Of Snow-dyes and Silks

I thought for sure I had sewn myself into a corner--or more appropriately, when you see the final version, a sinkhole. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this wall hanging at this stage because I wasn't sure it would be worth preserving a memory of it. Someday I will learn to take more pictures. . .

I had just finished my goldfinch quilt, which created a design using reverse applique and I wanted to play around with that technique a bit more. I had also come across a snow dye from last year that was a bit wild and I wanted to challenge myself to do something with it. Ultimately, I decided to do a reverse applique where the fabric underneath had some texture to it. The only fabric that even remotely seemed to go with the snow dye was some blue-purple and red-purple silk. So for texture I pleated some squares that were around 10 inches and added some iron-on interfacing on the back to stabilize that silk that is always wanting to return to bits of thread  and to hold the pleats in place. I created a template that was an irregular organic shape that fit each of the pleated pieces, cut the snow-dye in those shapes to reveal the silk, and machine stitched the edges of the opening.   As I was finishing these up, I happened to notice that wonderful heavy thread made out of sari silk that I had bought in NYC and that I had been dying to work with. It was a perfect color and so I machine couched it around each of the silk shapes.

Now I had hanging on my working wall a piece of fabric with three fuzzy-edged blobby shapes on it and I had no idea where to go with it. And so it hung there for a long while. I would occasionally try something on it but nothing worked until one day I tried that sari silk (love the feel of that stuff) in a kind of a scribble shape and left it there over night. The next morning that scribble looked exactly like a tree and so three trees grew in the three pleated silk shapes. But it needed something more.

To be continued. . . .

Ready for Spring

Curvilinear perspective--that was the end-of-February challenge from the online Fast Friday Fabric Challenge group that I belong to.  The examples were intimidating, as usual--quiet lakes with a curved focal point or lovely layers of converging curves.  So I continued on with my day,  mulling possibilities in the back of my mind and rejecting most of them outright, until I found myself at the window at one point, watching the birds happily foraging at our bird feeder as snow fell yet again. The goldfinches who were just beginning to show a tinge of yellow in their gray winter feathers were particularly active, and then I knew I had the idea.  I had abstracted chickadees into a quilt and I could abstract a goldfinch but this time using curves and capturing its glorious late spring colors of gold, black and white.  It would be great to think beyond this cold, snowy winter anyway.

Observations on a Chickadee
25" x 25"

I tried my hand at machine reverse applique on this.  I could have used fusing but I didn't think I would like the raw-edge look for this piece and I am not sure I would have liked the look of satin stitching around the edges either.  The gray stitching around each curve just about disappears so I think it worked out all right.  

I quilted the background heavily, but I am now thinking I may take some out to make some islands of nonquilting.  I have been facing a lot of my most recent quilts but this one seemed to need a binding.

For a while I thought I like this orientation better:

but then went back to my original orientation with the "bird" "flying" toward the upper right corner.

This quilt is dedicated to Carol Schwartz, who loved the birds of these north central Pennsylvania hills, and to all those living through nature-made and human-made devastation. 

And, if you are still reading, thanks for the company. No green in this quilt but Happy St. Patrick's Day anyway!