Color book

I just found some photos on my boy's computer, accidentally downloaded there from my camera card. These are from a little color book I made for a sweet little girl's birthday. The pattern was in the 101 Patchwork Projects magazine that I've gotten a whole lot of mileage from. For such a simple concept though, this project made a grand mess, since I needed to get out every. single. color. bin of fabric in my closet.

I started with a strip of gray gridlines from my Best. Day. Ever! jelly roll to cross stitch a simple title. I didn't want to use a lot of words, though, so this was the only one.

Colors birthday book

I didn't have any trouble with the first few pages:

Colors birthday book: PINK

Orange is particularly a snap for me:

Colors birthday book: RED and ORANGE

This is my favorite 2-page spread, so citrusy and cheerful:

Colors birthday book: YELLOW and GREEN 

I had to really dig for these ones. I have a lot of blue fabrics, because I never use them, and they just don't all seem to go together. (I think it's time for a major purge of this bin.) Tardis courtesy of my husband's shirt scraps (a Spoonflower splurge); swan courtesy of my mom's birthday purse scraps.

Colors birthday book: AQUA and BLUE 

The purples are fun; I tend to use these up as soon as I find them, but I have lots of little treasured scraps around. I especially love the chair!

Colors birthday book: PURPLE

Holly's green garden page

This is the last of the pages that I made for my art group's color project. Holly wanted a series of green "garden"-themed pages that she could hang in her three-season room; I worked a little off the page (so to speak) to make something that would take advantage of a partially outdoor space.

I started with a bunch of green scraps, mostly cutoffs from my Chopsticks quilt. I was very happy with how they came together, something like a labyrinthine path through a garden. After some squared-off meandering, I cut some crazy flower circles from a print and beaded & sequined the hell out of them so they would catch the light. Once those were finished, I attached them onto the background using springs so they would wiggle a little in a breeze. Also, I made a spectacular beaded spider using directions that happened to come across my Facebook feed at just the right time. After the binding was on, I added a beaded fringe with tiny jingle bells to make this a multisensory quilt.

Holly's green garden page

Close-up of Holly's green garden page, springs visible

Close-up of Holly's green garden page, beaded spider

I know a lot of people are tired of the snow that has been falling all month, but I sure am getting a lot of unexpected quilting done on these homebound afternoons. Back to work on the art group's Red project for February...I will have TWO to share at our next meeting for a change -- huzzah for snow days!!

Color Journals: Grey for Lisa

I couldn't wait to get my turn at this project. Lisa chose grey as her color, and rather than making a book, she asked us all to make small panels that would hang together in her meditation room. I'm next-to-last on this project, so I had the delight of looking at her amazing collection of pieces for the whole Aug-Sept month. I didn't want to presume to photograph other people's work for my blog, and I am sorry that you, my Faithful Readers, can't see it. It's astonishing how much color variation exists within the realm of "grey."

I used 1" diamonds in 36 different fabrics to build a hexagon, then I quilted it with -- what else? -- the flower of life motif that works so well with this pattern. I added a little swirly feathering in the grey border, and some beads for some sparkly contrast along the edges.

Lisa's grey hex panel

I wasn't sure what to do for the back, but just as I was getting this project together, Urban Threads offered a free (!) pattern that was perfect for the "healing" theme that Lisa requested. Serendipity!! The border fabric is a text piece with words like "zen", "wabi sabi" etc.---another bit of serendipity brought to you courtesy of the Strategic Fabric Reserves.

Reverse of Lisa's grey hex panel

In the lower photo, you may be able to make out the snowflake obsidian beads that I used to attach it to the neighboring piece. I'm sure she'll be sharing this next summer at the Greater Hartford Quilt Show -- don't miss it!! I am super jealous (not in a Deadly Sin sort of way, just in a Profound Appreciation sort of way) that I didn't come up with this idea for my own project.

We're in the last round now, so I have to make a green garden page for Holly...and then I can post photos of my own spectacular orange hex book!!

