Hi all members of this group Just checking in How are you all getting on with next challenge "ROOTS" its due end of Dec I think hehe!!! I haven't made a start but have been thinking and some ideas come to mind. Would be good to have some feedback ladies

Jelly Bean Doors -Chris

Anticipation -Margaret Kelly

I did this piece for a fund raiser for a local organization whose aim it is to house the homeless.  I called it "Anticipation" as several of the homeless here are seniors and women, and I imagined someone getting a key to their very own place for the first time and how they would feel.  The glove was my mother's.  The key is an old one. The key hole is made of plaster.  Brass shim is the door plate, and the knob is brocade.  The background and border are upholstery fabrics."

Yellow Door

Here's my yellow door. I had a hard time narrowing down the type of door I wanted to do. I collected dozens of images. It wasn't until I dyed this fabric that I made my choice. 

I designed the hinge myself after looking pages of antique hinge photos. The fabric was folded accordion style then I had clothes pins every few inches along the long edge of the fabric and ice dyed it.

Jelly Bean Doors

This project is a combination of memories of Jelly Bean Row in St. John's NFLD and Google search Doors images.  And, of course, my stash of fabrics and embellishments.  Door frames are of twill tape and hem lace tape. Some doors are cotton, some are silk.  All were backed with thin fusible batting, and then enveloped with fusible batting and turned, then door panel details sewn.
And then the fun of adding embellishments from my bead collection. The black cat, deciding whether to go out or back in again in lower right door is the result of a search by my partner who swore he had a black cat from a bottle of Gato Negro, from many years ago.  He found it! and it too is now part of the picture.

"Blue door"

I had such fun with this Challenge I tried some techniques new to me.
I cut out many pictures of different doors and pasted then on a background
then printed a photo of a door on to organza and also transferred same door photo onto thick vilene
and doubled some sections of the door to enhance it. I also made a stain glass section and used some blue cellophane and painted and stitched background which I glued on under the doors arch which was also painted and for some sections of the door I used gesso to bring out embossed architecture
I also free motioned some creeper in purple and one in yellow on wash away and stitched them down on edge of door. Painted brickwork and embellished these plants with rhinestones
Thanks for the challenge

     

Next topic: Doors

The next topic will be " doors" .

We all know that when one door closes quite often another opens, another opportunity for change, creativity, occupation....etc. so get your creative ideas happening ladies. I look forward to seeing your intreptation of " Doors"

Time Lapse

From seed to tree. Time lapse was created by painting  Sun Dyes over a roughly drawn background. Densely quilted in variagated Mettler polysheen. Just love this thread.  

new title please

I'm on a camping trip to Wellington NZ. My son is having a place built on West coast just outside Wellington and we have been camping on his property waiting for his house to be completed end of July so having fun with it being cold and very windy but we managing. Just wondering why this site has been so quiet
Please can we have the next title so I can start my next challenge
Thanks

Time in a Bottle-by Margaret Kelly

TIME IN A BOTTLE (Jim Croce)

If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do

Is to save every day ‘til eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you.

….

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do once you find them.

I’ve looked around enough to know

That you’re the one I want to go through time with.

Isn’t that as beautiful song.  On our 25^th anniversary, my husband, David, said that this should be our song.  So with “time” being our current theme, I decided to create a memory just for us.  We used to celebrate by hiring a babysitter and going out for a nice meal.  Just the two of us, quietly celebrating.   Our kids are all grown up; we have grandchildren; and now we can take some trips and see the sights.  During those early years, we didn’t take as many photos as we do now.  But I found a couple of old ones! 

