Batik Watercolor Art Quilt

I have been organizing my sewing area in our newly finished basement for the past week.  I have found all kinds of treasures...especially UFO's (UnFinished Objects).  Here is one that I started several years ago in a class with Kathie George at Art of the Carolinas in Raleigh, NC.

Golden Flowers, by Jeanne Turner McBrayer

It is actually a watercolor painting on Ginwashi Oriental paper, sort of like rice paper.  Starting from the lightest shades, areas are painted, then waxed to preserve the light color.  There are at least four or five layers.  When all the color is added, you iron the piece to remove the wax, and discover your glowing painting.

I discovered that the Ginwashi paper holds up just fine to being machine quilted, so the painting became a quilt.  I added some beads and Swarovski crystals.  It shines in the sun!

I am just about finished with the unpacking in the sewing room, and am actually piecing a baby quilt.   The Gammill longer machine is now accessible, but I have not even turned it on for about a year while it was all covered with boxes, bags, and bundles from our move.  

It is good to be able to sew again!  

More Watercolor Batik Quilting

I have been having fun with my new discovery that you can quilt a watercolor painting on Ginwashi Oriental paper.  I finished quilting one of the sunflower paintings.

Sunny Bouquet, Jeanne McBrayer, Watercolor on Ginwashi paper, design by Kathie George

I also finished quilting and binding the other Sunflowers painting. I am experimenting with adding beads to this one.  In these photos, the beads are just scattered on the quilt top to audition how they look.

 I changed threads many times on both quilts, using a lot of rayon and variegated colors.

I think I like the gold beads, to add even more of the sun-drenched effect to this quilt.

Watercolor + Stitching = Art Quilt!

Here is my quilted watercolor batik painting!

School's In, Jeanne Turner McBrayer, drawing by Kathie George

I used variegated rayon threads, more or less outlining the shapes in the fish, and adding swirls in the water.

I am excited about combining two of my favorite hobbies!

This Winter Day

Here is one of my art quilts that is appropriate for this cold, dreary December day.  My group Cyberbee issued a challenge eight years ago to make a quilt based on Maya Angelou's poem, This Winter Day.

I wove the front of the quilt from strips of hand-painted and commercial fabrics.  The green and white striped fabric was made with Shiva paint sticks, and made good tops for the button vegetables!

I made up for the gray palette on the front with a wildly colorful back.  I wrote the words to the poem on the hanging sleeve.

In case you cannot read them, the poem reads:

The kitchen is in readiness

white green and orange things

leak their blood selves in the soup

Ritual sacrifice that snaps

an odor at my nose, and starts

my tongue to march,

slipping in the liquid of its drip.

The day, silver striped

in rain, is balked against

my window and the soup.

Art Quilt: Connections

I went to the PAQA-South quilt exhibit at the Page-Walker Arts and History Center in Cary yesterday, thinking that I would linger and take some photos prior to my art quilt group going out there for our November meeting.  I took a few photos in the foyer of the old house, and was told by the lady at the desk that I could not take individual photos of the quilts.  I could only take shots of the quilts from across the room.  Well, that is the first time anyone has stopped me from taking pics at this venue.

In the display case at the entrance, there is a colorful arrangement of prayer flags made by members of PAQA-South.  I must have missed the memo asking us to make these.  They look great!

I found my quilt upstairs on the second floor.  The room is not nearly as lovely as the downstairs parlor with the gorgeous wood floors, grand piano, and fireplace.  It is just a meeting room.  But I liked the quilts upstairs.  Mine is the little guy at lower center.

Here is the wall at the far end of the room.  The two quilts on each end are by Raleigh quilter Roxanne Lessa.

Here are some more on a different wall upstairs.

 And these are on the wall opposite my quilt.  My friend Roberta Morgan's quilt is the one with the faces next to the window.

It has been beautiful in Raleigh.  I took my dog for a walk at Umstead State Park, which actually adjoins my neighborhood.  Instead I drove to the entrance off Glenwood so we could walk around Big Lake.  The leaves are just starting to change there.

We are now in the mountains, where it is quite chilly and there is a freeze warning for tonight.  I started quilting an antique quilt top this afternoon.  It is going well, and I should finish quilting it this weekend.  Photos to come in a future post.  Here is a teaser:

Art Quilt: Connections! Opens Today!

The latest PAQA-South art quilt exhibit is now open to the public at the Page-Walker Art and History Center in Cary, North Carolina.

Here is an image of the main exhibit room downstairs at the Page-Walker.

And here is a journal page that I made featuring this event.  The names of the participating artists are on the right.  

I hope to visit the exhibit today or tomorrow.  I will not be able to attend the artist reception.  But here, once again, is my little contribution to the show.

The Traveling Day Lilies, by Jeanne Turner McBrayer, 2014

The Traveling Day Lilies

It took me a long time to finish my art quilt, now titled The Traveling Day Lilies.

It is raw-edge appliqué stitched down with embroidery floss.  I quilted it with Superior metallic thread in green and a Valdani cotton in gold.  I added some miscellaneous beads to the stamens of the flowers.

Here is another detail shot.

I have entered this in the next PAQA-South quilt show to be held at the Page-Walker Arts and History Center in Cary this fall.

We have been traveling a lot.  Besides our mountain cabin, we have also been to Asheville for a weekend with family and friends.  Ten of us attended a concert at the Pisgah Brewing Company with Trampled By Turtles.  Funny name for a group of remarkable musicians who can pick QUICK!

Here is a new picture of my little grand baby, Charlie.  She is a joy.  I still babysit for her twice a week and also kept her last weekend.

This past week I have been to the National Teapot exhibit in Creedmoor, NC, and also to my old quilt bee, The Whacky Ladies.  More to come in future posts!

Accepted!

I got the good news that my quilt was juried into the PAQA-South Art Quilt WHIMSY! exhibit at the Page-Walker House in Cary.  This was my first time to enter one of their shows, so I was happy to be one of the 45 accepted.

Now I have to add a hanging sleeve, make a wooden hanging slat with screw eyes attached to the ends, write an artist bio, get a 5x7 photo of myself, make business cards, and sew on a label.  I have until April 15 to get all that ready.

I have no news from the Vintage View Quilt show because I missed the whole event.  We went on our annual birthday trip to Asheville, NC, to visit as many of their fine microbreweries.  We had a DD, but ended up walking from place to place in the downtown Asheville area with a fine group of friends and relatives.

And one very large dog!  Our hosts Lee and Beattie have adopted a ten-year old golden retriever, Jake,  that was in need of a foster home.  He is about as big as a sofa but a very sweet boy.

Charlie enjoyed his birthday, and so did all of us.

Our own personal dog had to go to the kennel for the weekend.  She "emailed" us this photo saying she missed us, but was having fun.  I think she would have preferred to go on the pub crawl with us, like Jake did.

We had great weather Friday and Saturday, but it rained all the way home.  More wintry weather to come???  Let's hope not!

Oh, Look! The Spider Plant is Having Babies!

Oh, Look!  The Spider Plant is Having Babies

All finished and entered in the PAQA-South exhibit called Art Quilt-WHIMSY!  It has to be juried in, so I will know after March 15 if it is accepted.  I have never entered one of their shows before, although I have gone to see the exhibits at the Page-Walker House in Cary many times.

This quilt languished in the UFO pile for years until I discovered the opportunity for whimsy by adding the little spiders.  I added glitter to the plastic spiders, which I bought around Halloween one year.

It was good to get this one finished.

In other news, my beloved dog Kasey had surgery this week to repair a torn ligament in her right rear leg.  In humans, it is called the ACL.  They had to cut into her leg bone and insert a metal plate with pins into it.  She seems to have tolerated the procedure well.  A little droopy but hanging in there.

She is a very special dog who lets our little grand baby pet and snuggle with her, always comes when she is called, will spend all day lying at my feet, but joyfully runs with us on our trips up the mountain.  I hope she will be able to run again once she recovers.

This weekend we have our older son's family here from South Carolina.  They are being very sweet to our furry patient, too.

Tissue-Bleed Fabric WIP's

I had a little extra time today, and did some free-motion quilting on the tissue-bleed fabric I created at my last art quilt bee meeting.

This is the piece where I doodled with neocolor II crayons over the fabric, and sealed it with Textile Medium.  I fused it to a piece of Timtex, a very stiff interfacing.  Then I did some free-motion machine quilting on my DSM in two different variegated threads.  

