at least! The theme of our show will be "Harvest" so what better way to create harvest colors than to dye with natural products! I have my eye on a package of cranberries I unearthed in the freezer for my next dyeing attempt. I'm going to rummage through my spices to see what interesting colors I can come up with... more later!

Below are the results with the grapes. I either left the fabric untreated or treated the finished product with white vinegar or alum.

 Purple Grapes

1 - Silk (vinegar), 2 - Cotton (vinegar), 3 - Silk (no treatment), 4 - Silk (alum), 5 - Cotton (no treatment)



Fiber Art Office Installations

This 3 piece office installation is titled "Reflections". It hangs in the waiting room of Sharon Colwell APRN, BC at 999 Oronoque Lane, Stratford, CT. The goal was to create a peaceful feeling while retaining a gender neutral design. 

I hand painted the fabrics using cotton for the main panels and hand dyed silk for the brown squares and cream colored strips. Lastly I created a leaf stamp choosing gold ink to tie in all the other colors. The leaves and quilting help define movement in the pieces.  

The above piece is titled, "Painted Ladies" and hangs in Ms. Colwell's inner office. I desigend this piece using hand dyed fabrics for the center panel and geraniums. I created a geranium pattern from a photograph I took of the geraniums in my garden. The border fabric was developed with the discharge method. I scattered buttons onto black cotton and sprayed the cloth with bleach and water. This created the unusual look of a black and tan design.

If you know of a space that needs a customized look please feel free to contact me and we'll come up with a one of a kind piece just for you!