I decided to make this on in the grey scale.  The background fabric is one of my hand dyes using soy wax and stitches as the resist.  The wine bottle is heat cut out of 2 layers of organza.  The photos are dated, so Christmas day in 1966, David asked me to marry him.  September 9, 1967, was our wedding day and I thought that would make a good label for the bottle!  After 25 years, we decided to be daring – we went river rafting but that was difficult to get a photo of us doing that, then we went on a Mexican cruise out of LA, hot air ballooning over Lake Tahoe (photo 1992-09-09), drove through the Napa Valley to San Francisco where we flew home to Northern BC.  Have you noticed that you rarely have both of you in a photo – always one or the other…  We’ve taken several trips now, but no photos of the two of us.  Last year, we went to Iceland and a very kind lady took our picture!  So there we are on our 48^th on 2015-09-09.  And I’m leaving space for a photo next year when we have our 50^th.

I just haven’t finished it, but you get the idea of what I’m doing, and how the theme inspired me.  In fact, this piece won’t be finished until 2017-09-09, when we celebrate our 50^th anniversary and I get one more photo to fill the space.

All the Time in the World

After a number of false starts, this is what developed. I started with two blue fabrics, layered them, and then stitched along various design lines on the top piece.

 Then I cut out pieces between the lines of stitching, and secured those edges with satin stitch using shiny rayon thread.

Finally did some embellishing with crystals, glass "pebbles",  and beads.  I resurrected several almost-forgotten techniques for this, and had fun  playing with them again.

Rings of Time

Another interesting challenge. I have to admit to really procrastinating until I found just the right inspiration. I love trees and have done several projects based on trees, then it came to me that trees are like time capsules. When you count the rings you can tell how old a tree is and to the informed eye you can tell if a particular year had a drought or fire. 

Here is my Rings of Time. I made this using improvisational piecing technique ( I may have just taken a 5 day workshop with the wonderful Jean Wells). All the fabrics are commercial fabrics. I'm really pleased with this piece I hope you enjoy it too.

Image of Clock in Prague

Here is an image of the clock in Prage which was inspiration for my time piece

Time and Tide waits for no man

I'm a few days early posting my finished challenge It has been finished for a while and have been itching to post it hehe!!!
I was inspired by a friend's post on FB of the Clock in Prague installed in year 1410   Take a look its is very interesting and as I say inspiring.
I made a background by painting, then stenciling/stamping various clock images on background.        I then printed the title words on organza and then painted over as the printed image was very light.
I used organza as I wanted the stamping/stenciling to be seen under the words. It was with some trial and error that the paint eventually seemed to bond (after using some Modge Podge mixed with the paint and leaving it to dry over a few days. Every time before when I lifted it of the plastic work surface half the paint would stay behind on the work surface. I used an angled 12" x 12" canvas frame and covered this with the background fabric.
The floating outer blue circle was the inspiration from the above mentioned clock. This was made by using multiple pieces of organza and other synthetic fibers which I cut out with a soldering iron onto which I glues the numbers. I secured the ring using some thick double sided felt dots. This makes it look like its is floating representing the sea/tide.  I then put the clock mechanizem  in centre.
Viola!!! I now have a clock for my studio It was a challenge but well worth it.

Here is our next Challenge  "TIME"

As my contribution I would like to offer the theme title of 'Time'
It has a wide area of meaning as noun, verb and more! - look in thesaurus and there is a list as long as your arm!! 

Kathy & Jayne Hope you don't mind me posting this Just thought some wouldn't have seen the post

Thanks Ellen 

GEOLOGY by Gladys Love

This is actually cheating by posting this one because I've had it done before the challenge.  Members of my "Art/Play" group have seen it.  It was my inspiration for the challenge theme because I wanted to do another.  But life got in the way, as it most often does these days, so here's my inspiration and here's hoping I get another one done.  It is 12 x 12 and is simple curved piecing.  The quilting lines were inspired by the pocket of my jeans!  The slice of stone is "Ocean Picture Stone" I'm told and is very thin, but I could see beach, ocean and sky in it as soon as I saw it at the Rock & Gem show.  It is mounted in a hole that is faced with some waxed thread and a few beads.  Hope you forgive me this round.  Now on to the next theme of time....and I don't have one done for that so I have to work at the next one!  

