Equipped

Following a trip to the Harrogate Kinit and Stitch Show I am now better equipped to make my Eggplant themed quilt. Felt, scrim, beads, abacca tissue both thick and thin, wire, throwsters waste a silk cocoon or two and a dleightfully named 'Happy Bag' of thread.

I already have an idea. I tried to tell Dennis about it over a meal at Pizza Express. He finds it hard  to visualise things from a verbal description only so I  demonstrated with the paper napkin and the table decoration.

Apparently, it didn't help.

Twelve by Twelve: The BOOK - 100 Days and counting

Those of you who read the blog directly, rather than by e-mail subscription or RSS feed, may have noticed the counter widget in the sidebar steadily ticking down the days until the release of our forthcoming book  Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge in March 2011 - that's only 100 days or so away!

In the meantime, remember the book is now AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER from suppliers such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon and the Book Depository. Treat yourself or put it on your gift list!


 

Eggplanty Plants

I was thinking that there weren't many things around in the eggplant palette.  Then I opened my eyes and went for a walk:

Don't Cry!

How sad is it that dinner preparations are delayed so that you can take a photo of an onion that somewhat fits the current "Eggplant" colourplay palette?

In Real Life!

Two Twelves!

Kristin and I had such a wonderful time at the International Quilt Festival in Houston this past weekend.

We did some actual 12x12 business in preparing for the upcoming book release and future exhibitions, but we also spent tons of time just chatting, looking at quilts, talking about creative development, challenges, balance, etc. -- all the big and little ideas that like-minded friends share. It was wonderful. It's been said before, but it's so true: all the friendships we have developed through the 12x12 project are pretty amazing.

I went googling for the colors Niki has given us. I needed a reference and thought I would share it here.

I took this photo yesterday at the Japanese Garden. It is pretty close to the colors.



I think this palette suits the season we are in, don't you?

Personally I Like Purple and Green

Here's a sneak peak my next challenge piece.  I'm finished!

Just kidding.

Amazingly enough, just when Nikki has announced the eggplant/wine/emerald color palette for the next challenge, this is the quilt I am working on.  I started it as a way to play with my very first screen prints from a printing session this summer, and it's far bigger than 12x12.  Although now that I know the palette, maybe I'll work a bit more with these prints.  Hmmmm.   But anyway, as this is certainly not my usual color range, this seemed strangely synchronistic.

I asked Miss C what she thought of the piece in progress.  She gazed at it thoughtfully.  "Purple and green together make me feel nauseated," she said, "and those splotches in that fabric look a bit vomity so that doesn't help ... "  She paused again, then added brightly, "But I like the shapes!" 

It's always good to get an honest critique. 

Undaunted, I am continuing with the machine quilting today. 

The Colourway Collection So Far

The Twelve by Twelve website has now been updated to showcase the Rusty Colorplay challenge quilts. In addition to checking out the Artist Colorplay Gallery pages for each Twelve, it is instructive to review the Colorplay mosaics so far as we reach the midpoint in this series:

  

  Pink                                  BlueWhiteBlack

 

Kilauea                            PurpleYellow

   

Lorikeet                                Rusty

I have found that the inspiration and design process is quite different when a colour or palette is your springboard rather than a theme word. As Diane mentioned in her rusty reveal post, a theme word was useful in narrowing down the options and providing focus.  Fortunately we all revel in colour so this new series is keeping us engaged and challenged.

Eggplant, Wine and Emerald

Delicious eggplant, rich wine and sparkling emeralds. Okay, maybe you need to use your imagination with my photo, but you get the idea. Our next palette includes deep purple, burgundy red and dark green -- all my favorite colors.

Rusty Mosaic

Here's a preliminary snapshot, in case you're wondering how our Rusty pieces look all together:

Rusty Sawblade

This one snuck up on me. I had ideas. I let them simmer. I pondered fabrics. I felt good about it all. I had time.

And then I didn't! The last few days have been a marathon of stitching and beading. But, here it is, pretty much as I had envisioned it two weeks ago.

In keeping with my self-imposed theme of traditional blocks, I based this on a sawtooth border. It looks more like a star, but just know that in my mind these are concentric sawtooth borders. In my mind it's also an abstract circular saw blade that's been hanging on a pegboard in an old shed for way too long and has clumps of rust all over it.



I enjoyed playing with all the bumpy circular elements of the fabric, the french knots, the covered rings, and the beads. I do enjoy piling on the threads and the beads, so even if this is not the most cohesive composition I've ever come up with, and although I would have preferred to have worked more leisurely, I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

Patricia Tina

Patricia Tina. Known as Pat.

Inspired by:

* Trinny and Sussanah and their "Sex Bomb" episode - a glorious romp with mutton dressed as lamb

* My friend, Vicki, describing blue or green eyeshadow as "mouldy eyelids"

* My husband's great aunt - a wild and wonderful woman who never stopped dying her hair an extraordinary and rather alarming shade of orange. She remains an inspiration.

* my first ever viewing of "Mame" last Sunday.

Definitely NOT inspired by any of my red-headed friends, including our luscious ginger Twelves!

Terra Incognita

Terra Incognita, the unknown land. My wonderful husband helped me with the name of this quilt because I really didn't know what to say about it. As I look at it nothing comes to me. Therefore, I thought the name fit perfectly. It is a land I don't know. This color scheme proved to be a real challenge for me. I admit it, despite talk about orange growing on me, I really don't like rusty orange. If forced to pick, I'd rather be surrounded by pepto pink. I'm never going to be an earth tone girl. There it's out. I accept it.

To make the quilt, I once again quilted and painted fabric. I then sewed the strips together in a log cabin pattern with copper thread and arranged the blocks in a diamond pattern. The edges are finished with copper tape.

Autumn Leaves

Rust made me think of autumn leaves. That's why I chose several of my leaves photos as the starting point for the quilt. Mainly a picture of a pond in Japan, where I really liked the way the leaves were floating on the water.
I had to do several dyeing sessions to get the colour shades I really wanted to have. I also collected many fallen leaves during my walks, to find the right shape for the three leaves.
I did all the stitching by machine except for the few detached chain stitches.
This was a pleasant challenge to work on, pretty stress-free, although I've only put the last stitches on this morning. Thank you Terri!
I've posted some close-up pictures on my blog.

Rusty Square Dance

This piece was fun and a lot of work. I started by rusting the turquoise silk and I discharged and added turquoise Dynaflow paint to the rust colored silk. I sandwiched each of the fabrics with a thin batting and backing and quilted them.

I played around with some scraps of fabric to figure out what size squares would fit into a twelve in square piece. I ended up cutting 1 and 3/4 inch squares. Stitching these is not as simple as it looks. You can read more about it on my blog.

Here is a detail shot. I found a 12 inch copper rod at the hardware store which I sanded with steel wool. I then soaked it overnight in Windex with ammonia to get the patina.