Friday, October 16, 2009

Chip's Frog




This depicts the frog of a horse's hoof. Chip was my once-in-a-lifetime horse. He was a Thoroughbred, off the track, and had been abused. Once Chip figured out he had his home for life, he stuck like glue to me - he preferred his mom to the herd! He was a show hunter and we won a lot together. When he retired from jumping, we dabbled in dressage and went on trail rides. My trainer used to call us her "Black Beauty" story because Chip never settled down at the show grounds until I arrived.



Chip's Frog Redux
I felt that my 1st attempt at Chip's Frog wasn't so good, so I redid the whole thing. I like this better.
(I am really starting to get in to making pictures with thread!)
Anyway, again, Chip was a horse; this is my depiction of his "frog."

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Nite Frogs


Nite Frogs

I couldnt pick which frog was my favorite, they are all beautiful and bright so I thought what the heck, why pick? I have never used angelina fibers before and intended for it to look like clouds in the night sky..Not so sure about them. Overall I had fun doing this. I like to applique.
By Brandy

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Music Man

Finally have Sandstone completed! My husband helped draw the figure, I had technical assistance from Anne with the freemotion quilting.

Sylvia

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Well, Here is my Frog quilt, titled: "FROG: What's red & green, & red & green, & red & green?" Yes, I know I'm sick, but I have been going with the first thought that enters my mind after I see the new word. I tried to think of something else, but it just kept coming back to this.
This was a single piece of fabric that I painted with Setacolor paints. I cut it up & sewed it back together multiple times & ways. Trimmed it to about 12 x 12, and quilted it.

Midge Meditation

As soon as I saw Maria Elkins' on Quilting Arts TV demonstrating how to make portraits I knew I had found a way to make my frog. And with my children off to school once again I finally had the uninterrupted time to make her happen!She is made from fabric I dyed and is quilted with rayon thread. I am feeling very good about the quilting on this piece because of all the instruction and practice I received in Lisa B's class. Thank you Lisa!

Friday, August 28, 2009

Peace. Always in Fashion.

This was 99% finished for a long time. I wanted a special peace quote for the label. Instead, it is better that I waited, the right words came to me this afternoon. Blue background and tie dye shirt were done in Anne's batiking class this summer. Mini clothespins were courtesy of Kaye. Now to frog.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Personal Peace

By Nancy
I call it "My Personal Peace" because it depicts where I go in my head when I need a little peace: Flagstaff, AZ (San Francisco Peaks) where I went to college, and Alpine, AZ (The Escudilla Mountains) where we had acreage for many years. And, of course, horses! Nothing fancy - I used fabric with the scenes already printed on them, cut them up and stitched them down.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Unregulated Stitch Revolution

So, I started thinking about the word “peace” and I saw a peace symbol (of course) and a dove. Ho-hum. . . Then I thought about “white” - the color of peace. Then I just stopped thinking about it - for now.At the same time, I recently received three quilts back from two shows with evaluations. The only criticisms were “uneven stitches”, “irregular stitches”, etc. They loved the fabric, the design, even the finished edges. Frustrating, because regular, even stitches have become the standard now that their are so many stitch regulators on so many machines, including regular home machines. But to me that takes the art out of what I’m doing. I’ve heard that the stitch regulators are even frustrating to those people who care about even stitches. So, it came to me - make a piece that has purposefully uneven stitches. The image came right away. . . To be fair Sylvia and others have not taken these judges seriously for a while. They do what they like and what they want and just laugh at the criticisms. And rightly so. It’s just taken me longer to realize in my heart that it’s just a bunch of baloney. I feel free. I’m at peace. Oh! That’s our word this month! Revolution can bring about true inner peace. So that is why my “peace” piece is called “Unregulated Stitch Revolution.”

By Anne Munoz

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Well, did decide not to continue with the "faces" I had thought of putting a 'ho-hum' dove on a hat but was not able to make the 3-D idea work.. then when I started thinking about peace I thought of water. This piece of fabric is very strange... got it from a fabric exchange..it is sort of transparent and very stiff... I thought it would soften after I washed it... well it didn't.... what I did was use two layers to give the feeling of distance and then did some thread play to create the land (horizon) and added bushes to the water...
Angela

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Sandstone - finally


Here is my sandstone piece finally. I was originally going to try to dye fabric with sandstone, kinda like those red dirt shirts, and do a 'shades of sandstone' quilt, but as you can see that didn't workout too well. How do they do that? I wound up with a couple pastel pieces of fabric. I used one of those pieces on the back. Then I thought I would do a sandstone border for a photo I took of some flowers growing in sandstone. The finished piece I have here was to be the border only, but I liked the way it came out, so here it is, no flowers. It is a piece of ultra-suede that I used variegated thread on. It originally had square corners that looked terrible after I tried to miter them with a zig-zag border stitch - works well when you are doing it in the middle of a quilt, not so well on an edge, at least for me. So I cut them off and rounded them, now I can sleep at night. Below are some detail photos. Now if I can only get to 'peace' and 'frog'.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Symbolic Peace



This project started as a turquoise piece of fabric that turned into a symbol of religion that was totally unexpected. It took on a life of its own as I started assembling it. Each part has a specific meaning to me. The color represents peace, the universal symbol of Christianity is the fish represented in thread. The double crossed lines in raw silk threads symbolizing the cross. I made the background (top and bottom) to be the Sea of Galilee while the dotted strip is the calming of the sea by Jesus. I chose to use the three long beads as the 3 members of the Godhead. The silver beads is Jesus as the light of the world. I then decided to place the beads around the border as the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus was in the wilderness. I decided to place the heavily beaded bottom as the Seed of Abraham as Numerous as sands on the the shore. The cream back ground silk is the Shroud of Jesus placed around him after his crucifixion. Netting found on the quilt is to symbolize Jesus telling the apostles to be "fishers of men," with the 12 beads hanging in a row as the 12 disciples of Christ. Finally, I made this quilt in 6 days and on the 7th day I rested (with mild celebration). The quilt is machine quilted and all embellishments have been completed by hand. As I said, I did not intend for this to take on the life it did, but it means a lot to me as a symbol of my faith.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009


For my "Peace" quilt, I chose "COEXIST", as is seen on bumperstickers and on Bono's headband in the excellent "U2/3D" movie. I decided to do it in in a rainbow of colors on plain(ish) grey background. Symbols are fused on.