Hi All
Who is the next person to choose our challenge for April-June?

Geology

I

 was lucky enough to go to Italy in January and fell in love with the cobbled roads. One in particular had a lovely moss growing around all the beautiful rounded stones.
I started with a double layer of batting and white cotton. I couched green wool roving and machine quilted my cobbles. I then coloured the cobbles with Shiva Oilsticks,  not completely happy I then added more using blue and pink. The piece still wasn't talking to me so I coloured again this time with Neocolour crayons. Hope you like and apologies for being late. Oops photos in order of creation but they decided to pop themselves in the middle.

Utah Travels

I love rocks, and have collected many pounds (possibly a ton or more?) of them over the years and hauled them home. The rocks of Utah were too big to haul home: they remain large in my memory and photo collection instead.
After playing with sewing strips to form strata, I switched to a one-colour fabric.  I used a dark fabric for the shadowed parts, and then satin-stitched numerous rows across the rock formation to form the strata lines of the rock.

The sky was mottled with Setacolour fabric paints.  This same fabric was used as the base for collaging all the other fabrics -- cotton prints, nets and sheers --to form the foreground.  They were layered and then covered with black net, and then I sewed curvy horizontal lines to hold everything down.

Finally for some close-up interest I embroidered some prickly desert flowers.

Final result : a version of a Utah landscape.

Posted on behalf of Margaret K

In 2013 we went to Ireland and just loved it.  I fell in love with many geological features – man-made and natural.  We went on search after search of rocks and folk lore.  So Finn McCool, known at the time for his prowess in battle, lived at the Giant’s Causeway (made of hexagons of basalt rock), but when he learned the Scottish giant Benandonner was going to invade, Finn relied on his wife to trick the Scot by dressing Finn up as a baby so the Scot would think if this is a baby, how big is the full grown man!  And Benandonner ran back to Scotland, destroying the causeway in his wake.  Isn’t that a fine tale!  Tis hard not to love the Irish and their land.  So this is based on one of my photos of these grand columns in Northern Ireland.  If you haven’t been yet, plan a trip – you won’t be disappointed!

Geode

I had a few ideas for this challenge, but nothing really resonated with me until I started playing with a pile of ice dyed fabrics I made last summer. This purple piece reminded me of an amethyst geode my grandparents had.

First I selected a section of fabric I wanted to play with.

Next I had to choose the opening.

Interesting but no. Next.

I like it! Need some layers.

Assemble & add beads. Ta-Dah! I present Geode.

Closeup

Always a challenge to make these pieces. But that is the point right! Thank you Gladys far an interesting topic.

Geology - Rock! Paper! Scissors!

This challenge rocked!  I loved the idea of it so much that I started Rock! Paper! Scissors! right after Gladys issued the challenge at the beginning of January.


I used earth-toned Copic alcohol markers to colour watercolour paper, which I had torn into random strips and fused to plain muslin.  I then added Silks Acrylic Glaze, Twinkling H2Os, and turquoise and rust-coloured alcohol inks and markers to areas throughout the piece and let the colours run to stain the muslin.

When the piece was dry, I added random hand embroidery stitches using perle cotton, and cotton, silk, and rayon threads in earthy, rusty, and turquoisy colours.  I added beads to some areas that were not covered with watercolour paper.  There are still some areas where I may add more beads and, perhaps, some more hand stitching.

I added a piece of batting and machine-couched some more embroidery threads and, of course, some glitz!  Then I trimmed it with scissors!

Thanks, Gladys!  I look forward to the next challenge!

Rocks rock

HAPPY EASTER all.  I know the weekend is over but trust you all had a enjoyable time and didn't eat too many choc eggs hehe!!!

