Living This Creative Life

I have two favorite quotes. The first one is by Emile Zola, "If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I would tell you that I came to live out loud". I don't know who the second one is by, but it goes like this, "If you're not living on the edge then you might as well jump". Both of these sentiments sum up my personal philosophy of this experience we call life on earth. Enjoy!

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Art Every Day, 1/09/13,

Good Morning,
Some days, all I want to do is free motion quilt. Today was one of those days. So, I hunted out a hand dye that would challenge me a bit and I found this red violet/yellow green combo that I had resist dyed using a triangle folding technique.  Because this color combination is temperature neutral and neither color comes forward or recedes, I new I would have a pretty good challenge on my hands as far as creating any depth with the quilting - I like a challenge! I thought that I could probably do something cool with the intersection of the pinks so I ripped the fabric with that intersection in the center of the rectangle. I layered it with black batting and some backing and began stitching.
The flower was simple because the pink sections looked like petals so I began with that. I really like what I did with the pink segments in the lower portion. I think they look fun and whimsical. I wanted to really show of the stitched flower so echo quilting in the green negative space was the easiest answer. I still don't think the piece has much depth but the contrast in color and stitch line is allowing the flower to dominate.
The whole thing is bordered with twisted lengths of ripped fabric and a zig zag stitch. It was very satisfying to find a good use for this very funky fabric and I got my ya-ya's in by beginning the day with free style (no marking) free motion quilting.
Hope you enjoy your day, till tomorrow,
Heather

1 comment:

me said...

This whole piece has a lovely, whimsical feel to it; not only the swirly rosebuds at the bottom, but the slightly frayed edges of the border and the color scheme.

I am not great at judging depth yet, but until you look closely, it appears to be an applique, which I think does add dimension to this work.

The echo quilting does such a nice job of emphasizing the flower and because the flower stands out, again, I see dimension- ahh, the power of quilting!

Lastly, the small black frame of batting showing really pops the color forward.

If you asked me to provide depth in a piece without using anything actually dimensional, I would think these tools would be great ones to use!