The Ponderosa

A local group I belong to, Montana Bricolage Artists, are putting together a show at Montana Art and Gallery in Missoula MT for the months of June and July, 2011.  The show is called "A Trunk Show" and will be featuring our versions of trees of numerous species in their various stages and seasons of life.  Each piece will range in size between 10" and 18" wide and between 5' and 6' long.  Some will be hung from the ceiling in groupings so that viewers can walk through them as if in a forest.  Others will hang on walls, hopefully from hooks so that there will be shadows behind each tree.
The Ponderosa is my first tree piece for this show.  I will be working on two others. 
FYI - The word "bricolage" means "construction or creation from a diverse range of things".  It is pronounced with a long e sound for the "i".

The techniques I used for this piece include painted and heated Tyvek hand sewn to strips of crushed brown and black velvet that had been cut using a wood burning tool.  Other embellishments were added such as wool roving and dyed cheesecloth plus moss.

Montana Grizzly

Using several photographs as references, this bear was painted onto prepared for dyeing fabric using Tsukineko inks and Fabrico markers. It was then cut out, appliqued to the background and heavily thread-painted with rayon threads. The background was created by discharging black cotton with bleach in a random pattern with a spray bottle. The more solid areas of bleached fabric were painted with a flour/water paste and allowed to dry for a day. This was then scrunched to crackle it and painted with black Setacolor fabric paint. After the paint had dried, the flour paste was washed off and more textural interest added with black Misty Fuse.

A photograph and brief article about this piece will be published in the May, 2011 issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited.

Winter Wonderland

A class at Quilt University taught by Linda Schmidt was called Winter Wonderland. This piece was my class project.

Everything is hand-painted using prepared for dyeing fabric. It was made and constructed in sections. White puff paint was used for the snow except for the branches of the large tree, which is Lutradur that was heated with an embossing tool.

This piece has been sold.

Sunflower

I made this piece for my daughter, who loves sunflowers. The blue background is pieced and everything else is appliqued onto it. Sheers were used on some petals for shading and the smaller leaves at the base of the flower are sheers. I added wool roving in the center of the flower for texture and then beaded for additional interest. As with most of my pieces, this was originally drawn on paper and labeled as to colors and values. I used this drawing as my master and traced each piece to be appliqued. I used a turned-edge method of applique with invisible thread and a small zigzag stitch.

After the Storm

This quilt was constructed using one of Louisa Smith's templates. The template has four curved sides, so it gave me a lot of practice sewing curved seams. It was on my design wall for about 2 years until I finally decided that I would need to finish it in order to use my wall for something else. I added the paint for the mountains and the foreground has threadwork pine trees free motion stitched onto rinse away stabilizer. I added white paint and tiny clear beads on some branches to represent early-season snowfall. I really like the irregular edge that using the templates produced.

Monet Revisited

I participated in a class through Quilt University called Artists Revisited. The old master's work that I selected to do for the class project was Monet's The Magpie.

This piece is all applique work. The sky, building, trees and snow are commercial fabrics that I further embellished with Setacolor fabric paint. The snowy branches are Lutradur that has been heated with an embossing gun, making lacy holes. The shadow of the foreground snow was also made from Lutradur that had been painted first, then heated and cut into shapes of the shadow.

This piece has been sold.

Home Away From Home

Everything in this piece is hand-painted and then appliqued together using invisible thread and a small zigzag stitch. I used Setacolor fabric paints and Tsukineko inks. It is constructed in many segments. The main trees were made individually by painting onto prepared for dyeing fabric and then embellishing with white puff paint, cut out and appliqued to the body of the piece. All of the snow in the foreground is painted with puff paint.

I used various photographs of our cabin on Rock Creek, Montana, as references.