I plan to make a journal cover from this one.

I also started a few fabric bookmarks from the scrap pieces.

These will be zigzagged around the edges and maybe have some funky fibers added.

Last night we went to see Gravity at the IMAX.  Wow,  a very compelling plot! And it had gorgeous, beautiful scenes of the earth from space.  I highly recommend this movie!

Machine-Quilting Done

I decided to go ahead and try machine-quilting my latest project on my domestic sewing machine, a Janome 6600.  I really had not done much quilting on it except for postcards and bookmarks.  Because everything bigger than that, I just put it on my Gammill.  But since it is on loan to someone who is storing it for me at their house...

I decided to spray baste the batting and backing...but must have packed my basting spray into the POD during my massive reorganization.  No problem...I'll use safety pins.

Same problem...packed the safety pins, too!

I found some fusible batting, and ironed it to the quilt top.  Then, I pinned the top two layers to the backing with regular quilting pins.  Not the best solution, but it got me going.  It's hard not to run over them when you're quilting.

Had to get out the Janome manual to figure out the settings for free-motion quilting.

It went pretty well.  I decided to use the swirls of steam from the coffee as my quilting motif.

 

I used black thread for the whole thing.  I went around the outline of the cups.  I just had to add a little humor.  Since the quilt will be named Picasso's Coffee Cups, I put his first name on the brown coffee cup!

 

 

I picked a beautiful hand-dyed fabric for the back.

 

 

I have a few places of visible starts and stops, which I am working on tonight.  Everything went pretty well, except I got some of the extra backing fabric caught up in the quilting stitches.

 

 

The needle did not want to go through the heavily painted text areas.  Note:  next time I will use inks or fabric paint, not acrylic, if I plan to quilt it.

 

In Pamela Allen's method of art quilt-making, the next step after quilting is embellishing.  She has been know to sew or attach all kinds of objects to her quilts.  I thought about sewing on a Spork to stir the coffee, but don't think that would really add anything!  I might get a little paint and go over the name quilted into the mug so it shows up better.

 

Just a little left to go on this project.  Binding, sleeve, and label.  Then done!

 

 

 

 

 

Ready to Quilt

It has been a busy few days.  Our son Bryson and his wife Melissa came up on Thursday, and we went to Durham to a concert by legendary country singer Don Williams.  It was fabulous!  Don sits on his stool, says, "I don't talk much," and then launches into a program of all his most adored hits from the past four decades or so.  No stories, just an evening of wonderful mellow music.

On Saturday we went to see the movie Lincoln, which we enjoyed tremendously.  It is the only one of the Academy Award nominees that we have seen.  I also want to see Life of Pi, which I have read, and Charlie wants to see Zero Dark Thirty.

It snowed and iced off and on this weekend, but we still had a showing on our house on Sunday.  Cleaning up and having the house ready to show is time-consuming...and then you have to clear out for awhile.  So far we have not had any offers, but the showings have picked up.

I have been doing some handwork off and on.  I have an art quilt top that is hand-stitched and ready to quilt.  It is from one of my five or six online workshops with Pamela Allen.  I think this one was from About Style.  It was meant to be in the style of  Cubism...think Picasso and his idea of breaking down objects into shapes and seeing multiple views of the object in space at the same time.  Pamela said the Cubists would often use fractured, positive and negative shapes, collage, and text.  Voila:  I give you Picasso's Coffee Cups.

I used stick-on scrapbook letters on cloth, then painted over them and removed them to make the text.  The letters will be the color of the back ground fabric.  The large brownish fabric behind the orange negative cup was hand-dyed, then stamped with black acrylic paint.  I have had a fat quarter set of the coffee bean fabric for many years, having won it as a door prize at Capital Quilters' Guild.  

Each shape is arranged and glue-basted, then stitched with either embroidery floss or Perle Cotton thread.  Next step is to machine quilt.  I can't decide whether to try this on my Janome, or wait until I visit my Gammill's foster mother next week and quilt it on the frame.  The whole thing is only about 16" x 18".

I have enough of these Pamela Allen UFO's to stitch that it could take me the rest of my life!  I will probably start hand-stitching another one tonight.