Serendipity - oh yes !

To be honest - I had a really hard time to come up with an idea for this challenge ;-)) After a while and lots of fruitless consideration ... and while I started to give my studio a major spring clean ... a first vague idea started to form in my head. What if I only used what I "find" around? And make do? Hmmmmm ... a very old UFO turned up.

I cut it down to size ... and stared at it ... till I realized that it is spring outside ! Lovely weather - the sun is shining, fresh green everywhere! So - how about quilting plants?

After I was done with my quilting, I looked at my piece and liked it - so far. Of course it was not finished ... so I went back to organizing my studio. And yes, another lucky incidence happened - I found some artificial flowers I bought some years ago. I teared them apart ...

... and added some stems with couching. After I did the binding, I added the leaves (by sewing) and the flowers with hot glue. And here it is - my finished quilt "Serendipity" !!

A very old UFO and some other remnants - and the result is a happy, cheery little quilt! The size is about 16" x 14".
I'm pretty much relieved that I got my quilt done in time this time ;-)) - and I'm looking forward to see what you all have been up to!

Pennsylvania Serendipity

I really wrestled with this challenge, coming up blank for a number of weeks until one day I realized that I was just trying too hard.  If I was making a quilt based on the word “Serendipity,” I should make it serendipitously. And so I began.  I could think of no more serendipitous fabric than one of my snow dyes, and I chose a piece with teal-y blue highlights and lots of the texture that snow-dyeing produces. I put in some cerulean blue slashes with hand reverse applique to bring out the blue highlights and then I was stuck so I set it aside until the next serendipitous moment.

I decided to sandwich the top and do some machine quilting to emphasize the textures in the background. I was playing with shapes to applique on top of this when I serendipitously thought of the nautilus shape, a shape that has always fascinated me, and wondered what it would look like if I exploded it.

I obviously liked it so much I added another and then exploded some circles as well.  In the spirit of serendipity, these are all non-fused, raw edged, and machine appliqued. And this was a stretch for me, since usually I like to finish the edges, but I think the frayed fuzziness fits the serendipity theme.

 I added some clusters of French knots in perle cotton for a little more texture, faced it and it was done!

Madalene

Sher's Challenge Quilt

My piece is serendipitous for several reasons. I have been wanting to do a small art quilt for my dad's apartment. He was just 86 last week, lives in the Quad Cities (on the border between IA and IL), and he's lost much of his sight due to macular degeneration. The Quad Cities (he lives in Davenport, IA) hosts the Bix Biederbeck Jazz Festival each summer along the Mississippi waterfront. It's a hot, but great music festival and 7 mile run. Where it runs through Davenport is the only location along this major river that the Mississippi runs east to west; everywhere else it flows from north to south.

So I rescaled a map of the Quad Cities' boundaries and the river as a pattern and used the orange dyed fabric to represent the summer heat and sun, the colors to show the liveliness of the music. It is bright enough for him to see even if he can't make out all the detail. I did some metallic thread hand-quilting on the orange. Also used fused and mostly raw edge piecing. I didn't really like the way the small white strips look; they represent all the bridge locations, but it's done and he'll like it.

How is everyone doing?

Happy spring to you, too, Carol, and to all of you.  I kept meaning to respond earlier but April, like March, seems to be flying by. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have been having a tough time coming up with an inspiration for our challenge word. And it's one of my favorite words, so it should have been easy.

I even spent time looking up its origins, which seem a bit convoluted and, well, serendipitous. It supposedly came from "The Three Princes of Serendip," a supposedly Persian fairy tale, but Serendip was actually an old name for Sri Lanka. And the discoveries made in the fairy tale were not the "happy accidents" we now usually associate with serendipity but were more like Sherlock Holmes discoveries, based on keen observation and strong analytical abilities. This was becoming a dead end so I abandoned that path.

Anyway, last week, I serendipitously came upon an idea and have finally begun work as the deadline has begun to loom.  And how are the rest of you doing?

Madalene

Happy Spring to all!!!!!

Connection - late, but: finished !!

Phew - thanks for your patience! Yesterday evening I made the last finishing stitches on "Connection" ;-))
After the theme was named, I knew immediately I wanted to do something about the emerging connection between the 6 of us. Finding the idea took me a while ... how about doing 6 different figures?

The first picture shows the six different figures, already ironed on white fabric. Five of the six were cut from my own hand-dyed fabrics, just for the dark purple I used a print. Now - how do I connect them ? Off to my yarn stash - and yes ! I found a beautiful colour combination. And started to do loops of yarn - by handstitching. Pretyy soon I realized - no way I get this finished the way I want to do it in time! Hand-couching takes so much time ... but I love the look of it.

After the hand-couching was done, I did small-scale stippling, from the outside in, added some more areas of stippling inside. For the finishing touches, I did one line of zig-zag on the outside first to stabilize the edges. As I did not like the plain white edge, I stepped yarn on top of the zig zag.

To me, this first challenge was truly about connecting. The six figures stand alone on background, but the yarn ties them together. That is exactly what I hope to become true for us, too!

Next Challenge Word!

Hi All,

I didn't keep you in suspense intentionally! I'm just home from work and leaving shortly for yoga class. I have a long list of potential challenge words...The one I have chosen is a bit self serving, I'm afraid. In my continuing attempt to stop being so literal...I have chosen the word serendipity as our next word. It's one of my favorite words. I wish you all lots of fun playing with it!

Cheers,
Deborah