Posts Tagged ‘free machine quilting’

Take #2 – What Was I Thinking ?

Tuesday, January 6th, 2015

In looking through some old pics today I found this photo of an art quilt I made for a commission, in Denver CO, towards the end of 1993.  My husband and I were preparing to leave the USA to return to Australia, getting the house ready to put on the market, and managing children with different needs in different parts of the world. Altogether there was a lot going on in my life as is usual for me.   I always have time for a commission, though, and love the challenge, but I’m not often asked.

An interior designer asked me to meet her in a house and discuss ideas for a quilted textile art work commission. The owner wanted a sunset theme work for the living room, where the wall on which it was to be hung included a large 3″ deep alcove with curved top.  We had a discussion about whether to make (a) a rectangular shaped piece the length of the alcove from the point where the curved shape starts, to the foot of the shape; or (b)  to make a piece shaped to fit into the curved shape of the alcove.  I submitted both ways, but with everything going on in both of our lives, at least one of us got crossed wires about the final decision; and the look of astonishment on her face when I unfurled the work saying “Are ready for this?” is something I’ll never forget.  When I looked back at the paper work, on the whole the agreement/contract was vague in places and if I were to read it today it would be glaringly obvious, I’m sure.  I offered to make another, rectangular,quilt, but Cindy’s client wouldn’t hear of it and paid up.  I don’t know who stuffed up, but it didn’t matter once the client said he was happy anyway.  I hope he still is – I never knew his name.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Apart from the title – an inspiring and optimistic ‘Sunset 1’ , there is no info in my computer, but I’m sure I have paper work on it back in Australia.  From memory it is/was about 36″ x 42″.  I don’t have a detail shot of it – and have no recollection of what hanging apparatus I supplied – it was a long time ago!  I see nothing around it to suggest the alcove, so the photo must have been taken against a plain wall – probably in our own home.  To me now it is rather gauche, and I can see a lot wrong with the sky background to the wandering strips that by then had become part of my signature, but at the time I thought it was a pretty good fit with the rest of my work.

 

 

Marshland Sunset copy blog

Years later, I did another sunset piece on commission, “Marshland Sunset” 2007, documented in a series of posts on this blog entitled “Anatomy of a Commission” between March 11th and 27th, 2007.  At that time, I was blogging on Blogger and having troubles.  When I began blogging on my present website in 2008, the older posts were imported, but some irritating things happened in the crossover , so I’m sorry if you find things a little odd on your browser, as I did just now when checking out those posts.   The finished piece is 2′ x 3′.  Several fabrics were supplied by the owner and incorporated.  My technical abilities with strips had changed – I like to think improved.  The piece was machine quilted with gold thread.  I hope it is still happily housed in Florida, USA.

Marshland Sunset 2007, blog

 

New Work, Featuring Green

Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013

mostly about green web

 

With working title  ‘Mostly about Green’,  this is a detail of a work in progress, showing  the wonderful black chintz background before and after quilting.   The quilting along the edges of the strip inserts is very bright green, fluorescent.   Green is my absolute  favourite colour, just in case the red one I posted a week or two back  fooled you  ;-p    This one belongs to my Ebb & Flow series, certainly, and although both are about colour, I think the ‘Mostly About Red’ one one belongs to the Tracks series.   If you read both series statements you might agree or not, and feel free to comment – but it’s my say !

SAQA 2013 Auction – 12″ Square Completed

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013

I often get back into the swing of creating after the holidays by tackling my piece for the annual SAQA Benefit Auction – the 12″ squares that are auctioned online later in the year.

This year for the first time, pieces submitted by Oceania SAQA members are being shown together as a collection once or twice before the actual auction.  So there’s that deadline anyway for us tall to get them done and in good and early.  But a few days ago. Lisa,  SAQA Rep for the Oceania region,  called for images of any finished squares for this year’s SAQA auction to submit to magazines as promotion for the organisation in the region and the auction in particular.  And that really galvanised me.  On monday morning I got out the stencil I’d  made some time ago – sprayed some of the shiny black with gold, machine embroidered with gold, then layered, machine quilted, bound and photographed it; and sent the image off before breakfast today  – its wednesday.

Sandlines - small

I’m calling this one ‘Sandlines’ – based of course on sand ripple patterns on the beach.

 

Wonderful Fabric Find

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

Flowlines #2, 12″ x 16″

I found this lovely plain, soft grey fabric several weeks ago on a remnant stall at the sunday markets.  It jumped up and down saying “Pick me! pick me!” and so I bought 5m @ what I thought was a good price, 100 pesos/m  (about  US$5 / meter).   It’s  cotton, about 60″ wide, which is unusual here in uruguay, and has a very slight sheen on one side.  It also contains about 5% viscose according to the stall holder.   While I worked with it during the following week, I had two thoughts – (1) ‘cheap’ as it was in Aus or US terms,  I should have haggled a bit over it, and (2) I should have offered to buy the lot – it was after all a remnant of hard to find cotton fabric, likely to never be repeated, etc.   It was so nice to work with, and these thoughts persisted, so last weekend I went back.  And after a search, the woman found the rest of the bolt which amounted to 6 and 1/2m, and sold the lot of me for $300,   US $15.  So averaging, yes it was a good price/metre.  I have also done some very small pieces using it as a background, and am having them photographed today.

So I’m happy with about  8-9 m in my stash, and will be using a lot more of this wonderful grey, until it runs out !  The stall holder is always there, I have bought things from her before, and this time left a card with my contact details on it asking her to  please phone me if she gets in any other plain cotton fabric with no designs on it.  Such stuff is needle-in-haystack value for patchworkers here.  And yet this fabric is so nice, a finer quality than any of the plains I have brought back from Aus or the US down the years.   I’ll be sorry when it’s all used up – but hey, it’s a wonderful thing about fabric that no matter where you are there is always some wonderful find of unusual quality or marvellous colour that  pops up unexpectedly to demand a purchase….

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