This time with wine

After the absence of wine in yesterday's post GWV - Green White Violet, and in case June thought I don't have any commercial prints in my stash, I thought I'd whip up this simple but fun piece - Cleanskins:

GWV - Green White Violet

I fully intended this shibori piece to be GWV - green wine violet - but somehow the wine is missing. The suffragettes would approve - not only were many suffragettes closely aligned with the temperance movement but, as I'm often reminded by the BBC program The Antiques Roadshow, the Women's Social and Political Union adopted the colour scheme of purple, white and green: purple symbolising dignity, white for purity, and green for hope. These colours were also often used in jewellery in the late 19th century.   It is a popular myth that the colours were green, white and violet, in order to spell GWV as an acronym for 'Give Women Votes'* but I still like the fresh colour combination.

*See Suffragette Jewelry, Or Is It? Dispelling Myths and Ms-conceptions.

Eggplants are Challenging

This is the pile of fabrics I used in my eggplant quilts. Yes, for the first time I've made two quilts for a challenge. I actually started two in another challenge, but one of those didn't get completed. This is the first time I've completed two for one challenge. This was so hard!! Nikki really really challenged me this round. Now to pick the quilt that will be "the one".

Finally, an inspiration!

Well, YAY.  I finally know what I am doing, and have sketches, and a plan. 

I have been mulling over eggplant and wine and emerald and trying to figure out how to use these colors, and yesterday I finally came upon an idea I like.

And with days to spare, even. 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all our readers and followers!  Our next reveal (Eggplant) is on 12 January.  In the meantime, I think I can safely say that these pieces experimenting with the palette will not proceed to completion but I had fun making a mess with scraps, oilsticks, pastels and fabric paint:

If you're looking for completed works, you might like to check out the self-portrait challenge of Art Quilts Around the World that were revealed on New Year's Eve.

A Spine Tingling Book!

As promised, here is a photo that shows the book in 3D. It may seem an odd angle but it highlights the spine of the book with twelve exquisite embossed thumbnail images. Running your fingers up and down is spine tingling!  The images on the front cover are matte, in slight relief against the smooth, high gloss background.  This combination makes just holding the book a surprisingly tactile experience for a softback cover.  Remember you can pre-order Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge now to get your hands on your own copy in March.

An Exciting Parcel - the first copy of the BOOK!

It was an exciting afternoon. After a refreshing swim in the summer surf, I returned home to find a card on the doorstep indicating that I had missed a courier delivery by a matter of minutes. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait overnight to collect it from the Post Office - the suspense would have been too much. For inside this box was the single author advance copy that we are allotted of our forthcoming book - Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge.

I did try to record this historic moment to share with you all but I am woefully unfamiliar with the video function on my camera. I managed to record before and after the opening of the package but not the opening itself.   However, this is a reasonably faithful re-enactment along with some fuzzy stills. 

Opening the Twelve by Twelve Book! from Brenda Gael Smith on Vimeo.

I'll take some better photos in the morning and will experiment with the webcam too . In the meantime, two words - it's REAL!

False Starts

Like Helen, my Eggplant, Burgundy, and Emerald quilt isn't turning out quite like I imagined it in my head.

Upon hearing the theme, I immediately thought not of the colors, but of the foods. I was in Houston at Quilt Festival at the time and there were many beautiful Baltimore album quilts on view. So, it's no surprise that I made a connection between the bounty in a Baltimore album block (baskets and cornucopias especially) and the bounty in our Twelve by Twelve theme.

I've also been inspired by the ladies at Material Obsession and imagined my Baltimore album block to be contemporary looking and full of Kaffe Fasset type fabrics.

Much moving about and auditioning of fabrics later, it's just not working. Part of it is that I don't have nearly as many appropriate eggplanty colored fabrics as I had assumed I had. But, as I was sketching the composition, another idea tried to assert itself. I ignored it at first, but now I'm thinking it was the direction I should have followed all along...

Happy Boxing Day

It's "Boxing Day" here in Australia.  The origins of this secular holiday are unclear but these days in Australia it is mostly associated with the first day of the Boxing Day Test  at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the start to the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race and, for some, a frenzy of shopping and sales.

You too can snap up a Boxing Day bargain without venturing to the mall - certain book retailers are currently offering deep discounts on our forthcoming book Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge which can be pre-ordered for a guaranteed low price of US$12.56 from Barnes & Noble  or US$13.23 from Amazon. And you don't have to be a proponent of Helen's "Girl Maths" to realise that it's worth ordering TWO (or more!) copies of the book to take advantage of the free shipping within the US for orders over $25.  Happy Boxing Day!

Have you noticed

Have you noticed how quilts can be stubborn little things? If you recall my torn napkin, I had A Idea. It involved cuts ( in felt) and green shoots of (machine embroidered and wired) recovery and was all very clever/ pretentious. But would it be born. No siree. I have a table spread with  specially bought fabrics and threads and would they play nicely together? No Ma'am.

And so I went off in a strop to attend to another task, namely finding one specific book in a pile of fifteen packing boxes. At about box five I found the project design sketchbooks I did for my first C&G course. Given I have now just ditched the second C&G course I thought I might as well just chuck those out. But one fell open at a picture of a West African Hunting Jacket a little like this one ( but different) and suddenly I had a new idea.

And then there was the song on the road in the car as I drive home that day. Can you believe Band Aid  was as long ago as1984? Or that it could inspire an Eggplant quilt?

So the special fabric is back in a drawer and some alternate fabric is on the desk and looking anxious to be made into a little quilt. Or two or three..... Weird how this inspiration thing works isn't it?

Oh. And I never did find that book.

The Dark Side

As kind of a Christmas present to myself, I finished quilting an Eggplant quilt yesterday. Whether it turns out to be the official quilt remains to be seen.  A key challenge with a palette of  "deep purple, burgundy red and dark green" is the dark value of the hues that tend to blend together creating no discernible shapes or patterns.  Fortunately I have some hand-dyed emerald fabric that really sparkles and conquers the dark side.

Following Along

Occasionally Ted likes to follow along with our Twelve challenges, I think just because he hears me talking about them so much.  When I first saw this piece, I thought the eggplant was to light, not like any eggplant I had seen before.

Then I saw a picture like the one below in a magazine, and he seems to be right on.

You can follow his process here http://sanityartglass.blogspot.com/

More Eggplant Supplies

Morning Glory

Spotted on my walk to the beach this morning:

PS: It's less than 75 days until the release of the Twelve by Twelve BOOK - is it on your Christmas list? You can pre-order now from Amazon,the Book Depository and other retailers.

Organza in Eggplant Theme Colors

I have been thinking I would like to make my piece from silk organza. Today I found these 3 at the Mill Ends store near me. The wine color is winier than it looks in this photo. I may mix these with some dupioni. At any rate, being in the bleak midwinter, I am enjoying these colors very much.

I love the women who work in the fashion fabric section of this store, and they were very curious about what I was doing with the fabric. I think I will have to take the finished piece back for them to see.

My brother-in-law in New York has only days left and I don't know when I might need to take off to go there. Thought I better get a plan going for this.