Jay Walk

Jay Walk
34" x 60" NFS

This quilt started as a play on words, a new meaning for jay walking, until I arranged the birds and had one being stepped on by another. Now I ask, social slight . . . inadvertant or intentional? Who can tell? It's just a bunch of birds!

The centers of the flowers are screen printed with fabric paint. The blue jays are 3D quilt pillows, machine pieced, machine quilted and hand beaded. The leaves have pink french knots. The background is hand dyed and densely machine quilted. All applique (except the birds) is fusible web.
This piece just won 2nd place in Art Quilt at the Austin Area Quilt Guild. It also won a design award. Fantastic! Fabulous! Far OUT!

As a postnote:  It is unfortunate that this quilt was stolen during shipping on it's way to Celebrate Spring IQA, 2007.  I still miss it. 

Leaves I and Leaves, Too

Leaves I and Leaves, Too
16" x 24"
We are donating this quilt to Houston IQA, for their silent auction. It was made by Frances Holliday Alford, Connie Hudson, Raewyn Khosla, Sherri McCauley, Niki Vick, and Kathy York. We selected a leaf theme because our quilt, Leaves, won 2nd place last year. We had so many blocks that we made two quilts, the second is Leaves, Too (below) and will be donated to the Austin Area Quilt Guild for their silent auction.

Shaman Chicken

Shaman Chicken

I took a class from Elinor Peace Bailey last year to learn some doll making skills. I don't know exactly why I picked this chicken, but I love it! The best part was the embellishments including the painted dots, the super fancy buttons on the tail, the beaded neck fringe, the hand quilted spirals on the wings, and the hidden and not so hidden tattoos. My bird now sits on my computer and protects it from harm.

Chicken Bling

With a Tail to Tell

"No pictures, PLEASE!"

Altered States

Altered States
77" x 30"
NFS

 This was a group project done by my art quilt bee and a few others including: Anne Holliday Abbott, Frances Holliday Alford, Betty Colburn, Connie Hudson, Leslie Jenison, Raewyn Khosla, