Saturday, November 03, 2007

It's a good thing

I stayed home from Houston I think. I have 2 more quilts completely finished to go to Chimneyville with me. No labels, but that's par for the course for me anyway. I'll get them on there (probably at the last minute) before I actually sell them. Notice the sheer optimism of me saying "before I sell them?" Still no clue about how many quilts to take so I'll make/finish what I can and stop worrying about it. Not bloody likely, as my friend says, but it's something to shoot for anyway. I'll just keep gobbling the Tagamet and get done what I can. I could probably get more done if I'd stay home and work and not go to the stitch and bitch at the needlework shop in Canton (and I really didn't need to decide how to hook a rug and stop in the middle of everything else I'm doing to work on that) but at least I get some beading done up there. No phones, no lights, no motorcars.....at least no phones and no distractions beyond the snacks and chatting with the other women.

"Moonlit Swamp" is layers of appliqued trees and sparkle tulle. Starting from the back I did a layer of commercial cotton for the trees, covered them with tulle then added successive layers of trees and tulle. Total of either layers of tulle I think. Heavy free-motion quilting on the trees and reflections on the water, very minimal quilting on the rest of it. A weird tarnished looking blackish-green twisted bugle bead for the shimmer on the water and some furry yarn for the Spanish moss on the tree. 35x28, faced, machine quilted, hand beaded.




"Dropout" is a variety of commercial batiks, torn into strips and woven together. The fish are cut from one of the batiks used in the background, and sort of trapuntoed on with an extra layer of batting. Some detail added and emphasised with markers and stitching. The entire thing has been painted and stamped with swirls and squiggles in metallic paints. The wavy quilting lines are in a variegated King Tut, with the breaks at each fish left long. Each dangling quilting thread has a small glass bead on it. Opalescent sequins and silver beads make the bubbles for each fish. The quilted area is 15x25, 15x43 including torn fringe at the bottom.

2 comments:

jenclair said...

"Moonlit Swamp" is quite a departure for you, but I love it! Well, I guess I'm a swamp kinda gal here on the bayou. It is very shimmery and appropriately eerie.

Tanya Brown said...

These are great. I think you're correct in saying "before you sell them", because they're winners.