Material Maven's 'Comfort' Quilt

"Connoisseurs of Comfort" by Judy Wedemeyer - 2013 (12"square)

Today was November's quilt reveal on the Material Maven's blog.  Here is the link to my post  "Connoisseurs of Comfort" where you can read the full story and construction methods.  Be sure to check out all of the Comfort themed quilts.

January theme is:  STRONG

Addendum:
November's 'COMFORT' theme was my final challenge piece as a Material Maven (although I didn't realize it at the time).  My creative focus will be directed toward producing art quilts for our Anchorage Centennial Celebration on behalf of Anchorage Log Cabin Quilter's, Inc.

Material Maven Theme Challenge: Interwoven

"Interwoven: Through The Ages" by Judy Wedemeyer  (12" sq)

My latest Material Maven challenge piece is now completed.  You can read about it's construction here, along with the other Maven's posts.  After much deliberation, I have chosen the next challenge theme to be 'communication' with the results to be revealed March 15th, 2013.  Be sure to check back then and thanks for tuning in.

"Travel Bugs"

"Travel Bugs" by Judy Wedemeyer 2012  (12" square)

Please click on this link to Material Maven's and read about my latest Travel themed challenge quilt with this online group.

Spiral Theme: "Staircase To Heaven"""

"Staircase To Heaven" by Judy Wedemeyer (12" square)

Material Maven's art quilt challenge group has posted its most recent reveal.  September's theme was Spiral.  Next reveal in November will be on Travel.  My posting on the Material Maven's blog is here:  Judy W's Spiral quilt   You can read about all of the entries by clicking on the Material Maven's headline photo.
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Addendum:
My dear friend Denice emailed her conversation with daughter Marlene regarding my "Spiral Staircase To Heaven" quilt.  It blessed me and hopefully my readers as well.

Unedited as follows:
"When I shared with Marlene your gorgeous "Staircase to Heaven" piece she shared with me a message she had recently listened to. The pastor was specifically speaking about spiral staircases and how many in the Body of Christ are currently on a spiral staircase. The encouragement was that if you found yourself in that place where you seemed to be going around and around and around "that same old mountain" similar to going around and around on a spiral staircase, to pause and look down at the new heights the Lord had brought you to through your circling."

Mixed Media Meltdown

Recycled and Waterproof Flowers for Garden Art?

I'd intended to clean up my beading station but got sidetracked with the first item I laid my hands on. 

My studio overflows with daily discards destined as future recycled art.  This light plastic divider originally separated fresh boxed peaches.  With a bit of ingenuity, and a few hours playing around, I transformed it into several decorative flowers for an undetermined use later.



For the flowers, I randomly scissor-cut the cup sides until the plastic sections laid flat between a parchment paper sandwich.  This is when I discovered how quickly the thin centers melted under heat.  They bubbled first, the thicker sides took a fraction longer.  Don't hold the iron in one place.  It will even melt by just lightly hovering over the paper if the iron is too warm.

If you try this project, I recommend you begin your experimentation with a low iron heat setting, using a light touch  and paying careful attention to your progress because light plastic melts very quickly!

After I melted all the cups, I layered two together per flower and free-motion machine stitched the centers.  After auditioning bottle caps and shiny metal buttons I decided on colorful buttons as flower centers.  I felt they needed more color so I added a single flower petal from a party lei, then hand stitched their final placement.  Most likely my little flowers will be floating around my studio for a month or so before some brainy idea pops up on how to use them.  They are weather proof and I want to create some garden art so...... hmmmm.

Taking the recycling a step further, I melted the scraps between a sandwich of plastic netting, formerly potato and orange bags, making sure parchment paper separated the netting from my iron and the ironing board surface.

Scraps of Time

Picture me doing a happy dance! I'm happy with this fun piece. I'm happy my #8 is completed for the show on time and in time. Ha! Most of all I am happy that my paperwork is nearly finalized and the mad rush is coming to a close soon. So yes, I am doing a Happy Dance!

