Finally some new stuff to show

I have been so busy lately with work and whatnots, that I have not posted forever.
So I had the last two days off and decided to spend some time sewing.
My friend Kim has been making Twister quilts, and I wanted to do one, so with a little help from my friend, here it is, and also a pic of my Mariners compass candlemat.
Will be back after Christmas to show some gifts I have been working on.

Shirley here

I haven't started on mine - hope to soon. It is bitter cold here in Calgary and

we haven't gone anywhere for over a week. It has broken all records here in

Alberta. I do wish I was 'down under'.

Take care everyone and Happy Thanksgiving for our American Friends. Shirley

I will get to you all

Girls I will get to viewing all the posts in the next couple of days. I have had a quick look and can't believe how far you all have come in your work since the first challenge.

Well done to you all I am excited with what we have achieved.

The grandchildren keep me on my toes and not much time to get on the computer.
I am really enjoying the children.
Delia

Delia challenge #2 Four Elements

I am sorry I did not have time to post about my piece before I left home.

I wanted to capture some of the elements that effect our country and do it with paint and machine embroidery. It was a challenge to me to get the colours right with the painting. I am happy with the results.

The piece is 22inches square or 56cm.

This is fire which see in our country so many times with devastating effects. Flames

flying high into the sky with the bright colours.

We have some of the most beautiful waters and reefs in the world to be found not far from where I live.

The winds with the cyclones that our region experiences so often during parts of the year. Lovely to see the clouds flying past over head when it is not to windy or raining. I have felted wool over the top clouds.
.
The earth with the beautiful colours with the dry spells that we experience.
Australia is know for its fires, floods and droughts. I am lucky I live in a area where we experience a lot of rain, wind and occasionally fire but not the droughts.
I enjoyed putting thie piece togerther.
Enjoy
Delia Australia

CHALLENGE NUMBER 3

Our next challenge is FAVORITE PLACES - drawn by Gudrun and Sharon M and

suggested by Joan. Thanks so much girls.

This one should be a very interesting challenge.

Four Elements

Artist's Statement, I spent more time reading various philosophies based on the four earthly elements, than I did creating my interpretation.

4 elements

I kept coming back to a philosophy that equates air with thought, fire with passion water with serenity and earth as maturity. Musings: fire does not pass through water, fire is reflected in water, thought feeds passion passion falters with serenity thought is in serenity, thought slows and then, no more.

Loose threads, attached with help of wash-away interfacing. on a snippet style background. I too had difficulty with the photographing, what doesn't show well here is the yellow thread 'of air' running through the piece gudrun

2nd Challenge

Joan Duggan - 2nd challenge

I decided to incorporate 3 of the elements in my challenge - air, water, and earth. The landscape is raw edge applique and thread painting. It was inspired by a photo I took of Lake Michigan. The sun was shining on the left side of the picture and that comes across pretty well. I found that the hardest part was stitching all the pieces down. It was a fun project.

Four Elements - Diane

I knew I wanted to do another piece in my "geode" series for this challenge. I decided to interpret the theme in a somewhat abstract way, primarily using color and visual texture to suggest each of the elements, so that each section could fold into a unit representing a single element or be reversed and fold into a unit blending all of the elements. Here is the front, with the elements in distinct sections:


And the back where the elements flow together:


And finally the sections folded into 3-D units. I will probably display them this way, either in a bowl or strung on a single cord.

Fractured Elements

As I was contemplating the Four Elements challenge I remembered a magazine article I read a couple of years ago about fracturing fabric. I located the article and also found a book, Fabulous Fractures by Brenda Esslinger, that described a more detailed, much easier method of completing the fractures. I decided try fracturing photos to represent the four elements.

Four each element I printed 4 copies of the chosen photograph. Earth, air and water were crops of pictures I had taken. The earth photo was from a trip down the Rhine Valley. The air(clouds) and water (glacier) photos were from Jasper National Park. I located the bonfire photo on Wikipedia. It is a photo from FLR002 and can be used with attribution.

After fracturing the pictures I decided to place each picture a compass related to it. I connected the pictures at the corners to show that the elements are connected, but that they also can stand alone.

