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.

Periwinkle

As you all know, the color scheme of my daughters wedding, almost four months ago, was eggplant.  When it came to printing the invitations, the eggplant colored ink was not quite the look we wanted.  After a discussions with the printer she said, 'Let us take a look at some periwinkle inks, I am sure they will work!'  And one of them did!

When the color for this challenge was suggested, I was so excited!

A seemingly simple looking piece but nevertheless it gave me quite a bit of trouble.  Getting the image photocopied onto the fabric was very tricky.  The color of the print continued to show up as blue irrespective of the settings or the fabric or the photocopier that I used.  When I found a method that would give me the correct color, the wording was so faint one could hardly read it. I photocopied it onto voile and  tissue paper with the hope of using a medium in some way to get it onto the fabric; I also tried an image transfer technique but none were satisfactory.  

When I came to the end of quilting the monogram on the center of the invitation on my first two attempts I couldn't get the beginning and the end of my quilting stitches to meet.  Basting did not help as everything came to a point in the center.  I then gave up the idea of free motion quilting, put on the walking foot and managed to do it that way.

I eventually photocopied the invitation onto a cotton with a satin finish and bordered  it with a beautiful periwinkle colored silk fabric, I quilted it very simply.

I am now working on green which is also following along in the theme of the wedding.  So depending on the next color drawn , I may have a theme for this series.

View from the pool

When Marion and I went to Houston in early November, we stayed at the Hilton for the first time. It was fantastic to be in the same building as the festival. What a revelation! One of the best parts for me was the rooftop pool. As I swam early in the morning and watched the sun come up, turning the sky from black to purple to violet to periwinkle, I knew I had found my subject for this challenge. I got my camera and lay on the pool deck to capture the view. Voila!

And the next colour is ....

Well actually I don't know what names to give these colours but I love the way the red background ooches into the orangy red in the middle and then there's that pinky glow bottom right.

Let's call it warm red and see where that takes us!

Blue Hibiscus

A really challenging colour, Linda F!  I went through several design possibilities (and if I was better organised time-wise, I would have a go at them).  But here is my offering.

 

It is loosely based on the photo.  The hardest part was finding THAT blue.  Here is where I confess that I had some lilac netting that I was going to lay over the blue background before I fused the shapes down.  It got pushed aside - and I forgot!  Groan...  The shapes are fused down and outline stitched.  Free machined leaves and background and puff paint stamens.  These are fun to do.  Should I put another circle on the right?  Edges satin stitched.

Hilary

DANCING MOONS

I found the right colour from Amafu hand dyes here in South Africa when we were at the IQC Africa held recently.  Just had to think of a design which worked for me at the time.  I was working on a piece for our Textile Art Group Gauteng (TAGG) Exhibition (which I sold) and loved the ribbon design and so incorporated it into this piece, although the pieces themselves are completely different.   The colour in the photograph does not show up as well as I had hoped but in "real life" it was good.  This was a difficult colour to find/dye but was a great challenge.  I acknowledge this colour challenge is not easy, but saying that, it is a challenge nevertheless which is good.  I am finding the size more difficult than the colour but again, a challenge, which is really good as it does stretch one and pushes one out of our comfort zone.  I have used a commercial fabric for the moons and the rest are various shades of the periwinkle blue.  My design is appliqued and quilted.

Patricia Blue!

I read in amusement all the concerns about achieving the 'correct' blue in this challenge, knowing I would be faced with the same problem but in thread.  I have also battled to achieve the correct hues in the photograph , but here goes .....................

My butterfly is the Patricia Blue or Lepidochrysops patricia.  The butterfly is free motion embroidery on a transferred photo (using TAP) , cut out, and then fused and stitched onto the background cloth  which has been machine quilted.  I will change the binding as it has 'cropped' the branches which is annoying me.  I suppose I could paint them in?