This is the latest piece that I've finished from a TextileArtist.org Stitch Challenge workshop. I know that I say that many of my art quilts are my favourites but I really, really love this one.

After the Storm

After the Storm

In March of this year, I made this piece following a workshop with Jette Clover, a Danish fibre artist. It's based on a photo taken after a snow storm this winter. 

A photo of my back yard after the snow storm

Our workshop was to create a piece based on a winter scene. I've often contemplated making a winter scene, but I had never gotten further that wondering "how in the world am I supposed to create a scene that's mostly white?" If you look carefully however, snow is not just white. There are usually shadows and the white sometimes has bluish or pinkish tinges, depending on the time of day and the weather conditions.

Details of After the Storm

I started by layering a flannel base with various fabrics and experimenting. A hand-dyed gray fabric went over the flannel. For the bottom, I used a piece of cotton lace from an old t-shirt, put a layer of batting and then added the lace on top. That was a lovely way of adding white without actually having to work too hard to give it texture 😊. I stitched on a piece of hand-dyed t-shirt on top of that - it had originally been an image of a bouquet of dried flowers so it had some lovely lines. Next came different types of tulle and organza - most of it had a lovely sheen that would be great for reflecting snow.

For the fence, I had a piece of cotton with pink, yellow and turquoise. On top of that came a piece of linen that I had dyed turquoise. It was an old skirt and I kept the stitching that was on it as part of the composition. I loved how it was curling and fraying. I also added a darker piece of gray as a line on the left. It sort of frames the piece and in the picture it's the window frame.

Once the pieces were mostly attached, I started stitching the branches. I used a running stitch of gray embroidery floss to outline them.

Outlining branches following the fabric

Adding the tree and its branches was the hardest part. I used a piece of batik and stitched it down with a button-hole stitch of a few strands of brown floss. I used the same floss to outline the tree branches. I then started covering the brown outlines with a DMC white Mouliné Étoile embroidery floss. It has a beautiful shimmer to it.

Adding the tree and then covering the branches with snow

I added lots of snow on the tree and fence top, the branches and around the base of the tree. I used a fluffy white yard to add snow between the tree and the lace. I thought that I needed something next to the branches and so added the snow covered bird bath. I used a piece of gray fabric covered with tulle and outlined in black.

Adding lots of snow and a bird bath.

Next came stitching the background with running stitch. I stitched the fence fabric vertically with a very light variegated thread that went well with the fabric. I used a variegated gray thread for the background. As I was stitching the background, it became obvious that the stamp had to be moved. 

What's with the stamp?

Jette Clover, our instructor, loves to add stamps to her textile art pieces. Since we were in the middle of lock-down and I didn't have any interesting stamps, I went to the Canada Post website and found a series of northern wildlife stamps. I chose the Arctic Hare stamp since it was more likely to be in my back yard that a caribou 😊. I made a photo copy of the stamp and attached it to a piece of brown cardstock. When I moved the stamp and was ready to finish the piece, I went to a post office outlet and bought a book of the northern wildlife stamps. I then attached the real stamp to a piece of green cardstock and placed it higher on the piece. It looks much better now!

Finishing it 

The piece has an irregular, organic shape that it didn't want to change. However, I did want to hang it somehow.

I ended up using a 10"x10" canvas and covered it with a remnant of stretchy velour fabric that I had been gifted. I need more experience covering canvas frames but this was pretty good for my first try. I want to do this more often to finish my art quilts. It really gives it a nice professional finish and hangs better than a sleeve, especially for pieces with odd shapes.

Finished piece, before adding it to a covered canvas

What I learned

• It never ceases to amaze me how I end up adding fabrics and moving them around until it starts looking like something that I want. I don't really have any idea of what the piece will look like except that it should look a little like the photo.
• When I'm  not sure of one part, I'll leave it and work on another part. If nothing seems to work - then it's time to leave it until I feel like picking it up again. Having it sit on my desk or my design wall usually helps me think of something.
• You can see between the almost finished piece and the finished piece that I moved the stamp and added more stitches to the side gray border.
• I really loved the DMC Mouliné Étoile. I will pick more up when stores are open again since I used almost the entire skein on this piece.
• This was one of the four pieces that I had in the Fibre Fling exhibit last week. The other pieces were Exit Strategy, Big Mandala to Heal the World and Flower Impressions.

