2 pieces in PNQE 2013

This weekend I have 2 pieces in the PNQE (Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza) show in America. They are part of the Stretching Art and Tradition group exhibition. The exhibition theme is "Hi, It’s Me!".

My pieces are : ‘Self Portrait’

also known as Lady Sew-Forth

and ‘Swamp Dragon’.

You can see images of the Stretching Art pieces in the show at this link. Click on the title of each piece to see it.


If you click on the detail thumbnails for each piece you can enlarge those photos.
At present, you have to go back to the 'current exhibition' page to go to the next piece.

I have been part of this group for several years now. New members are welcome. Maybe you would like to join? The new challenge for next year’s show will be posted in October. There are further links to find out about it on the website. The focus is to challenge yourself with ideas and techniques.

I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Swamp Dragon Completed

If you have been following the saga of the Swamp Dragon, you will be glad to know I finished it during the week.

22"h x 20"w

I am quite pleased. It has gone from a failed attempt to something quite successful. Okay, I don't think it will win any awards, but it might get someone's imagination going!

And more than that, there were several things I learned in the recent process that I am going to attempt with other large (and maybe larger?) pieces. On a small scale, I had been struggling with the puckering affect of lots of stitching. This was making me rather afraid to go large because I thought the affect would be even greater. But now I think I can be confident to do more stitching and the felt base of the motif will absorb the stitch without causing puckering.

Result!

For those of you who remember the stories that go with my dragons, there was a snippet of a start way back when I started this in 2008! Well, I think this is the dragon before it goes to live in the pond of the Princess. But I will have to have a think about the rest of the story when I get a breather sometime later in the month.

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Swamp Dragon - quilting the background

Now that I have the maps caught up, have been North and back, and showed my gowns here and there...I finally am back to the dragons on the wall.

Today I did the background stitching on the Swamp Dragon. Previously I had tried one idea which didn't work and had to be unpicked. I had tried it under the part where the dragon will be, so any unpicking doesn't show. (I am quite glad, too. The stitch holes on this background fabric don't go away easily. The backing fabric is a looser weave, so the unpicking won't be obvious there.)

So today, I decided to do this curly growing plant-like quilting. However, I thought I might try little fern leaves off them - again under where the dragon will be - and again, they just didn't work. So, I unpicked them. After finishing the plants, I think I am glad I didn't do more. What with the spots, more detailed quilting would have overtaken the central character. As it is, I think they refer to a swamp or growing place without overwhelming.

These things have been good to learn. I haven't done so much overall quilting before, unless I was following a pattern in the fabric. So, it took some getting used to for the right movements to control the stitching.

When I started, the whole thing seemed to be quite sticky and hard to move. I had a bright idea and got out some waxed paper. I cut a piece, folded it and rubbed it over the surface of the machine bed and the quilt table extension. And it worked! Things moved around easily without too much pushing and pulling.
This idea came from what we used to do when I was a child. If you want to go down a slide faster, then rub waxed paper on it! Like snowboarders do with a chunk of wax on their snowboards.

Tomorrow I will stitch the dragon on and finish the edges. Then think on the next steps for the cloud puppy. I think for him, I will have more intense stitching. The background is plain and it shouldn't overwhelm. I need to give a little feel that he is playing in the clouds.

Swamp Dragon - stitchwork

Edit: I am linking the Swamp Dragon posts to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Fridays.
I will be using the label Swamp Dragon to link, so welcome if you have come from over there! Be sure to scroll down and read the other posts about the progression of the Swamp Dragon.

The new technique I wanted to try out on the Swamp Dragon before attempting it on the Cloud Puppy is to use a layer of felt under the dragon before doing the Free Motion stitching.

In the past so much intense stitching causes a great deal of puckering and there are a lot of things I have to do to make the piece work. I have used a layer of thin wadding under the central figure before, but then you have to deal with the bits of white that show on the edges.

I heard someone mention the idea of using felt under the central figure. As it so happens, I have a large bag of felt that I was given. Because of the dark fabric outline already, it means I can use a dark felt and there won't be so much problem with the edges. So I fused the dragon and 'ground' to brown felt. Then got busy with the stitch patterns for the scales of the dragon and the pebbles on the ground.

I really like the result!

