9.11.2010

week 30--bird


I liked this one when I pulled out of the bag, but of course wasn't sure what to do with it. Birds are popular subjects in the quilt art/mixed media magazines but I didn't want to copy someone else's design. This bird design may look familiar to some, as it is from my holiday card many years running. I was doodling, probably twenty years ago in this very room, when I noticed two swooshes I'd drawn looked rather like a bird, a dove. One more swoosh for the olive branch and it was complete. Except for a few scattered years when life got too busy and it was easier to buy a box of cards, this has been what I've sent out. For this project, I decided to add a 'nest' on two edges, so it wouldn't be so plain.
Cotton batik, hand-embroidery, fusible-web.

Peace.

9.05.2010

week 29--map


Darn, I thought this was week 30. I even wrote it on the back of this piece, then had to find out if good white erasers work on metallic colored pencils on fabric. They do.
So anyhoo, for my map-geek friends out there, here is my sewing room, a'la a map of the earth. Sort of. The floor is blue like water, and the 'land masses' are green and brown: green 'mainlands' (sewing, cutting, and computer stations) and brown for storage and such. (The big 'land' in the center has storage underneath, hence the notations of books and fabric, etc.) Follow the 'trade-winds' from the door to each main area; my chair does the same thing, rolling across the floor to each station. I just realized I forgot a map scale; the room is about 11'-and-change by about 12'. I also forgot to show the windows--this is not a basement cave. Imagine one each centered behind landmasses #s 1 & 2.
This is the latest arrangement of my room, with its new (smaller) main table and new desk, and it's working quite well so far. (Hot tip for anyone out there looking for a great worktable--find a neighbor who's redoing her kitchen and snag a counter--this one is a smooth, bright white formica peninsula that is held up perfectly by four little bookcases side-to-side and back-to-back, with knee space along the side for working at my sewing machine, and along the front edge for doing other work. I love it.)
Fusible web fabric on printed cardstock; rubber stamps, pigma pens, machine-stitching.