Newest work

Good and snowy early morning in Calgary,

Once again, I find myself in the need to apologize because I haven’t blogged in a long time.  I cannot believe that it’s mid-March already! Where have the first two months of the year gone?  But, just because I have not blogged, doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing any work.  On the contrary, I have been quite productive, creating new pieces of work for samples for classes, or just because I like the technique.  Here’s the latest one in a new technique I started working with last year, and haven’t so far shared with you.  It is as yet unnamed, as you can see from the photo (which I took with my iPad yesterday morning around 5:20 a.m.! – hence the shadow on the bottom left-hand corner) there is still a needle in the work, as I need to finish the beading.  You know how it is with beading, once you start … it’s difficult to know when to stop.

And here is a detail of the beading:

All that done with beads I already had at home.  Didn’t have to go out and buy any more!  And they were all green!  Go figure!  :)  These are still left over from a previous small project called “I see trees of green … dragonflies too”.  I’ll post a photo of it later so you can see it.  By the time I stopped counting, I had over 9,000 beads on this small 18″ x 18″ piece.  Needless to say, it weighs a few pounds.

The interesting thing about this technique, is that it starts with all white, off-white and neutral fabrics in cotton, linen, silk, viscose, etc.  And some poly-cotton thrown in there for good measure.  It is pieced, fully quilted using cotton thread, and then, before it is squared off and bound, it is placed in a dye bath.  This one was Celadon with a bit of bright green and a teaspoonful or two of sage.

The different colors on the quilt are given by the different fabric contents and textures.  It’s a very interesting technique, as you never know exactly what the finished piece is going to look like.

Here is another one, called “Birds on a Wire”.  The first photo was taken before it was dyed, and the second one is after it was placed in a vat of Pomegranate dye:

This next one, is called “On the Rooftops of the City where I Live” and is my version of a wonkly Log Cabin block, dyed in a mix of Tangerine, Bright Orange and a bit of Golden Yellow.

I will have some news to share with you on this technique in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, I’m off to teach a fabric painting workshop.

Thanks for reading, Drop me a comment or two and keep quilting.

Ana