Just One Pear

Just One Pear    16" x 20"

Here is the finished quilt - painted and quilted.  Notice how the shading of the pear is smoothed out compared to the unpainted version.  I think this is the true magic of this technique.  I added the light yellow portion that was too harsh in my original choice of fabrics by using paint - much nicer.

And I really like the border fabric that I found in my stash.  I had this fabric for years - never figuring out a way to use it - and then TA DAA - here was the perfect opportunity.  Perfect colors, nice linear pattern that contrasted with the round shape of the pear.  I used a quilting pattern that mimicked the wavy pattern of the border fabric.

I wonder what besides faces and fruit I can use this technique for?  Hmmmmmm.....  barbara

More Fruit

Where oh where has the summer gone?  YIKES!  Yes we had our favorite daughter Anna visiting for several months with her adorable puppy Amos - but the time just seemed to drift away.

BUT - I have now started working on quilts again and am having a wonderful time.  I am currently focused on practicing the technique that I learned in the class with Esterita Austin and this quilt of a single pear is an example.  This first picture is how it looked while still on paper - you can see the blue tape under the fabric.  Notice the dark patch on the lower right side and the bright yellowish patch on the upper middle portion.  Both looked like incorrect values once I stood back and looked at the piece from a distance.  This is the nice  part of this technique.  I just removed the yellow piece and changed out the dark piece.

The second photo shows how the changes affected the overall appearance.



Both of these photos are prior to moving the pieces to the background and adding paint - which will make a significant difference.

The REAL Dorothy

This is a photo of me and the real Dorothy with the quilt that she so charmingly claimed as a portrait of her.  I think that both the quilt and Dorothy sparkle!  (For more of this story see the post dated July 2).    barbara

Five Heads are Better than One

Inspiration comes from many different places.  A store in town was having a going out of business sale and selling lots of clothes - but I also found some styrofoam heads in a corner.  I knew that my friend Kay was looking for heads for a display and talk that she was doing about bonnets - so I got three for her.  And as I was gathering them together I started to think about what fun I might have covering the heads with paper or fabric or who knows what.  So I got three for myself. 

Then when I got them home, they looked so interesting when they were grouped together that I took their picture.  I am thinking of other places to pose them.... hmmmm..... not sure where yet.  I am thinking that maybe after I cover them I will add wild and crazy decorations sticking out of the tops - that could be quite interesting.  I will post some pictures if I actually DO it instead of just THINKING about it.      barbara

Chloe's Flower Quilt

My sweet granddaughter Chloe is visiting and designed a lovely Flower Quilt.  She designed the flower, and traced the pieces, and even cut out the very complicated flower design.  And she selected all of the bright and wonderful colors for the quilt and the design for the quilting pattern.  And then, after I helped by doing the sewing parts, she added glitter accents.  A very lovely design by a blossoming Artist.  She also made some lovely fairies using deconstructed silk flowers. Thanks for the FUN Chloe!!!  barbara

Dorothy and COOH

One of the greatest pleasure that I have is sharing my quilts with people - and seeing their reactions to my wild and crazy creations.  And I was able to do this at the Committee of One Hundred summer luncheon at the Red Apple Inn in Heber Springs on June 21.  I get nervous talking in front of groups of people but decided to be Very Brave and I am glad that I did.


The women in the COOH were so friendly and  gracious that I immediately felt at home and comfortable.  They were so receptive during my Show and Tell and had lots of interesting questions about Art Quilts. 

Art Quilting was the focus of my presentation and it is always fun to show new people the types of things that some of today's quilters are doing with fabric - based on the wonderful traditional quilting - but going new directions.

The quilt that is shown here is a quilt that I made a couple of years ago to highlight the use of embellishments on quilts.  If you look closely you will see colored paperclips along the hairline, sequins for the eyes (to make them sparkle), fuzzy balls at the ends of the wild hairdo, and silk cocoons for the earrings.  One of the charming COOH ladies had been looking at my quilts before the luncheon and told me that she was surprised to find that one of my quilts was a portrait OF HER!!  I was tickled to find that it was this quilt!  So I have officially renamed the quilt "Dorothy" after her.  barbara

Pears

After I tried the new Esterita Austin technique on several faces, I wanted to see if it would work on other objects.  Esterita has a great DVD explaining her technique and I watched it to remind myself of exactly what to do.  This is a photo of the finished quilt - small but lovely.  I forgot to take a picture before I painted it - but it looks amazingly different (and better) now.  The finished size is 15" x 13".  I kept the quilting very simple, and is used the same fabric that I used for the second (reddish toned) face in a previous post.  
I am really liking what I find when I take a photo to post on this blog - I think, looking at this photo, that I will go back and add a little more very dark paint between pear1 and pear2, at the bottom, to make pear 2 stand out more.  If I do I will post another photo.  barbara