Now, a little about this mixed-media art collage. It all began with a small section of fused fabric scraps that just seemed to reinforce the Charles Caleb Colton quote about shreds and patches of time being used that most men would throw away. That's me. Perpetual pack rat, storing bits and pieces for a later use. It seemed appropriate then, to post the quote as a focal statement, so it became the 'stem' on my flower. So what if you have to stand on your head to read it. : )

I played around with possible flowers and came up with an experimental metal medallion I made from a sheet of ? aluminum/tin? I don't know what it is... I got it in the clock face/parts section of Fred Meyer. The square edges were too sharp so I folded them to the back in a round shape. The silver color was a bit too silver for my taste so I painted it with yellow metallic ink, attached a round wire ring to give it a bit of interest, and then sewed a glass bead for the center. A flower needs leaves so I sewed a protective tulle net over the organic leaves so they wouldn't crumble with handling. Tah dah -- flower done and machine sewn to an upholstery fabric background.

A couple days of agony passed trying to figure out how to balance the focal piece without overwhelming it. I finally settled on a 'garden path' of art clay cabochons I made 7 yrs ago for jewelry making purposes. It pays to be flexible! Although the clay is glued mightily, I wire-wrapped alternating stones to help tie the metal accents to the flower. The scrap of matching fused fabric behind the stones further aids the balancing act. That upholstered background was then spot glued and machine sewed to suede picture mat board. Fun fibers were twisted and machine tacked to the edge of the fabric.

Take a look at the photo again and imagine the piece without the gold rick-rack trim dividing the two sections. It needed the brightness, gold accent and defining border it created. Don't ask me why this works, it just does. Everything about this piece is 100% recycled supplies in my studio, including the frame. Funny how my temporary creative block jumped the hurdle and ended up producing one of my favorite pieces in this show collection.... It's About Time!

Hope you enjoyed the journey with me. Not sure what is coming next.. you will just have to come back for another visit and thanks for your interest in my blog.

Art Card Production

Here I am still professing art card production and this is where it all takes place. I didn't think these little gems would take this long to make! One-of-a-kind items are time intensive because there isn't a 'formula' to follow, no time saving assembly or even a beginning plan. Even more challenging yet intensely satisfying is that I am breaking new ground working in such a small size on a daily basis. I realized yesterday that this is the art quilt journaling I was aiming for - just more intense than the one per week goal I had originally planned. I'm convinced the continuum of daily journaling is really the way to go for condensed, progressive studies.

Weather was favorable this afternoon so I snapped some photos of my last 10 days of work. Below are nine of the 24 drink sleeves I made out of upholstery fabric. Initially I designed them to insulate hands from hot drinks (coffee to go), but since these are lined with cotton fabric I thought they would also absorb condensation from cold drinks, so they are multi-functional. I machine satin stitched most of the edgings but tried a scalloped edge on a few of them.
Here are the latest Art Cards. I have 7 more to make before this project is finished. I have thoroughly enjoyed making them but I must resume working on the last half of my art pieces for the show.

Now, here is the tidbit I'll share about getting sidetracked making art card backgrounds. The past three years I have saved the fused fabric trimmings from any fused applique projects I'd worked on during that time. I rationalized that this would eventually come in handy at some time in the future. I had a large lightweight cotton fabric already fused that someone had passed on to me. (I'm known for being a pack rat), so I laid it on my large ironing table with the fused side up. Next I started placing miscellaneous scraps of fused fabrics I'd saved onto this base fabric (fused sides together). My only goal was to spread the colors and shapes across the piece to keep the overall effect fairly balanced visually. I started in the corners for no particular reason. I laid out a small section, then ironed it down, progressing randomly across the surface until the entire backing was covered.I had an excessive amount of red left over so I made this 12" square. The wavy line was the bottom edge trim left over from my Electric Bread-fast Quilt. The need for higher contrast and focus led me to cut circles from one of the remaining scraps of fused fabric. This is the same fabric on my Two of a Kind art card above. I may finish this art piece with a small black border.With the last large piece of fused fabric as a foundation, I dug into my ribbons and laid them randomly on a diagonal pattern. The wavy fabric trimmings are from the Tranquility Quilt I sold in a show last year. Ribbon is an 'iffy' material when it comes to ironing, therefore some shrinkage and waffling occurred with some strips but I just consider it added texture. I'll have to meditate on this one before I finish it off.