Here is my challenge piece "Geology"   "Rocks rock"
I had fun and enjoyed making this piece. I used tea bags as a background which I stitched together
I printed a cross section of  a rock on a wash away fabric and free motion stitched the printed feature onto teabags.   I printed some photos of rocks and other forms on TAP (Transfer Artist Paper) and put these onto teabags and stitched the tea bags in place and added some small rocks as embellishments. I then mounted the piece on black felt to form a frame.
I was pleased with how it turned out. Thanks for this interesting title      
I can't wait to see the challenges

NEXT CHALLENGE SUBJECT

After much thought and pondering, I have come up with a theme for the next challenge. It can be interpreted any way you wish, as always.  Because of my love of rocks and stones that are beautiful, I've decided to provide a little more room to work in the theme and it is:  drum roll.......

GEOLOGY

Please have fun with this!  

SPICEY

I love the colours “spice” brings to mind.  I thought of course of spices as well as all the wonderful colours of leaves as they turn spicey in the fall.  And the smells of spices!  Too bad we can’t capture that one on the computer…

So I started pulling out shiney fabrics, bits and pieces, and soon a collage appeared to use as a background.  Cool.  How to make them stick together fast and easy.  Hmmm.  Embellisher!  So far I’ve used my embellisher for felting wool roving to stuff then wondered what would happen if I used it to “stick” one fabric to the other.  It worked like a dream.  Took some of the shine away, but that didn’t seem to matter.  I should probably have used larger, therefore fewer, pieces, but what the heck.  And since my current favourite quilting pattern is a spiral, that went on next over super fluffly batting.

Now, what to put on top.  Sure I could put a flower or leaf or  -  how about a word.  How about the topic.  How about use my new couching foot. 

Ergo, “spicey”!  The couching foot is incredible.  To think I used to lay the wool or whatever down and couch by hand.  I was done before I could have threaded a needle!

Happy New Year everyone.

Star Anise

Spices - I read and thought oh oh. Im not a spice kinda girl but I do like the warm colours of them so pulled out two fabrics that I thought suited the theme both in colour and the fact the texture could be suitable for bagging up spices. I searched the library, the grocery aisles even took hubby to a museum exhibit ("The Spice Ships") for inspiration. But other than the rich golds and colours I drew a blank. 

A quilting weekend arrived. On my 3 hour drive to the destination I popped into a health food shop and found the Star Anise. I loved the shape and woody look of it. So bought half a dozen. 

I then endeavored to find the perfect way to show my interpretation of this spice by working on several samples of different techniques. I enjoyed them all from painting the sticky side of Vliesofix, painting one and stamping with it then free motion stitching over the designs, lighting the fabric with paint,  to hand embroidering over thread snippets which where machine stitched under "Romeo water soluble fabric". So instead of picking one I made my challenge quilt out of all of them.  

A month later I find myself in our holiday cottage with limited supplies and an unfinished project but luckily there was a local market where I bought a roll of re cycled sari fabric and some ribbon which finished a couple of blocks plus the borders of my piece. I felt it was complete once I added a few of the original stars. 

Thank you for a challenge that really made me get out my books and supplies and actually try some of them out. 

Happy New Year to you all and may it be one full of creativity.  

Liz 

SPICE - GINGER, THE GINGERBREAD CUTOUT

Ginger was on loan for the Christmas season, so is not finished. My sewing room gets turned into the "move this stuff out of the way in case my sister brings extra stuff" room at Christmas. 

My first spice thought was just to embellish a photo of the three shelves in my spice cupboard, but I decided against it as being far too labour-intensive!

My inspiration for Ginger began with a picture that had nothing to do with gingerbread, Christmas, or quilts.  Once I decided on the gingerbread thing, I found a recipe on-line  that called for lots of gingerbready spices.  (More about the recipe when Ginger is baked!)

I altered an outline drawing of a gingerbread man and cut out two from gingerbread-coloured cotton and layered some Timtex between to give Ginger a gingerbready appearance.  Ginger is trimmed in with some twisted cord I made, Kreinik braid, metallic threads, mica flakes, glitter, and puff paint - all in gingerbread-spice colours.

Ginger will be going back in the oven for a bit!

Happy 2016 everyone!