Green

Usually on the the Saturday afternoon before a Jewish girl gets married, a celebration takes place that's all about the bride! The bride's family, friends, loved ones and members of the community (females only) come usually to the brides home to sing, pay tribute and enjoy delicious eats . It is usually a beautiful, emotional gathering and is a great way for the bride, her family and friends to spend such an auspicious time together.
We had such a celebration on the Saturday afternoon before our older daughter, Orah,  got married 4 months ago.  
The center piece on our dining room table was the most magnificent, enormous floral arrangement which dominated the room giving us all the feeling of being outdoors on a magnificent day in the most beautiful space!
Our color scheme for the day was green.  The walls of our dining room, also being green, fitting in perfectly and so enhanced the ambiance!

I used a photo taken by a close friend, on the Friday afternoon before we started setting up.  I photocopied it onto fabric and then decided that hand embroidery was the way to go!  Problem was that since I had done hand embroidery of this nature so long ago, I had forgotten how long it takes.  Well, this has been my 'hand work' project for the last few weeks............Also used a bit of machine stitching and quilting and beading.  Finished it off with a facing instead of a binding or other technique - first time i attempted this.  Found a great method of doing this http://thesillyboodilly.blogspot.ca/2012/09/tutorial-super-duper-easy-way-to-face.html

Now onto red!!!  

RED!

I was doing a much needed clean up and tidy up of my 'studio' and came across this piece of fabric I acquired quite a few years ago and voila!

..... I have finished my next challenge, I think.!   It is very much in the spirit of the season at the moment so may still do another for the finale.  This one was fun but I would like to put more effort into another so this may not be it.

12 By the Dozen: Blue Hibiscus

i don't know if this will appear on the blog but i have cropped you piece here and there and want to put this image forward taking everyone's comments into account.  now to see if it will appear on the blog in the right place!

Website is updated

After all that excitement the website is now up to date.  I have added the latest challenge page and links and images to members' pages.  Please let me know if there are any breaks or mistakes.

I'm just about to update the blog pages as well.

Then it's all system go on that glorious warm red...

Hilary

Collographs

Collograph printing onto rice paper (need to find a tougher paper to allow less colour clumping and retain the luminosity)

Vessel collograph onto Mulberry paper

Fabric and  altered pumice gel give a textured surface that is the perfect height for relief prints. Cotton prints well with manual pressure.

Cloth printed from a pumice gel printing plate can give a nice grainy texture to add colour and embellishment with all kinds of possibilities.

 Drawing into the pumice gel with a stick can produce subtle imagery in print onto a fine cotton.

 

Morning Glories

Trying to find just the right hue of periwinkle for this project was challenging. While I was running one morning, I noticed a large blooming vine of Morning Glories draped over a fence...immediately, I knew that would be my focus...now to translate it to a textile piece. The background is composed of three different pieces of hand dyed cheesecloth that I "felted" onto black batting. Then I layered on the flowers, stems and purple fibers by more felting with my felting machine. The quilting is done with a wool thread for added dimensions and movement.