Esparta Fiber Arts Blog

I realize that I am dreadful and have neglected this poor blog for far too long… It has been busy around here. I have been working at the schools, teaching skating and eventually getting burned out and a fabulous case of pneumonia. So I have not had the energy to do a ton. I am in the process of working on some smaller things.

I did manage to complete the challenge on Quilt Art for its 15th anniversary. I will not post a picture just yet as it has not been posted by them. Soon, really, I will post it… really, I will.

I also managed to finish my challenge for the Coastal Quilters, one of the local guilds I belong to. I really enjoyed this one. They gave us each a fat quarter of black and white paisley fabric and we needed to make a 9″X12″ landscape orientation quilt using the fabric prominently. I don’t often piece or use fabrics other than white unless I am making a bag or something of a non-quilt nature.

I fussy cut out a few of the paisley/bloom pieces and fused them to white fabric. Then I used Inktense pencils and made some of my squishy cartoon blobs and migrated over to ink painting then onto acrylic with fabric medium. I also used some dry gold dusty paint as well… fun. Then I shaded with Inktense pencils, Prismacolor pencils and Fabrico markers… Stitched the outlines and added a couple of detail stitches and covered the entire thing with gel medium with a glossy finish. I have to say, this was a ton of fun and it is nice to start to get to use art materials again.

I had given up for fear my kid would eat them or some such thing. The best thing is that he is curious and loves to use the paints and mediums. (granted, with really close supervision) He really enjoys art and creating things. I hope it continues!

I am also working on a project called “Dock Ropes #6″ and we will see if I manage to finish it… I need to I entered it into Maine Quilts, so I need to get my act together. I would love to get it done for the IQA: Houston deadline… that remains to be seen.

So that is it for now… Pics below of the “Trip #437″ challenge piece… some from late process through finish.

have fun,

mathea

I had hoped to be able to finish the “Guys in the Band” for Maine Quilts this year and maybe try for the International Quilt Festival in Houston, but it is not going to happen. Life interuptus did occurr and I would rather submit the guys next year and make sure that they are done really well rather than rush. I know that they will be cool and I will no doubt figure out better methods to get them to hang than I have currently planned. Guy 4′s shirt is done… I need to take some photos. Maybe tomorrow.

I did manage to finish, more or less, my challenge piece for the Coastal Quilters. I really enjoyed the challenge. We were given a bag of fabrics from another quilter and we had to use everything that was in the bag to create a 10″x10″ mini quilt. My fabrics were in blues and they really reminded me of water… so the piece is called watery blues… and I did a fishy quilt… I would venture to say some of my techniques were lacking, (machine tension went haywire too… ack.)  but I had a great time creating it and hopefully it won’t get “booed”. I admit, it was more of a challenge for me as I have not worked with commercially printed fabrics in a while. I have been painting then quilting mostly. This was collaged together and then stitched down with decorative stitching…

Anyway, I took a scan and here it is…

have fun,

mathea

Coastal Quilters challenge for 2009