Color Journals: Blue and Brown for Rose

I made this page earlier in the summer, but since Rose was on vacation when I showed it, I held off on blogging so she would see it in person first. Her colors really aren't "mine" although I do appreciate the sky/earth concept that she has mentioned several times. I know that Rose's family enjoyed a trip to Alaska several years ago, so I started with a Google search for "Alaskan art." The native motifs of salmon, bear, and orca jumped off the (virtual) page at me, and I fine-tuned the search for some clipart that I could replicate in fabric.

Within the bowels of the Strategic Fabric Reserves, the perfect fabric was lurking. I must have purchased it specifically for this very project; the colors were spot-on and the motifs looked like they were lifted directly off a totem pole.

From the Andover Facets collection

I started with scrappy strips of the focus fabric and other coordinating browns and blues to make a frame, then I created the whale on a piece of ultra pale blue batik that had a very faint chunky swirl print, just the right background for this style. I fused every piece separately and satin-stitched around the edges. I used a Micron pigma pen to draw in smallest eyes (in the brown diamonds on the dorsal fin and tail), free-motioned spirals all over the background, then added a beaded plume.

Rose's orca journal page

Detail, Rose's orca journal page

For the back, I used another of the Facets print:

Alaskan orca journal page (reverse)

 My husband has requested a copy of this project to hang in our house.

Color Journals: Purple for Ann Marie

Ann Marie likes purple, with accents of teal and turquoise; she wanted a page that conveyed something about the natural world or the idea of change. I started with a beautiful fabric with hints of metallic sheen, added a stylized silhouette applique, and finished with a little curved piecing in the lower section. Tight loopy quilting in the lighter fabrics made the bird shape stand out from the foam batting, almost a trapunto look. The words ahead of the bird's wings are the first line of Maya Angelou's "Caged Bird." I love her poetry, how she chose words that could transform the ugliest reality into beautiful possibility, and I thought they were appropriate for this lovely simple page.

Purple page for Ann Marie

Purple page for Ann Marie (reverse). For the first time ever, I planned the back too, so the outlined bird shape would appear to be dipping its wing into the orange sun rays.

First verse of Caged Bird

All caught up! I've already finished most of the work on the next page, blue and brown for Rose -- hint (but no spoilers!): my husband asked if we could keep this one...

Color Journals: Daydreaming in blue for Gerry

Due to my vacation schedule, I haven't been able to attend my journal art meeting since April. I finally made it this Tuesday, with three projects that have been backlogged. I hope the delay wasn't too disruptive to the group. I'll put up separate posts for each.

My assignment for May was to make a page in blue plus a neutral for Gerry, who also selected a theme of Daydreaming. Traveling is what I daydream about, so I worked through the basic techniques in my newest book purchase Art Quilt Maps, to build a background layer of cottons, sheers, and a few interesting upholstery bits. I added some very faint neutral paint (I can't believe there's a color called "Metallic Taupe" -- reminds me of National Lampoon's Vacation), then started building a river, roads, fields, and houses. I used a nice combination of machine and hand stitching, glued on a few embellishments, and finally had some success with the sparkly Angelina fiber. I'll let the photos say the rest.

Inspiration and technique. I love this book.

Daydreaming -- full view

Daydreaming close-up. I thought this looked kind of like a cul-de-sac, but without the compass rose it was more like a big grey lollipop. I loved how the tiny squares -- cut from a Stonehenge print -- looked like houses on a development plan.  I wasn't replicating a specific map of any particular place, so I don't know what the rectangular bit is "supposed" to be; it's all rather abstract.

Daydreaming close-up. I love the gridded grey sheer on the right. I can envision using this on a bunch of other map projects. The hand stitched Xs were for some dimension and interest. I glued some brass caps onto this segment of the "houses."

I love how these circles above the river came out. Hand stitching and glued brass embellishments. I stitched down each wale of the white corduroy rectangle in the upper right corner.

Coming soon: Patti's orange page!

Color Journals: Ocean blue for Lesa

I had so much fun working on Lesa's blue ocean-themed journal page. After I went to the SAQA meeting in March, I came home wanting to make some less useful strictly-for-aesthetics things, so I went small. I got caught in a frenzy of making artist trading cards and some really teeny "inchies", which are terrific with a pin glued on the back so you can wear them.

