Opposites are Complementary

Hi Everyone, this month I was thinking about how the opposites on the colour wheel are the complementary colours.  This led me to the dye pots to dye both cloth and thread.  It was interesting trying to find the "right" red and blue and yellow and then mix the secondaries.  I'm still not 100% happy with several of  the colours. (it's the red and green particularly - the most common colour blindness confusion interestingly!) The seeding is then worked in the complementary colour.  I learnt a lot about dyeing thread from this exercise and it has made me want to experiment more with the "Fabric Dyer's Dictionary".

November theme

October is almost finished, so it is time to start thinking about the new theme. For November this will be: Text (me). You can either use 'text' in general or focus on ' text me' . The choice is yours.

Sorry Wil I think my photo for this month must be in the wrong format as it has taken over the page!!  Please can you correct it?? If not I will delete and start again.  Sorry, Ann

Clockwise/Anticlockwise Flying Geese

I was struggling with this title and was talking to granddaughter, 10 years going on 40, just type in Antonyms in Google she said, right again as usual!! Well, what a wealth of ideas and Clockwise was a great result for me.

Circular flying geese going one way and then in reverse were a challenge to draw out but the result was very satisfying and I have sewed them in a lovely little piece of batiked fabric that I printed with Edwina McKinnon.  I added part circles of embroidered geese emphasising the colours in the batik and finally quilted all over with dense vermicelli to raise the geese out of the black background.  I have recently bought a circular fitment for my Janome Horizon and this was an idea piece on which to practice to good effect.

Hi all,
I have managed to finish OPPOSITES before going to Cheshire to be a good Granny over half-term to a 4 year old!
Last year, in region 7 we had a designing day.  My piece has been pinned up ever since,  so I thought I would try using only black and white in it for this challenge.  I worked with various ideas on the computer and chose this version.  Fighting with the copier at Staples I got some interesting variations..........not 12" square.  They are now pinned up!
All cottons with some painting with Stewart Gill paint.  I have just got a new Janome and love to try out the patterns and the 'mirroring' facility.We were shown a new way to put facing on at a course and I tried that too.  Not quit perfected it yet.

Now I have to remember how to put up my photo.  Looks Ok ,  but I had to minimise it.  Hope it comes through.

Opposites

People who know me, know that I love black and whites. And when the theme is Opposites, you know for which colors I am going :-). For this one, I used commercial fabrics. Besides the opposites in color, there are also opposites in shape: circles and lines. Don't look for any more, because these 2 are the only 2. This Composition is the first one of a series I am making. At the moment I am taking Lisa Call's online class Working in Series and I decided to challenge myself by working in abstracts. At first I thought it would be boring rather quickly, but I still have lots of ideas which I can use for this theme.
I have to say that I love all the different ideas you all came up with!

Opposites

This piece is by Hilary. She says, "The word "opposite" immediately reminded me of magnetic fields and the drawings we did at school of the patterns created by a magnet and iron fillings. There is also the contrast of hot and cold fabric colours."      

'opposites' and composition

For this month's theme 'opposites' I decided to use colours which are opposite each other on the colour wheel. As I'm practicing compositions for the course I'm taking, I though I might as well combine this with my piece for The Sky is the Limit. So I made this composition. I'm not sure if I can give a name to it. The rule of thirds apply to the two circles off centre.
I layered four pieces of fabric: a base, a layer of yellow/green bourette, then a layer of yellow/orange scrim, a layer of purple bourette and finally a layer of green tulle. I stitched a grid by machine and then handstitched circles from the back. I then cut away different layers. As there are several layers of fabric it can be called a quilt, so I didn't use any batting.
Even though it's a random composition, I do like it!

Opposites in Stripes

Thinking of opposites I decided to continue with my explorations of working with black and white stripes.
The opposites I cover are, black and white, large and small, round and square and looking at the pink circle is it in front or behind the black and white striped background. I think the scale is too small to get many illusions , it is quite easy on the eyes unlike some of my larger pieces.
Raw edge applique and vertical quilting in red and black.

new pages

I have added new pages for our themes and copied pictures of the quilts we made for those themes to their pages. Let me know if I missed something or made some other kind of mistake.

When Inspiration Hits

OPPOSITES.  You might think that would be an easy one, right? Perhaps so. However, I struggled with it for weeks now and was just not coming up with something that excited me. 

Until today.  At my wit's end, I decided to google OPPOSITES just to see what might show up....maybe an idea to work from...or maybe even inspiration!  One of the first selections was a list of opposites.  Well....that sounded promising!! And sure enough, the light dawned, birds sang, euphoria filled the studio!!!

I decided to use a few of the opposites in one art piece!! Well....when I started looking and thinking, I came up with more than a few. 

So here it is...I had a black and white piece I did for a project a couple of years ago.  I started with that (the Picasso-esque man and woman in the woven textile background.  Then I cut and added the strips for the left side and top. 

FOURTEEN OPPOSITES



Yep...you read it correctly!!! There are actually 14 opposites in this one piece.  Can you find all of them?  I'll get you started....one of them is Black/White.  The other 13 are up to you to find.  That's why I put it on this post as a large photo.  (If you need it still larger, check it out on my art blog www.kellyartist.blogspot.com - it is XL on that site.) Some of the opposites are perhaps not as easily seen as others. A couple of them are a bit subtle.  But they are all visible!!  One I ditched (natural/synthetic) because it would not be discernable in a photo.   

Good luck! I'll publish the list on November 1 so you can check your list!

Road Map

This is my life road map.  I have come to a cross roads where I have choices to make about what the future looks like.  In pulling together all my life experiences so far I can make guided choices .  Hand dyed fabric is pieced together and then bias strips mark out the roads.  Inspirations printed on fine tea dyed gauze are raw edge appliqued and beads work as "bullet" points.

Wine and Roses

This may well take me a while to do as it is the first time I've added to a blog!

Here is my version of the theme Wine and Roses.  I was given a bouquet of roses having helped alter a friend's daughter's wedding dress.  The background photo is of some of these roses printed onto cream silk I then appliqued the printed wine glasses and embellished it with hand stitching and beads. The quilt is a  reminder of a wonderful sunny wedding day in August.

City Centre - Belfast

September piece to theme Road Map

I screen printed the figures. They are in 3 shades to represent the workers of the past, present and future. I free machine stitched the map of Belfast city centre that I had traced onto the fabric. I painted the River Lagan blue and the Motorway red. I do not like the shape of the motorway.

The docks where the Titanic was built are in the top right hand corner.

Irene MacWilliam