This week was moderately productive. I finished several more blocks for the Oregon Baby quilt, including two feature blocks. There are now four features finished, except for any finishing embroidery touches.
I made the western meadowlark and baby rabbit blocks.
Beginning sketch for meadowlark:
Western Meadowlark
Progress photos and finished block:
AppliquedPainted and stitchedStrip piecing added
Beginning sketch of rabbit:
Baby bunnyAppliquedPainted and StitchedStrip piecing added
Some additional remarks about the rabbit: The original photo was of a hybrid rabbit – white fur and brown patches, pale blue eyes. I’ve been observing many wild rabbits that hop about the garden here in my new home. Their coloration is more earthy and the eyes appear jet black. So that is how I made this rabbit. Also, the poor bunny has no nose or mouth yet. Those details will be added with embroidery floss. And maybe a few whiskers to boot.
Now when I line up the completed blocks, the quilt looks like this:
Two rows out of five. The big picture is coming into focus.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are enjoying your long week-end (U.S. readers) Please drop me a word or two about your current project. I’d love to know what feeds your creative impulses.
After eighteen months in process, my multi-panel quilt that explores the dragonfly is finally finished. The painting and the assembly of the quilt took place in 2023. Then it languished while I fiddled around with hand embroidery. Finally, I made the commitment in December 2024 to get this WIP done. It took an opportunity to display it at an exhibition to set me in motion.
I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the role Bill’s photographs had in inspiring me. Here is a gallery of some of his dragonfly images.
I also did research into the creature, to better understand what I was seeing. I was always puzzled about the legs. In flight, they are not visible. When the insect is perched, one can see either one, two or all three pair of legs. Why is that? I learned that the legs are swiveled back and held flat against the body, just like an airplane’s landing gear. The dragonfly catches its prey in flight, grabbing hold with its legs. When resting, the legs have no function. Dragonflies cannot use their legs to walk. That’s why they seem so motionless when perched.
Anyway, the quilt is finished, except for the label and the hanging wire. It will go on display February 6, along with my Badlands quilt, at Prairie Moon Exhibition, The Center, Bartlesville, OK.
For this week, I made a promise to myself that I would complete the hand embroidery on one of the Here Be Dragons art quilt panels. By New Year’s Day, I had finished.
The goal was to emphasize the painted lines while quilting the fabric layers together. I used DMC stranded floss in colors compatible with the fabric paint.
Here is the panel before stitching the background. The dragonfly is already stitched.
Using primarily stem stitch I outlined the botanical shapes of leaf and flower. With rice stitch, I worked the blank areas of the panel to secure the batting and backing.
Here is the panel completed.
I feel pretty good about my work. To me, the piece has variety but also cohesion, achieved by using repetition and a limited color palette.
I now have only one panel of this quilt left to stitch. My goal is to have the work finished and framed in time for an exhibition sponsored by my local art association. It will open in early February.
There’s nothing like a deadline to keep an artist motivated.
At present, I have various works in progress and finished objects that I could write about today. But January is the month that Quilting Gail and her co-horts begin work on the annual Stay at Home Round Robin quilt. So I am pivoting.
During the past three years I have participated with joy. I’d really like to continue round robin-ing this year. But I am in a quandary about my center block. Thinking about SAHHR in December, I had the idea to use paper pieced squares in this year’s center block. I but never got around to making them. Now, feeling pressed for time, I’m reluctant to work on a deadline in a technique in which I have little experience.
This morning, I decided the answer may lie in the objects I made during my first year of practicing fiber arts. It was a time when I was bursting with ideas but short on skills. As I rummaged through my portfolio from 2019 to early 2020, I found six fiber objects with potential to become a center block of a small quilt.
Shall we audition them together?
Candidate 1:
This was an early experiment with fabric paint. I took two different paintings, cut them into strips and wove them together, using satin stitch to close up the cut edges.
Candidate 2:
This is a rejected block from my oakleaf hydrangea wall-hanging. The background is covered in snippets of hand embroidery with irregular blanket stitch on the edges.
Candidate 3:
I was discovering what fabric markers can do. This painting is done on lightweight muslin and would need to be mounted on sturdier fabric.
Candidate 4:
A mini art quilt, this was inspired by what I saw in my head with eyes closed during a yoga class. I was practicing curved edge piecing.
Candidate 5:
Inspired by one of Bill’s photographs, this block was a practice piece for a larger work I never completed. The technique is confetti applique. While I would consider putting this one in an SAHHR quilt, I’ve yet to give up on my original concept.
Candidate 6:
A very early experiment in fabric painting, I “saw” a scene of a mountain area recovering from a forest fire. The initial paint application was enhanced with brown stamps of bare and broken trees. The middle ground is meant to represent fireweed which moves in quickly after a fire ends.
This last block is the one I am leaning toward the most. I have some ideas for expanding on the theme of environmental devastation and recovery.
What do you think about my options? Even if you are not a quilter, I am interested in learning the block that attracts your eye the most. Which one has the highest potential from the aspects of design, color and originality?
It’s been more than two months since I’ve reported on progress with my dragonfly art quilt. For the last few weeks, I have been adding detail with embroidery.
In this stage, I am using various colors of thread, including a metallic, to outline the subjects’ bodies and fill in and outline the wings. The box of machine embroidery threads that I collected from my mother’s work room contains many beautiful threads that work well together with DMC floss to enhance my dragonflies. I’m so grateful to have received it from her.
I started my work with the main panel. In the painting stage, I had indicated the wings using faint lines in a sketchy manner. Ditto for the legs.
Now with metallic and matte threads held together, I stitched the delicate veining using (appropriately) the fly stitch. The legs were done in a black fuzzy thread, which helps to indicate the scaliness I observed in the original photograph.
I love the way the threadwork gives depth and liveliness to the painting.
After I’m finished embroidering the dragonfly bodies, I’ll sew on the border and backing. When that is complete, I’ll move on to hand quilting the whole thing.
Daily Fiber 