Related links

• 

  DMC Mouliné Étoile 
• Jette Clover: website and Instagram
• Fibre Flin 2021 exhibited pieces
• Exit Strategy
• Big Mandala to Heal the World
• Flower Impressions

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many fun linking parties. Let's see what's going on in the quilting world! If you have any FMQ, link up to Free Motion Mavericks with Muv this week. Off the Wall Friday, Put Your Foot Down, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Finished Friday and TGIFF, Beauties Pageant, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Slow Sunday Stitching, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2021, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, 

After the Storm was featured on Denise's Put Your Foot Down. Thanks Denise!

Project details

After the Storm

9" x 8½", mounted on a 10"x10" canvas 

Materials: flannel base, hand-dyed cottons and linen, batik, organza, tulle, lace, batting, embroidery floss, variegated thread and yarn, cardstock, stamp

Techniques: appliqué and embroidery

Art Quilt Practice Pieces

After last week's whirlwind (a guild quilt show and the Art with Fabric blog hop) I didn't think I'd want to quilt for a few weeks. Well, I stayed away from my quilting for 3 whole days! However, the two little projects I made were pressure-free playing using new techniques or materials.

So far, I've participated in 3 of the Colour Me Positive 2016 Weekly Journal Challenge, by creating mini art quilts that are mostly words with free motion quilting (FMQ). I love seeing everyone's art work on the dedicated Facebook page. The pieces are fun and use all types of art journalling techniques. I didn't even know that this existed until joining them!

Week 18 of the Colour Me Positive Challenge - Healing Art (13" x 7.5")

Since I'm also using words in these quilts, I'm now learning to write again with Joanne Sharpe's Whimsical Writing books and videos. Between all of these resources, I've learned about all kinds of neat writing, drawing and art products that are easily adapted to fabric. That's why I couldn't wait to start playing with stamps, markers and stencils.

Week 18 - Healing Art

Details of the tree - coloured and thread painted

I started this piece using the tree stencil and then went a little nuts with some of my daughter's stamps.

I took out my permanent markers and coloured the tree and outlined some of the butterflies and flowers. Since the green of the tree was too intense, I toned it down with some thread painting in browns and darker green.

I then added the "Healing Art" using some cool grungy alphabet stamps. The letters didn't stand out enough so I experimented with my new markers and played around with a colourless blender. Wow! I love the effect it has on the letters - I even used them on the tops of the tulips. It makes them look like water colours. I then added metallic thread through the bobbin and did a little bit of FMQ

As with all of my art, the hardest part is knowing when to stop. I looked at the piece from the perspective of the art theory I've been learning.
Does the piece have:

• a focus point; 
• contrast; 
• balance; and 
• flow?

I think that the answer is yes. However, since the techniques used on this piece include FMQ, stencils, markers and stamps, I though that I should add appliqué to the mix. That's when I dug into my scrap stash and found two cools cats! Nothing says mellow like cats hanging around :-)

Week 9 - Live like a grownup, play like a child

At the quilt show last weekend, my daughter bought me a couple of hand dyed cheese cloth by local fibre artist Linda Palaisy.

Fantaisie 2 -my creation for Week 9 (6.5" x  9")

The colours were so lovely I could just taste them! I couldn't wait to try making something fun and whimsical, so here it is - Fantaisie 2, a fibre collage.

I attached the cheese cloth to a blue cotton to lighten it up. In my stash I found three different fabrics - the hollyhock, the faeries and half meter of fabric that had butterflies, hummingbirds and these great borders.

Fantaisie 2 - close up

I attached the fabric using thread painting. It was flimsy and difficult to sew, so I used a minimum of stitching and then quilted it. Since it's just a fun little piece, I decided to leave the borders as is, without binding. I was hoping to use the same technique I had used for Woven Landscape  - to just fold the backing between the batting and the borders, but it didn't work out. Those are the drawbacks to just forging ahead without planning!

What I learned:

• I should stop when I'm tired - that's when challenges happen.
• Challenges are not important when playing. Fix it, or just move on :-)
• To colour or write on cloth, just iron the cloth to freezer paper to make it more stable.
• The Fantaisie 2 piece is dark, but I think that the borders lighten it up and give it contrast.
• I love the look that the cheese cloth adds to the piece.
• In case you're wondering, yes, week 9 should come before week 18, but we're encouraged to add our pieces whenever they're ready. 

I will be linking up to the following parties - check them out!
Oh Scrap!  Let's Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday, Free Motion Mavericks, Off the Wall Friday, and Freemotion by the River