This no sew piecing project is very similar to crazy quilting - without thread piecing. In essence, I have created new fabric that can be a stand alone quilt/art piece or used as fabric to make a fiber bowl, stretch over canvas, make place mats, book covers or whatever else you'd do with stiff fabric. It can be sandwiched like a quilt and machine stitched for texture or just machine stitched as is. I suspect the fused fabric will gum up my sewing machine needle a bit so I will have to use Sewers Aid to lubricate the needle and clean the needle often but it is necessary to secure the ironed on pieces permanently. I haven't decided what I will do with these 'new fabrics' as yet. Most everything I produce gets used in one form or another at some point in time. Thats the fun of studio play - it doesn't require a purpose to enjoy the process and its really quite addictive once you get started.

Mixed-Media ART CARDS

The past couple of weeks I've begun making fiber art note cards. Kathy Harte, Deb Hardman and I are each producing eight 'time themed' mixed-media/fiber art pieces for our July show at Terra Bella's. In addition to our wall art, TB proprietor Linda Vollertson encouraged us to create small gift items to sell in conjunction with our show. Here is a sampling of my first 17 cards. Each one is unique although a couple of them are very similar.

The aqua colored backgrounds were made from fabric painted fusible web, then layered with sequins, glitter dust, silver metallic thread, misty fuse and white tulle netting.

The red and black cards in the center were created with red fabric snippets fused on a fabric background. The white section is threads from muslin fabric that raveled in the wash. I bunched it randomly on a stiff felt backing, laid tulle net on top and machine free motion stitched red thread to secure and add texture.

On the bottom three cards I have used fabric snippets fused to a cloth backing, sandwiched with layers of thread, sequins and angelina fibers, then overlayed with tulle netting and machine stitched to keep it all intact. I wanted to add a focal element that set each card apart so I dug through scrap jewelry, buttons, lace, and whatever I could think of to add some zip to the overall effect.

Be sure to click on the photos for a close up on details. This is my first installment of card photos. I'll post more later, along with several coffee sleeves I made using upholstery fabric.

Art Quilt & Mixed-Media Pieces Finished

It's been a while since my last post but I've been productive. "Just A Minute" is a collage of several quotes about seconds in a minute. How many times we've all said Just a second... or Wait a minute... usually to grab a few moments to regroup before we get diverted by someone else. I recycled a wooden frame that was painted a limey green by applying a brownish water color wash over the collaged watches, then I sealed it with a matt acrylic spray. Collage work was applied to a painted canvas board, then overlaid with fabric paint stamped organza. A matt gel medium was used to adhere the paper collage and organza. I glued the canvas board collage on a padded fabric canvas board backing and secured the corners with beads sewn through all layers to keep the corners from curling up. It appears to be 'floating' on the fabric. Funky and offbeat, this was a fun project to do.

"Sands of Time" is a symbolic wall quilt. The sand-colored, hourglass-shaped, fabric patches, with beads and crystals cascading from the top and dripping off the bottom, in addition to the irregular shape overall was chosen to depict "Like sands through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives" (a soap opera moniker from the 70's). I free-motion 'bubble' quilted the entire surface with an irridescent white metallic thread to create the illusion of sunlit grains of sand. Although this was a time intensive project in which I had no clear vision from beginning to end, each step led me to the next choice and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey. I can visualize this piece in a number of settings.

Mixed-media Art Piece

Last night I completed a new mixed-media art piece for our Terra Bella show "It's About Time" in July. Although I haven't settled on the title yet, I am leaning toward either Time Flies or Moments in Time. This is truly a 'green project' since I have recycled the canvas, frame, collage experimentation, and the majority of embellishments used -- including a corrupted CD I could no longer use to record music on with my computer. How rewarding to keep all these items from the landfill while having fun playing in my studio. In addition to the obvious embellishments, the background is my first attempt at mixing fabric and paper collage along with fabric paints. I glued and hand sewed the embellishments for added stability. I'd love to hear your comments as well as which title you think best.