week 8--bubble

This one made me smile, but I didn't know what to do with it. I thought of a big, pink gum-bubble just exploded on a face, bubbles rising from deep water to the surface, and just now thought of a bubble bath (darn--that would've been good!). Had a crazy busy week so didn't put a lot of thought into it until Thursday/Friday and didn't actually put it together until Saturday morning. When I found this 'rain' fabric in my stash I recalled how I love the big bubbles that a hard spring rain makes in puddles on the side-porch roof. I used two different blues and a silver embroidery thread for some of the raindrops, some iridescent beads, and silver fabric paint. (Yes, those are supposed to be bubbles.)

week 7--hot

Hot stuff. Hot potato. Hot to trot. I imagine 'hot' and can't help but envision waves of heat rise and waver like sun rays.
The background fabric was to look like a desert (something I've not yet seen for real), but I wanted to avoid gratuitous cacti and sun-bleached animal skulls. Wavy sun rays in darkening layers of hot colors entwine around each other show heat (I hope), machine-quilting radiates to the edges, and some shimmering orange and yellow beads add spark.

p.s. Is 'entwine around' redundant?

week six--head

Eek. Just six weeks into it and I didn't even recall putting this word into the bag! Not many thoughts came into my 'head' with this one. I certainly didn't want to do a self-portrait, nor simply a generic head; I did consider a frosty mug o' brew with a frothy top. Then I thought of those old anatomical drawings with different areas identified, and found this graphic online. I amended the categories to show what's in my head, though the originals were pretty interesting: moral, domestic, self-perfecting, perceptives, reflectives, aspiring, animal, and 'vitativeness'--spell-check does not like that one and I'm not too sure about it either, but it must not have counted for much back then since it's so small; it's size earned it the 'home' category (i.e., domestic) on my version, since I'm so into housework. Haha. Please note that my divisions are not necessarily numbered by importance, just in order on the picture; basically clockwise. Though number 5, creativity, is, as in my reality, surrounded by the rest of life. The design was traced onto flesh-toned fabric, lines and shadows were drawn with a sharpie and pigma pens; colors were fusible-web appliqued on top. What is hard to see in the photograph is the 3-d-ness (?!) of it; there is an extra layer of batting behind the head so it is puffed off of the surface, then hand-quilted down on the main lines. Week 7, drum roll please...

week V--triangle

Last week's attempt failed. Big. It's still haunting me and perhaps someday I'll try it over. So this week I went for the in-your-face approach; no question what the word is. (I suppose it could be 'bright' or 'batik'.) I haven't done paper-piecing in a long time; I was never a master at it, but that's the idea--it makes for nice points and straight seams with little effort. The prairie points (the triangles along the outer edge) were a challenge to put on well, but I'm glad I chose to make them different sizes. And beads are always a fun addition.