Feeling Droopy

The roses look the way I've been feeling lately - droopy, tired, worn-out! Maybe it's just the weather. We've been getting many heavy thundershowers in the last few days and in between it's stuffy, humid, and gray. The air is just heavy.

Or maybe it's the declination I got from the Brush Gallery. I thought maybe I had a shot because that piece fit in so well with their theme this year. Realistically, the Brush says this show features "the best of art quilts from the US and Canada," which is pretty high status and I guess I'm not quite there yet. Also, I think my friend Vivien's theory that more abstract pieces are getting accepted rather than representational ones may have some truth to it (read her blog entry about it here). Maybe my current work using those sheer aqua fabrics would've fit the bill better.

Also this time of year can be so bittersweet, with the flurry and excitement of end-of-school parties and ceremonies. This week two of my three girls had moving-up ceremonies, one finishing eighth grade, the other fifth. The older they get and the further they move into adolescence, the less influence I have over them, it seems. They seem to be more and more influenced by their friends and popular culture, and it is a struggle every day to teach them values and keep them grounded in what's really important. Now the summer stretches out ahead of us with less structure for them, but longer work hours for me!

But I have the whole morning off today, and they will be in school for a few hours, so I'll have that time to pull myself together. I'll try to approach everything with more of their optimistic attitude and energy, as shown in this photo I snapped yesterday.

In the Habit

For the last month or so, I've been using every spare minute to finish my large piece (see previous post), and even though it's now finished, I found myself in the habit of going into my workshop area and doing a little something every day. Of course, I did take it a bit slower, read a couple of books, watched some TV (the new season of the next Food Network star has started!), even napped a little this week, but I dove right into my next two projects (yes, you read that right - two!). I think I was able to work more quickly than I have in the past because in the previous project I became used to just doing, not thinking. I hope I can keep up this momentum!

In planning the previous project, I bought several sheer and metallic aqua fabrics that I thought I might use as overlays to suggest water. I ended up not using them, partly because of the time crunch, but also because I felt they would've obscured all the interesting textures and details I worked so hard on. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to play with all those fun sheers and see what effects I could create, so I decided to use them for my next two projects. The one above will be for our next FANE show in September, so it needs to be finished over the summer. We had a group member serve as a guest curator and she came up with the size and theme requirements for our show. The size is 9" x 20"- interesting and different - and it can be hung either vertically or horizontally. She also decided each piece should be predominantly one color and that the color name be mentioned in the title of the piece.

To explore this idea, I took a long piece of cheesecloth that I had painted with watered-down acrylic paints in the spring, and cut it to about 24" (I always like to have more than enough!). I cut those sheer aqua fabrics into strips about an inch wide, threaded them on a large needle, and wove them in and out of the painted cheesecloth. Right now it's all just laying loose on top of another piece of aqua fabric, but I intend to position it into waves and use both hand and machine stitching to hold it all together. I may do some beading on it as well, as I also have a pretty good collection of beads in this color.

While I was playing with that, I started thinking that maybe I should consider creating something for the SAQA auction, which would need to be completed by July 2. That piece has a size requirement of 10-12" square, so I thought I might use some of the same fabrics but in another way. For this piece, I started with a square piece of pale blue fabric and layered wavy strips of the sheers over it to look like water. At the bottom is a soft piece of a tweed-like fabric in peach tones, to resemble sand. I added some hand stitching to this too, to give it more texture and obscure the straight lines a little (you may have to click on the photo to enlarge it to see that detail). There's also a tiny seashell in the lower right corner.
Anyway, it's obviously a seascape and I'm happy with the effects of the layering of the sheers. In person, I feel it really conveys the sense of being by the seaside. Maybe this will be the start of a series (I've got yards of those sheer aqua fabrics!). Once again, I'm a little disappointed with how it looks in the photo compared to how it looks in person. One of my goals for the year is to invest in lighting or some other means of getting better photos. I still need to work on that one...

It's done!

Here are the images I'm sending off to the Brush Gallery in Lowell, Mass for their 2011 ArtQuilts Lowell show!

I finally finished and photographed it today (a day later than I planned) after a few setbacks. First, we had tremendous thunderstorms blow through Thursday evening, complete with hail and everything, and we lost power overnight, so I was unable to finish the machine stitching I needed to do. By Friday morning I was intent on getting it done as quickly as I could, knowing that I needed to attend two school functions later that day. In my rush to finish, I wasn't as careful and precise as I should've been and in the first set of pictures I took, it looked very sloppy. I ended up spending the afternoon ripping out all the stitching I did that morning and spending the better part of today redoing it and photographing it. I'm satisfied with the results. I'm calling it "Caribbean Underwater Ballet."

Since there's a $30 entry fee for up to three pieces, I thought I might as well add one more. Here is a shot of "Great Blue Whale" which I did years ago. I still like the color scheme and fabric choices, but it seems almost simple to me in comparison with the other one. It's also much smaller - 15" x 19" compared to 27" x 41"!

But I'm thrilled that I completed everything in time to enter. As long as I can get to the post office first thing Monday morning and send the CD two-day express, it should be there on time! Hooray!

Because it's June...

Isn't the world a beautiful place in June?

I've tried to take notice of all the beauty around me (mostly while I'm out with the dog!) while I feverishly run from home to work to the store or the orthodontist and back home again, and then try to get some more work done on this underwater piece (what shall I call it?!?!). I did spend a good bit of time on it this weekend and yesterday (I only worked a half day) and managed to add these elements: the tarpon (he will be stitched on tonight or tomorrow)...

