Hot Air Balloon

Two more quilts have been completed and both Hilary and Kelly have problems with uploading. Here is the picture and information Kelly send me:

While looking around on Google Images with my granddaughter one afternoon, we came across the page full of hot air balloons. That is when the inspiration hit me (finally!) I loved the colorful balloons and set about to design one for the quilt.  I found this piece of black netting with colorful metallic dots on it.  And I happened to have hand dyed fabrics to go with the colors of the dots.  Then drew the whole balloon on paper and cut out the pieces to use as a pattern. I tried to keep as many of the dots on the alternate pieces the colors of the fabrics on either side.  The balloon is all raw edged applique. Painted very faint clouds in the sky with Lumiere Pearl White paint. The "ropes" on the balloon are from my collection of speciality yarns.  I didn't include the basket because the balloon would have had to be smaller and I wanted it quite prominent.  All fabrics except the black net w/dots are my own hand dyed cottons.

Hot

This is my version of "Hot". As inspiration, I used some of the lovely photos which have been taken of the activity taking place on the surface of the Sun.

I started with a black piece of fabric which was then painted using Setacolor opaque fabric paints - using various shades of yellows and reds. Over this I have laid scraps of sheer fabrics and netting from fruit bags. Free machine embroidery has then been used over the entire surface, holding the sheers in place. A few beads have also been added.

It seemed appropriate to use the sun as inspiration especially since we are going through an unseasonal heatwave in this part of the UK.

hot

My 'Hot' piece is completed just in time. Well completed, that is to say, the binding, sleeve and label still has to be attached but for the picture that does not make any difference. This piece started out as a plain black Kona on which I used metallic Lumiere paint with a textured gel print. I quilted flames on it and the words hot using a variegated red thread. Hmmm, not impressive enough so I added lots and lots of  beads in gold, yellow, orange and reds to finish it. The stitching of the beads followed the quilting lines. This proved to be more time consuming as I had expected/hoped.  But anyway, I managed to complete it just in time.

HI everyone, I'm back on board now thank goodness!

Red Hot Gibson was inspired by my son's 1977 Les Paul Gibson guitar which he plays in his group"So '77". It's a retro punk group and not my taste but he is very good indeed!

The background is uneven strips of my hand dyed silks and cottons ironed onto self bonding Vilene G405 and held down with layers of stitching. The guitar is a lamination made by using paper and polyester organza with Matt medium glue; the piece once dry is ironed and ironed and then washed to remove all the surplus paper before being attached to the fabrics with Misty Fuse.

Looking forward to the next challenge Irene, have you made a decision yet??

Best regards

Ann

New Theme

I suspect you asked me to come up with the Oct Challenge theme as I had been first to post an image. I was a bit thrown by this request as I am in the middle of getting ready to go to England for a week so have been trying hard to think of something.

How about 'Size is not everything'.

Irene MacWilliam

new theme

We are getting close to our due date of October 1 and although not everybody has posted her work, it is time to start thinking about the new theme. Irene, please put on your thinking cap and let us know by the end of this month what our new theme is.

Red Hot Gibson

Ann Beech is having problems logging in on the blog, so I am posting the picture for her. Inspiration for this quilt was her son's guitar. I cannot say more about this piece, simply because I do not know more :-). Ann will post later more information.

October challenge HOT

Here is the second attempt at this challenge.

We recently had Edwina McKinnon to the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild and among her pieces she showed one where she had joined pieces by zig zag stitch and then turned and cut, stitched and turned and cut. It struck me this would be a quick way to get lots of hot coloured pieces quickly assembled for the background to my piece.

I then came up with the idea of hot springs. I downloaded a tiny image of springs and spent an evening copying it, I kept getting lost in all the coils. When I had my drawing I stitched the outline of the springs and the letters and then filled them with old silver paint by Hobbytex. It must be about 20 years old. I have never used either gold or silver paint in my work so it was wonderful to finally use it. Of course it has evaporated somewhat but was fine. I liked the way it did not totally cover the area so makes the springs look a bit aged.
Irene MacWilliam

I think I've finally done it Wil!! Fingers crossed
Ann

Our second challenge

Now that hopefully we are well on with our Hot pieces to be finished by October presumably Wil you have thought out who or what is our next challenge.

Will you be sticking to the 12 x 12 size? It is quite nice to have a number of pieces of equal dimensions if one ever wishes to display them.

I have finished my piece for HOT so will need to check it out for focus and colour etc before I post it.

Irene MacWilliam

Pictures on our blog

I think it is nice in this sort of group if images are posted along with whatever members wish to write.

I much prefer it to going looking at a further file to see images that match text.

Once we have all dipped our toe in the water by posting thoughts and either our finished pieces or work in progress hopefully it will be a more active blog. It took me long enough and help from Wil to get myself sorted.

Irene MacWilliam

This is my first piece i have worked on to the theme of Hot.

I painted the fabric then did some screen printing and some transfer printing and finally some free machine work. I left the threads loose.

A not very inspiring piece and am now trying something else. I am using this challenge to work out some techniques rather than trying to produce a really resolved piece.

If all else fails this will be my piece for the challenge.

How is everyone else getting on.

Irene MacWilliam