The felt serves as a sort of stabiliser so that there is no puckering, and it also works to give a bit of dimension with the quilting. When I attach the dragon to the background (which I intend to pre-quilt) I will go over the edges of things with a zigzag or satin stitch through all the layers of the dragon and background quilt sandwich. Otherwise I would have stops and starts to deal with in quilting the background up to the dragon. The quilting will end up more fluid and yet the dragon will be 'quilted' through all layers...something judges often look for.

I had an idea for quilting the background and started under the position where the dragon would go...just in case it didn't work. I soon found it didn't. So, I have unpicked all that. Overnight I have come up with an idea that I think will work much better. Not sure if I will get much done though because I have started to get another headache.

Tomorrow I am going to the ExCel Centre (one of the venues used for the Olympics) to help look after the Contemporary Quilt stand at the Creative Stitch ICHF show. They have displayed last year's journal quilts. Apparently there was alot of interest a couple weeks ago at the ICHF Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch show at the NEC.

Swamp Dragon - progress

So, I mentioned that I cut off the gold coloured outline from the dragon. Instead, it has been placed on a dark background. Then I fused it and cut round the dragon. You can see the difference already when just placed on the dark teal backing.

Compare with yesterday's photo. The dark colour works better because most of the areas are places where there should be shadow. Because the gold colour read as light instead of shadow, the original piece didn't work.

I took the solid looking areas off - these were added previously to 'ground' the dragon on the background. Later I also added the dark edging to them as well and replaced them when I put the dragon on the new background.

 

seeing how it looks and checking placement

I am really excited about the background fabric. It is simple cotton with a wax batik patterning. But because the colour is mottled, it works to make it look like the light is shining off areas. This makes it have a sort of metallic look to it and so it works really well with the dragon because of the metallic paint around it.

Tomorrow the results of the new techinque I was trying.

If you want to see how this dark outline looks in other work, you should look at how Terry Grant uses the process. She works with individual small pieces and then builds up the whole...explained in her recent post.

Work in Progress revisited

I am nearly at the stage where I want to do the quilting on the Cloud Puppy. But I wanted to try a technique out first.

This dragon has been a Work in Progress for sometime. I did it for the Fast Friday Challenge - Monochromatic and Perspective. Only I was never very happy with the result of the various greenish Lumiere paints which showed their metallic side more than the green.

So, I have taken it off the background. Cut off some of the outlining and am putting it onto a dark fabric in a similar way as I did the Cloud Puppy. Then I will cut round the whole thing and go from there. Then I will do the new technique and see if it will suit the Cloud Puppy.

working title now? The Swamp Dragon. The new background fabric I have chosen works so much better.

Dragon in progress

This is the dragon I am currently working on. It is part of the Fast Friday challenge, but I haven't been very fast. I had the idea before I went to Houston, but had to catch up with other commitments after I got back. I tried very hard to follow the set guides for this time...Perspective - which I don't think I did too badly with and Monochromatic, which I seem to have lost along the way. Several of the fabrics I started with didn't end up in the composition, and then I realised the dragon's features were lost and I wasn't sure just stitching would show them up. So I chose paints in the monochromatic scheme, but of course they were metallic blends. So the silvery turquoise one reads as silver when you paint it on green and the goldy green one reads gold.
The "shadow" was originally teal green (scraps from this skirt), but the dragon and the "shadow" were too similar in value. So, I painted it with olive bronze to darken it...but only the bronze shows! (I have used these before and only saw the other part of the colour!)
As you know, my dragons usually have a story. Well, I started out thinking this was a spring dragon, but when the "shadow" started looking like a lily pond, I realise it was a pond dragon! I think it still is, but it lives in the pond of the Princess of the ?, who has had special bronze lily pads made for the dragon to rest on. It is a very lucky dragon. (Or will be if I can get it right) I am still learning the rest of the story.
Anyway, I will continue to work on it and see if I find out what is missing. I am going to create more texture on the dragon body. I think I have managed to salvage the value, so I am giving up trying to get the monochromatic thing going again. Here is the photo with the colour desaturated, showing the values. Not wonderful, but alright.

By the way, I went for those colours because I wanted to use the background. It is one I did with flour resist. It seemed very dragon - atmospheric.
So, now we already have a new challenge. I am not sure if I will keep working this right now, or hang it up in my studio till I see what it needs, if anything, before I stitch into it. I usually use skirt hangers to clip onto the top of pieces and hang them from the wardrobe doors where my stash is kept. The next challenge should be better as it is about up close/far away and value! So, I think I will do a close-up of a portion of a dragon. I had decided these would be studies, but when I thought perspective, I found it hard not to do a whole dragon.