...and these spiny sea urchins. I actually had to do these twice because I didn't like the way the first ones looked. I added some hand stitching and the piece is just about ready to be trimmed down and bound! Just in time too, because I need to get it photographed and mail the CD before the 15th. If it's all done by Friday, I should make it.

15 Days and Counting...

As you might have guessed, I haven't been blogging as often because I've been spending every free moment working on this large underwater scene (I'm still trying to come up with a title for it). What I've been trying to capture in the piece is the sense of wonder, fun, joy, and awe we experienced snorkeling in St. John this summer. I've been sort of reliving our favorite snorkeling moments and selecting which fish and other elements I want to include in this piece. One of the interesting things we saw snorkeling in Trunk Bay were huge schools of these tiny silver fish. There were clouds of them that we just swam through. Here is a photo of my oldest daughter hovering above a large school. The water would just shimmer and ripple with the movement of these fish.

At a certain point in the afternoon, we were swimming among these schools of fish when suddenly these two very large (4 ft long) shiny silver fish came swimming silently along behind them. We were amazed at the size of them and assumed they were hunting down their lunches, although we never actually saw them eat anything. But they circled and swam around this area of the bay for as long as we were in the water. I later found out they were tarpon (you can see a photo of one by clicking here), which are characterized by a large lower jaw protruding above the upper jaw, noticeably large scales, and an extremely shiny silver color.

I decided I wanted to include these two elements in my underwater scene, so I got down to business on Friday and put in a lot of hours over the long holiday weekend. First, I painted and stitched a large school of those little feeder fish. Then I got to work on the head of a tarpon, which I plan to have swimming in from the right side of the piece. I wanted him to have the characteristics I mentioned, so I sketched him out and found a nice piece of shiny silver silk for his body. I decided to add scales out of that prismatic ribbon I used for the yellow-tailed snappers, but the ribbon is only about 1 1/2 inches wide. I drew out a diagram of all the scales, put the shapes onto Wonder Under, and fused it onto the ribbon. Then I cut them all out and fused them into place using my diagram as a map (each scale was numbered). I ended up adding some aluminum foil for his face and covering the whole fish with a sheer white fabric. I'm happy with the results, but I'll wait until he's stitched on to photograph him and post it. Here is a shot of him under construction.When I had stitched and painted a large school of the feeder fish, I realized I needed to finalize the placement of the large piece of orange coral and begin to stitch it down. But before I could do that, I needed to stitch all the pieces of fabric together (they were mainly held together with fusible only). It took a good bit of time to get that done, but I finally finished it yesterday and was able to back it with a loftier batting and begin stitching it to the main water fabric. I'm really glad I took the time to piece it together first, because that left me free to stitch it down only where it would have the most impact. I really want this piece of coral to have dimension. I tried to choose a range of oranges from light to dark and place them so the darker pieces are underneath or behind the lighter ones. I under- and overlapped carefully to also help add depth. Finally, I quilted the darker pieces down more heavily so they would recede and allow the lighter pieces to pop up. I don't know if you can see it in the photo below, but I think it worked! You can see the school of feeder fish in the background and two of the other fish that I already stitched on. I just hope I can finish it in the next two weeks....!!!!!

Race against time

I've been trying to discipline myself to use every spare moment to work on this piece for the June 15th deadline at Art Quilts: Lowell. I know I'll be very disappointed in myself if I'm unable to submit. Here are a few shots of the progress I made in the past week. What I've accomplished:

• Stitched on some sheers and laces to serve as background coral formations;
• Added some more branches to the central orange coral to make it a little bigger;
• Stitched some of the coral pieces together to hold them;
• Made a few more fish - fairy basslets and bluehead wrasses;
• Couched and free-motioned another brain coral and attached it to the first;
• Added yarn in the foreground for texture.

I feel like I'm moving forward at a good pace, and if I can keep it up, I may be able to make the deadline. Maybe I can give up cooking and cleaning for the next three weeks to make extra time!

Finally showing some progress!

This is how my WiP looks now. Since my last post about it, I touched up the ink and paint on the new background, washed out the resist, basted the whole cloth to the batting, and made a purple sea fan and some brain coral. It's coming along! Right now everything looks like it's floating a bit, because I haven't stitched anything down yet. I want to make sure of placement before I do that. I'll also add more hand-stitched detail to look like sand or coral in the foreground and background.

I was originally thinking I'd only make the central elkhorn coral and some fish, but then decided the elkhorn coral needed to be bigger, or it needed some additional elements. I wasn't about to enlarge and redo that coral I worked so hard on, so I decided on adding more coral. I've always loved those purple sea fans, especially the way they sway with the movement of the waves, so I chose to add some. Here is a bit of a detail shot. How do you like the yellow-tail snapper? I found some prismatic ribbon that I used for his silver scales.

And here is a detail of some brain coral. I chose a pale yellow spotted fabric and chain-stitched curvy lines all over it. Then I layered it with batting and free-motioned with the machine around the hand stitching. I want to add a smaller one to the left of this one and overlapping it. I may also put in some of those sea urchins that were everywhere. Then I need to add a bunch more fish. I would love to get this finished by June 15th, to submit it to Art Quilts: Lowell in MA, but I really would have to make much faster progress. Everything seems to take so long!