I had a little (maybe 7 x 7"?) scrap of a tropical islands/travel map fabric that I decided to slice up and inch-ify for Lesa's project. I sandwiched the scrap with a regular piece of batting and backing, did a quick simple meander, THEN I sliced the piece up and zig-zagged over every edge. Instead of making all the pieces the exact same size, I cut them in incremental widths like the pieces in a convergence quilt (Fun Trivia Fact: a convergence quilt was the first project I ever made in my Modern Era). After all the edge stitching was done, I added a little fraycheck to the corners and let them all dry overnight.

At this point, I had 25 miniature quilts that needed embellishment. One by one, taking great care to keep them in order so they could be reassembled onto the page, I added beads, pearls, shells, coral, angelina fibers, yarns, charms, sea glass, and some beautiful tiny bits of ocean-tumbled pottery. Some of the segments had only a single seed bead, but the overall effect was (in my opinion) like a Calvin & Hobbes title: There's Treasure Everywhere!

Once the inchies were finished, I prepared the main page. I used a piece of shimmery ocean blue fabric as the background, and I quilted wavy lines so that each piece would be framed. This took a little measuring effort and resulted in a scrapped first attempt. After the quilting was done, I layered a large piece of angelina fiber on the upper right of the page, and fused a fussy-cut fish from a different area of the same tropical print fabric. I added a little sparkle to the fish as well, but I fused him down BEFORE adding the inchies, to give the appearance of swimming behind the main work. To wrap it up I just glued the inchie segments in place and added a regular binding.

On the label, I copied a line from my favorite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke:

When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.

Lesa's journal page. Zoom in as much as you can -- there's so much to see on this one!

Upper-right detail of Lesa's page. I love the bubble bead on the fish, and the colors of the sea glass, coral, and pottery really vibrate. (Maybe you can barely make out the next one over on the left -- a tiny sand dollar!)

Center detail of Lesa's page. Fussy cut fishy swimming behind the inchies.

Tune in next month for the blue+neutral "daydreaming" page for Gerry...

Color Journals: Mustard for Marlene

For our round-robin book project this month, I had to make a page for Marlene, who chose the color "mustard" and asked everyone to use an old black-and-white photo (from a selection that she provided in her package, already printed onto fabric) to "tell a story" of some type. I will confess that for this project, I find it more difficult to work when there is both a color and a theme. It took most of the three weeks for me to choose which photo to use. Eventually I decided on one with a scholarly looking gentleman pointing to an open book: literacy and reading seemed like a good story to tell, particularly for a book project like this one.

I began with a miniature "bookshelf" quilt segment to run across the top of the page. I pulled out some very interesting bits from the pile of fabric strings (defined by me as anything thinner than 1.5") that are neatly pressed and piled in a corner of my space. I added a wide bit of upholstery pleather with the intent of making a set of encyclopedias, and a fussy cut globe from the explorer fabric leftover from making my kids' bedroom curtains years and years ago.

Bookshelf section - before quilting

By the end, the set of books was my favorite part of the whole project:

Detail of encyclopedia set after quilting and embellishment

The next thing I did was to find an appropriate quote (from Frederick Douglass, uncredited except here on this blog), and to digitize a font so I could use my embroidery machine for most of the wording. I used a dark gold thread on a perfect mustard scrap of Sahara Cloth, which has a lovely suede-like feel to it and looks like a hand-dyed fabric. I used most of this piece last year for my sister's quilt, but I had just enough leftover for this page.

Machine embroidered text on sahara cloth

Next I used some parchment colored fabric to make a folded booklet, with a cover made from another scrap of the same upholstery pleather lined with a print that looks exactly like a marbled endpaper.

Book within a book (front cover)

Book within a book (endpapers)

I filled the book with relevant quotes by authors ranging from my favorite Rilke to Dr. Seuss.

Book within a book (text view)

At this point, I still didn't really know how to incorporate the photo, so I just decided to crop it down inside a hexagonal frame. I used a decorative stitch to applique the piece within the framework of the embroidered quote.

Hex frame for photo.