Gayle

Four Elements, Tammy

Well my first thought when this challenge theme was chosen was to do a volcano erupting into an ocean. Scratched that one.
I have been wanting to try weaving strips of fabric, so chose the red for fire, the blue for the water, blacks, and different browns for the earth, and finally the gray for air. I weaved the fabrics in and then used red thread to do free motion stitching.
This was a first for me, I had bought a new Janome 6600 in June and this was the first machine I had that could drop the feed dogs. It is not great free motion, but I liked doing it and am sure I will do more. My piece is 9 by 11.

Four Elements: Air, Fire, Earth and Water

 I chose the landscape to help interpret the four elements.

High above the tree tops the birds glide through the air.

Through man-made error or Mother Nature, fire destroys habitats and what was once a wonderful forest.

Then one day, in what was once a desolate landscape, we see that the earth hides new life.

Many years later comes a day when the trees are again plentiful and where the landscape beside the water is peaceful.

I had had an idea in mind for a long time this challenge. With the forest fires in British Columbia this year coming close to my daughter's home, I was again remembering a CBC short film about a devastating forest fire in northern Ontario where a few people survived by staying in the water (either a lake or river) until the fires burned out.
The following is taken from the Natural Resources web site:
"July 30th [1916] was a frightening day, almost a repeat of the events that had happened only five years previously. This time, the fire consumed nearly 800 square miles of forest, and the toll reached an unheard of 282 official deaths."

Originally, I was going to make just one quilt but I changed my mind and chose to depict the four elements in four separate small pieces. I let my fabrics do the work along with some stenciling and drawing on the fabric.

Sue M Challenge #2 Reveal

I had so many different ideas for this challenge but none seemed to want to come together with all four of the elements.

Each of my element themes are postcard size, originally they were going to be separate postcards but when I'd finished them I decided to make them into a wall hanging, 9 x 18 inches.

Fire

Air/Wind

Water Droplet

Earth/Ploughed field

For Maggy In Australia

Maggy's computer is sick, not sure whether it is fatal or not.  I have her challenge photos here for show.  Forgot to get Maggy to say a bit about her 'Four Elements'.
  Her symbols are appliqued onto dyed fabric to represent Earth Wind Water and Fire.

Sailing ship

Phoenix rising from the ashes

Mole burrowing in the earth

Hot air balloons

Sharon M

When the challenge was first announced I immediately had a Phoenix in my thoughts and I knew I wanted to do something with one. I did a simple landscape drawing and mirrored it to give me a foundation to build my piece. In each little scene I did my fabrics in monochrome and added heavy black lines to give the feel of stained glass. To highlight the different elements I added color. To finish and give more definition I did some free motion quilting….I think I am growing in this area. My finished quilt is 18 x 22.

MIRIAM'S 4 ELEMENTS - 2nd reveal!

MIRIAM asked me to upload the photos of her

challenge as she was unable to do so.

4 elements.

Whew the hardest partof this challenge is getting the photos up on the blog........I had different plans for this challenge but it didnt work out as I wished....I returned to my favourite tearing and layering sheer fabrics and net.........

Miriam.

elements challenge

Here's my challenge. I used photos that I'd taken & printed them on TAP. I used Daler Rowney FW Acrylic Artist's Ink to do the lettering with a calligraphy pen and found some Zodiac embroideries I did with my sewing machine. It's about 25"x25" and I'm going to use it for a tabletopper.

Jackie in Edmonton

Shirley FOUR ELEMENTS

I enjoyed doing this challenge-- I combined fabric painting and thread painting on all the scenes. I also used some paint sticks as well as some acrylics and finished it up with

thread painting and some beading. This was an interesting Challenge.

SHIRLEY CHALLENGE #2

I decided to do the four elements in an

'ordinary' way -- I painted and thread painted

all of the pieces - and added some beads.

I had other ideas but came back to earth, wind, fire and water. I hope you like it.

The Four Elements - Judy

I really tried to work with the alchemical elements but my brain kept swerving off toward the actual elements.  So I ended up with curvy logs representing four earth elements as building blocks, occurring in veins.  This piece is a journal page, hence the odd shape.  The backside didn't work out according to plan, but I posted a photo of it on my blog if you'd like to see.  I really enjoyed the improvisational piecing and have been working on two additional pieces since finishing this one.

Challenge Four Ellements Delia

Girls I have to post mine a day early as I am leaving today and may not be able to get onto the computer for a couple of days. I hope you don't mind. I thought it better to do this then not to post for a few days.

I have enjoyed this challenge and look forward to looking at the others.

