Hi and welcome to week 486 of Free Motion Mavericks. I'm staying away from the heat and humidity by being productive in my studio. The garden will have to fend for itself for the week 🌞 while I make more garden art for Fibre 15's upcoming show.

Raining Pink Petals

My first fence art piece is finished and looked rather nice in the backyard for its photo shoot. 😊

Raining Pink Petals fence art piece ✔

There wasn't much left to do to finish this piece except to add more petals on the sides. I looked through my fabric and found a perfect bunny and 4 butterflies to add to the piece. I used fusible web to attach them. I will be adding at least one or two invisible stitches in each of them before the installation. I'm creating a list below of all that's left to do to finalize these pieces for the installation.

Essence of Leaves

I've created another fence art piece using one of Connie's Textile Art fabric pieces that I bought last year. I mentioned her work in May when I bought more of her fabric at Fibre Fling 2024. I asked Connie how she had created this piece. She replied "I think I sun printed the lighter coloured ones and then used textile paint to stamp/print the darker coloured ones. All done at the family cottage with leaves growing there. I also used coarse salt on it."

Essence of Leaves

I attached the fabric to the outdoor woven fabric that I've used for all of my fence art pieces. I then FMQ the darker leaves and then the lighter ghost leaves. It still needs a little more stitching but I want to keep the emphasis on the leaves. I'm thinking of echoing the leaves in an orange thread that matches the background.

Our show's theme is "Impermanence". I named this piece Essence of Leaves since we can only capture the essence of the leaf in our art since they are impermanent.

Prayer Flags

I made the first of a series of Prayer Flags that will hang in the trees surrounding Arbor Gallery. A new workshop in the TextileArtist.org Stitch Club peaked my interest. I haven't had much time to participate in the last few months but this one came at the perfect time. The workshop to make a stitched and dyed sampler with Deb Cooper, is perfect for creating my Prayer Flags.

"Thanks" Prayer Flag dyed in tea

I made this first sampler using mostly white and off-white fabric. In the image below, I've placed the original fabric next to the dyed piece. I used a variety of thread - white #8 and #12 perle cotton, beige perle cotton, white linen cotton as well as white cotton sewing thread. I included a commercial fabric that had a white background with black lines. It's really interesting to see how the fabrics have taken, or not taken, the tea dye.

Dyed fabric with the original fabrics and thread

I embroidered the work "Thanks" on the t-shirt fabric on the right (two fabrics from the stick). I've added colour by threading through the back stitch. If you're wondering about the stick in the photo above... I learned a new technique - you stitch around a stick, remove the stick and voilà! It makes for very cool thread rings. In this case, I added some fluffy yarn (acrylic I suspect since it didn't take the dye) to create texture.

Prayer Flag - "Thanks"

Outdoor Hanging Sculpture - In The Sky

The hanging sculpture is looking good. I attached the Suns and Clouds to a branch. I painted Golden GAC-400, a textile stiffener, to the edges of the sun. What a difference it made. Hopefully it will be ok in the rain.

Applying some GAC-400 to stiffen the edges of the sun

Sunset with the fabric stiffener

As I put the sculpture together, I realised that my instincts were correct. My pretty cloud is too small. I will make another fluffy blue cloud to attach to the one already made.

Need to add to the fluffy blue cloud

After the cloud, all that remains is to make a bird(s) on the branch below. I thought of using one of my tamarack geese as a model, but they really do look like geese. Next to the geese, I found a beautiful soapstone bird. I'll use that as a model to make one or more birds out of wire and fabric.

Soapstone bird to use as a model

To Do List

The installation deadline is July 3rd (in 2 weeks) and I have lots of work left to do. I hope you don't mind if I keep a running tab of what needs to be done here. 😊

Raining Pink Petals

Stitch the bunny and butterflies in place
Prepare the dowel for hanging
Create a label

Essence of Leaves

Finish FMQ the background
Fix the hanging sleeve and prepare the dowel for hanging
Create a label

"Thanks" Prayer Flag

Prepare for hanging once the others are done
Create a label for the series

Create one more fence art piece called Squirrel!

Create 3 or 4 more Prayer Flags

Outdoor hanging sculpture

Make another fluffy blue cloud
Make one or more birds

What I learned

I have so many pieces on the go that it was really good to spend the time figuring out what is left to do.
Most of the work is not too daunting. I have an idea and a title (Squirrel!) for the third fence art - I just need to figure out how to do it (i.e. appliqué, FMQ, etc.) It will be something simple and fun.
The birds make me a little nervous but now that I've found my model, I'll find the YouTube video and get going!
I've had a lot of fun with stitching and dying with tea. I'm going to experiment with other types of tea to see what effects I can get. The stitching takes a while but it's relaxing and I can do that easily in the evenings.
I started a piece in Alaska that I was going to use as a prayer flag. For some reason, I kept hesitating. I finally figured out that our theme, "Impermanence" just didn't go with the very solid mountains of Alaska. I guess in the grand scheme of things everything is impermanent but I thought that it was stretching it. Besides, I couldn't make 3 or 4 more like it - it's just too time consuming. I'll share it with you, as soon as it's done.
As well, I'll be facilitating a journal making playdate for OOTB on Monday. I'm looking forward to it, but it is making things busy 😊

Free Motion Mavericks

It was a busy week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat of Scrap Box Quilts has finished her Dino quilt. She quilted it with lots of wavy lines - it will make a great toddler play quilt. 😃

Kat's great Dino play quilt

Frédérique finished another donation baby quilt. She used her very cute llama fabric and quilted it using a template to make the Pearl and Squares stitching in the sashing. Isn't it lovely? Lightly quilting and pretty 😍

Llamas Baby Quilt by Frédérique

It's now your turn!

7 comments:

Anonymous23 June 2024 at 21:51
What an interesting concept you are doing with the outdoor sculpture! I'm impressed with the pink petals piece too!--TerryK@OnGoingProjects
Kim23 June 2024 at 22:06
Andree, you always seem to have the best fun experimenting and playing with all the many techniques. It will be amazing to wander around the Fibre 15's show when it opens..Raining Pink Petals is pretty and the sun and blue clouds are cool. It will be double the beauty when you add another cloud. I love how you have added the stitching to Enhanced Leaves and there's so much loveliness on the Thanks prayer flag. Everything is so joyous!
Kate24 June 2024 at 06:22
Your outside art projects are all moving along so well. The leaves piece is really gorgeous. You seem to be on track with your deadline, good luck!
CathieJ24 June 2024 at 07:19
That is quite a large to do list. You have some very pretty projects that you are working on.