Friday, 30 September 2011

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.

Saturday, 24 September 2011

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

Friday, 23 September 2011

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.