To finish it off, I appliqued the last two words of the quote, meander quilted around the hex and the book, then added some beautiful gold freshwater pearls around the stitching on the photo frame and a doodad from an old necklace clasp as a "pocketwatch" on the photo.

Finished page for Marlene, front view

For the back, I stitched out the book Urban Threads' Dark Fairytales collection, then trimmed it down to a hex shape. I cut 1, 2, and 4" triangles, diamonds, and one jewel shape in a variety of gold and mustard scraps to complete the 14 x 15" page size. I like the back of the page even better than the front.

Finished page for Marlene, back view

Detail view of embroidery and triangle piecing

Next up: A blue page for Lesa's "ocean" journal. So many ideas for this one, the challenge will be narrowing it down to just one!

Color Journals: Rust for Anna

Last night our journal-arts group finally managed to sneak in a meeting, after winter postponed both our December and January dates. I made a page for Anna, whose color is rust, and who chose the theme of Country Music. (We didn't all choose a theme, but some did. It has been interesting that some of us find working with "just" a color to be difficult, but others find working with a color AND a theme to be a barrier to creativity. I'm in the second group.)

I'm not really a fan of current country music (by which I mean anything after the 80s), but I dug back into some memory reserves and decided to use George Strait's funny song "All My Exes Live In Texas." The photos say the rest:

"All My Exes Live in Texas" journal page for Anna (2014)

To get the shapes of the states right, I printed simple outline clip-arts of the states, then pinned the paper right over the layered rust (from an upholstery sample book) and background fabrics. I straight-stitched right along the edge of the shape, then tore the paper off and clipped the rust fabric very close to the stitching line. Then I used the turquoise embroidery thread to satin stitch around the whole thing. I had these little bronze alphabet brads from a scrapbooking clearance extravaganza (hey, a use for all those X's!!) and they just looked perfectly western for this project. The X's are located at the cities that he mentions in the song -- Allison's in Galveston, sweet Eileen's in Abilene, Dimples now lives in Temple, Rosanna's down in Texarkana, and the old Frio River, where he wore his welcome thin -- because I am a geography teacher, after all. I sweated a little about how to add the women's names, but when I found those tiny wooden tags at yet another scrapbooking sale, I knew they would be perfectly scaled, and they even had holes in them so the brads could hold them on. I was particularly pleased with the lettering, which I did free-form and without guidelines of any sort! The cowboy hat (hung on Tennessee, get it??) is made from a teeny scrap of upholstery pleather. These journal projects have a way of encouraging hoarding.

"All My Exes Live in Texas" journal quilt close-up. I felt like a western project needed some fringes, so I frayed a strip of text. Also -- full disclosure -- I changed which line of the song to quote right there. Command-level design decisions!!

Simple back view of Anna's journal page

The meeting was, as always, fantastic and inspiring. The 14 of us who are doing this project are an incredibly creative and talented bunch! Pats on the back all around! My assignment for next month is to make Lynn a panel for her green-and-white project. Gears are already turning...

Color Journals: Harpa for Sue (finished)

After my previous post about starting Sue's journal page, I decided to wait until after our group's meeting to post more photos -- it's more fun to do the "Big Reveal" in person! These meetings are very exciting -- Lisa made a glorious orange dahlia page for my orange hexagon book...although I had a chance to look at it, I can hardly wait (over a year!!) to get the finished book back here so I can just sit and pore over every page for hours and hours. In the meantime, my next assignment is to make a rust-colored page for Anna T's "Country Music" journal.

"Memories of Iceland" for Sue K. (14 x 15.5")

Piecing and quilting detail

I made some runes with Sculpey -- these are the runes that say "Iceland" (at least according to the T-shirt that we bought!).

The Vegvisir is a magic symbol that prevents the wearer from becoming lost. I hand embroidered this on a scrap of Belgian linen.

For the back of the page, I made a Metropolis block using a very pretty selection of map and Celtic-inspired fabrics in the gold/teal/green colors that Sue requested.

I used a light strip for the last segment so I had a place to sign the page.

Color Journals: Harpa for Sue

I have Sue's color journal this month, and she has selected the theme of travel for her book, using rich golds and teals as her base palette. She asked us each to create a page of a place we have been to, or a place we dream of visiting, or even a mode of transportation.

