Magnolia Blossom

We have a beautiful magnolia tree in our backyard that is beginning to display its floral finery. These are two shots of one of the first blossoms - at least one low enough on the tree to be within reach! My husband came outside with me and hung onto the branch while I took a slew of pictures.

Needless to say, that was followed by a few hours in Photoshop. Here are some of the images that I developed. You can click on any of my images to see an enlarged version.

I'm a northerner by birth (Connecticut), and though I've lived several years in North Carolina, I still find the magnolia flowers a wonder that's hard to believe.

And two more....

Day Lily

I have so many projects started and so many things that I want to try, that I was getting seriously bogged down! To get myself going again, I decided to just work on small pieces for a while. Of course, rather than finish a WIP, I started something new.

Looking through our photographs, I found a photo of a day lily that had once graced our backyard. I thought it would make a lovely small quilt. I opened the photo in Photoshop and played with it for a while. Cropping, and some filters, gave me the image on the right. I sized the image at 8x10 inches. (You can click on the images to see enlarged versions of the pictures.)
My next step was to use my inkjet printer to print the image onto a cotton fabric printer sheet. I then made a quilt sandwich and machine quilted the piece. The image had printed on the pale side, so I used magic markers to enhance the color, and then continued with extensive thread painting until I was satisfied with the mini art quilt's resemblance to my original Photoshop image.

Since I was planning to mount my mini art quilt onto a gallery-wrapped 8x10 inch canvas, I scanned the back of the quilt to show off the extensive thread painting.

My last step was to paint an 8x10 inch canvas with dark green acrylic paint, and mount the mini quilt onto the canvas. I was pleased with the final result. And here's my Day Lily mini art quilt!

Weaving Fabrics for Art Quilts

Butterfly Garden

The idea of weaving strips of fabric together to make backgrounds for art quilts intrigued me. The first art quilt I constructed with this method was Butterfly Garden, which I made in 1999.

The two shades of green in the background are hand-dyed batik fabrics which I cut into strips and wove together. The technique is to cut one of the fabrics into vertical strips and the other fabric into horizonal strips. I made a point of cutting curved strips because, surprisingly, they weave together beautifully and are more interesting than straight cuts. I used silk flowers, bumblebees, and frogs to embellish this art quilt. Here's a detail image from Butterfly Garden. You can click on any of my images to see an enlarged version.

This technique of weaving fabric strips was also used in "Purple Flowers" (2003), and for the clothing in "Picasso's Harlequin" (2000).

Purple Flowers

This was an interesting art quilt to do because it started out to be a watery landscape. (Don't ask!) It began with a blue and pink batik fabric. I sliced that fabric into vertical strips and wove it with two other fabrics - cut into horizontal strips - a pink batik on the top half, and an aqua batik on the bottom half of the background.

If you look at the detail picture, you'll have a close-up view of the flowers I used. As I was cutting them out of the fabric they were printed on, I noticed that what I had left over was also shaped like a flower, but in the negative. That was intriguing, and that was when I decided to try for a vase of flowers instead of that watery landscape. I fused on leaves from another fabric, and finished the quilt with some buttons for the centers of a few of the "negative" flowers.

Picasso's Harlequin

This quilt is an adaptation of the Picasso painting. Old clothing from the thrift shop was used for the fabrics. The harlequin's outfit was made from strips of two fabrics that were woven together. The figure was constructed separately and then attached to the background. The pieces of lace were the cuffs and collar of an old blouse. The "hair" is from a black velvet bolero jacket.

I enjoyed weaving fabrics for these art quilts, and was really pleased with the effect produced. May do it again sometime!