The Four Ellements

I first dyed the fabric then machine embrodered to make it look like the fire water wind and the earth. A different approach for me but I am happy with the result.

Delia

Challenge

I have finished my challenge and feel good about the way it looks. Actually feel a lot better about this one then the last one.
How is everyone else coming along.
Delia

Reveal Date for #2 Challenge? Sue M

I've completed my challenge, not exactly what it started out to be but I'm pleased with the result. Can someone remind me of the reveal date please?

Cold windy day here today, perfect for stitching.

Hi All

Hello Girls
It is getting close to the date for our challenge to be reveled.
I would like to know the girls that are working on their challenges. I know we had 20 to start but I think a few have dropped out so if you could let us know if you are still in the challenge it will be wonderful.
I have a teaser of mine I am posting now.
Delia

Tammy here, updating

I have been really enjoying the summer here in PA. The weather has been very hot, and I love it. The AQS show in Columbus was a wonderful getaway. My friend Joyce and I took a ton of supplies and spent most of the time working on those. lol BUT, we did manage to get a new tattoo! We both had bought some supplies to do Paintstiks. What a fun way to design blocks. And of course buying my new Janome 6600.
I have been doing a ton of crocheting over the summer, I love making potholders, and doing thread crochet. And having a small item in my hand with all this heat is the perfect way to go.
I will be working on my challenge piece after this weekend. My family and I are off for a weekend in Lancaster. I know what I am going to do, and have the fabrics laid out, just need to work on it.
Hope you are all well and enjoying the season. :)

CHALLENGE #2

I have been working on my challenge and it is 3/4 of the way done. I won't get at it again for another couple of weeks as I am teaching a class on CdnQuiltswappers, a Canadian Quilting group I belong to.

I have had a few obligations to meet but they are all finished which is nice. Now I can have

some fun! I will really be interested to see what the group does with this second challenge.

Jackie Doll is on a wonderful trip on a river cruise I believe in Europe. She has her challenge ready and told me she will post it by the l8th as she doesn't get back until the l6 or l7th of

September.

How are the rest of you doing? This challenge threw me for awhile. I just couldn't get my head together as to what to do and finally decided. I am happy with it. Still have some beading to do and definitely will have it finished in time. I hope you are all having a good summer (here), (winter in Oz). We have had a poor summer and since it is so short to start with, it feels as if

summer has just not bothered to arrive in this part of the world.

Shirley here

We had a lovely drive through British Columbia and it was so good for both of us.

I am ready to get back to normal. I have been thinking about the 2nd Challenge and

I have decided what I am going to do and hopefully will accomplish my goal. It is

a 'challenging' challenge to say the least. I started it last night and I think it might work!

I enjoyed my two retreats, although I found they were too much so will only attend one

next year. They are side by side with no time in between, so 9 days retreating was a bit much.

Both were great and I learned a lot.

I finished thread painting my birds for my nephew's wedding and got them away to Ottawa.

I taught a miniature (l2 x 12 ) class and it went very well. I hope you all had a productive

June and July -- It is 'winter' in Australia -- so I hope you are enjoying the cooler time - grin.

I love your "pretty boy" delia. You do such great work.

Well, I think I will get down to work. Shirley

My Pretty Boy (Bird)

I have decide to post you a picture of my bird I did in the thread painting class all finished in a little sun dyed quilt.

I don't think you can see the quilting very well up close.

Delia

Two Alberta retreats

for l0 years I have been attending a couple of retreats (the first one I started l0 years ago) and

have made some wonderful friends. I am really ready this year and will be gone for 9 days total.

I leave on Thursday and am getting very excited. Friends from Manitoba, BC and Alberta as well as one from Idaho and the other from near Boston come every year too. Some of them have become lifelong friends and I do so wish you all could come too! I won't be posting much before Thursday as I have to pack, catch up on a couple of pieces I am working on etc. so will talk to you when I get back. I am also seriously thinking of my next challenge. Lots of fun! Shirley

Thread painted fish and coral

I have been working on three l2 x l2 inch fully thread painted pieces for my nephew who is getting married. He is a deep sea diver and took some wonderful pictures with his camera. I

took three of them, printed them on fabric -- placed them on heavy timtex and fully thread painted them. I am very happy with the way they turned out. As their photos are one of a

kind and they dive all over the world I am hopeful that they will like them. Here they are.

It was difficult to pick three as they have taken so

many wonderful shots with their deep sea camera and spotlight.