week 16--hand

Holding hands. Hand in marriage. Lend a hand. Handstand. Think of how much we use them and how we'd function without them. (We couldn't.) They're probably one of the most taken-for-granted things around. I started with thoughts such as those, then looked online for more and found these that I printed onto a used dryer sheet (really--I'd read about that in a quilting mag and knew I'd been saving those for a reason, just didn't yet know what that was). Beneath that layer is the woodcut-look graphic of hands, printed on fabric, cut out and adhered to the base layer of fabric. This piece is sortof reversible, nearly an illusion of see-through, as it is backed with the first printing attempt of the hands and words on one piece of fabric. (It didn't come out as I'd envisioned so I adjusted my proverbial sails, pushed beyond, and am pleased with the results.) It's very simple, and it's done.

week 15--flower

Delayed again, but here it is. I'll catch up to the schedule, maybe next week.
As it's spring-time, today being a damn fine example of it (and I'm inside doing this post), 'flower' was a nice word to pull out of the bag. I wasn't sure what to do with it though (nothing new), but ended up thinking about it en route home from Chicago's International Quilt Festival--that's a whole other story. Anyway, rather than putting a flower 'on' the surface, I was thinking of some of the quilt artists I've read about and whose work I've seen, and recalled that the quilting can create the design. So, using a bright, variegated thread, I free-motion stitched the background to create the shapes of the flowers; it reminded me of the saying about sculptors carving away everything that doesn't look like their subject. I added ribbon to the edge, and stuffed more of the ribbon under a layer of beige tulle stitched around the flowers' centers.

week 14--bug

No, I didn't catch one, and no, I didn't fall into the pit of last week's 'earth' piece. Life just got in the way; I figured that would happen on occasion with this project. But last week's piece is finally finished. Bug. I took a lot of pictures when Joe and I went to the zoo last week; one of his favorite haunts there is the bug exhibit. I generally don't care for things with more than four legs, but some beetles on exhibit had beautiful blue-green backs; one species inspired this week's entry.
Fusible-web applique, rubber stamping, pigma pens, embroidery, beads.
This week's project may be delayed as well, depending on the word, as I'm off to Quilt Festival in Chicago for the weekend to visit a quilt of mine on exhibit and buy too much fabric and other unnecessary stuff.

week 13--earth

Earth, the planet? Or earth, the soil? Just a few ideas for this one, then, while running after a spring rain, I saw so many worms. And as I jogged past a new home site with excavators and dump trucks, I envisioned this scene. Earth, the soil of the planet, being ravaged for another McMansion. How many earthworms (and...?) must have been misplaced by the digging, or at least re-arranged onto enormous piles of dirt now above ground. (And where will those piles of dirt go?) It reminded me of a book my son and I read a hundred times when he was much littler, Farewell to Shady Glade, by Bill Peet. Check it out.
Does anyone ever buy an empty lot that's for sale just to leave it an empty lot? I've always wished I could.
Fusible-web applique (as usual), pigma pen (ditto).