For about two years (and two months) I have been wanting to make a quilt project inspired by the Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik. The entire building is constructed of hexagonal and diamond-shaped panes of glass, build right on the sea to reflect the waters swirling around it. The inside was also breathtaking, with light bouncing everywhere in 16.9 million different colors and heavy black (hexagonal!) columns as interior walls, designed to look like the basaltic columns created by the volcanic geology. Before I saw this incredible structure, I hadn't ever really paid much attention to architectural design, but this building...it just sang to my heart!

Harpa Concert Hall (Reykjavik, Iceland), interior view

So, for Sue, I am making a tiny version of Harpa. I drafted and cut the paper shapes this afternoon. Time for more fabric wrapping!

English paper-piecing units for Sue's Harpa Concert Hall journal page.

Color Journals: Purple for Polly

On the first month of our color journal exchange, I made a purple page for Polly's fantastic journal. I loved the elongated shape that she chose. I used a simple Karen Eckmeier freeform technique to make a mountain landscape, accented with some free-motion quilting and a few aqua beads that looked like emeralds in the deep dark earth:

"Misty Mountains Rise" -- my boys gave me the name, which is apparently from a Hobbit song. SciFi geekery for the win!

Who'd'a thunk I'd have some purple and mint ice cream fabric? Perfect for the back!

The meeting last night was a delight -- I think everybody was so excited to share what they had made that we blew through all 13 projects in less than an hour! My next assignment is to make a "Travel"-themed page for Sue's gold-and-teal journal. So many ideas brewing for this one...

Dance the Orange!

After the successful River project, our journal art quilting group has begun a new project that will take over a year to complete. Each one of us has chosen a color (and some have added a theme as well); using that color, we each created the covers of a journal that will be passed around for the others to make the pages.

I considered a few other options, but ended up with my best beloved after all...Orange. I decided to create the entire book as a big hexagon, which meant custom cutting some art boards to the right shape for the covers. The whole thing is about 14" wide and 15-16" high. I couldn't resist doing a little more micro-(not nano-)hexie piecing for the spiral on the front cover...but these are about twice the size of the river hexies so it felt like it went very fast. The tiny gold beads at the hex intersections gave just the right amount of glitz, and the bee just looked at home there in the middle of the honeycomb spiral. Plus, bees do something called a waggle dance when they get back to their hives, and that seemed like yet another layer of meaning for this project that I have entitled "Dance the Orange" after one of Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus.

Front cover of my "Dance the Orange" journal.

Inside front cover, with complete text (different translation than the link above) of the "Dance the Orange" passage from Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus.

For my sample page, I used a few of the Renaissance drawings that my friend Deb gave me, covered with sheer orange organza to warm them up for this project. The adoring look on the woman's face seemed perfect with the poem. The six-petaled "frame" shape around her picture is based on the shape of the symbol for the orange chakra Svadhisthana. To make the tabs that hold the page into the book, I cut up a little orange leather swatch that I got at Crate and Barrel when we were considering some new chairs a few years back. Perfect use for a 4" swatch! Finally, I added the leaf on the right just because I loved how the warm copper reflected the orange glow of the page. 

Sample page

My nine-year-old let me use his typewriter to type Alicante (in the original French!) on a pretty packaging ribbon.

Alicante, by Jacques Prevert

I sewed a tiny booklet and stitched it into the inside back cover for signatures and comments. (I can't wait to read this at the end of the project!)

Inside back cover

Isn't this notebook paper fabric perfect as a booklet?? A single fat quarter makes an eight-page 5x7" booklet. I had a tiny bronze D-ring of just the right scale to make a closure tab with this little piece of ribbon.

Inside back cover, booklet opened.

Again, the boy let me use his typewriter to add the typed text (on orange typewriter fabric! how delightfully meta!):

Inside back cover (close-up)

Our meeting of this project was on September 17, so I have already passed this along to someone else to make the first page. I haven't decided yet if I want to see each page as they are completed, or wait a year and a half to see it again -- what a wonderful and difficult choice!

In the meantime, I currently have Polly's purple journal to work on...the first of many challenges over the next year or two!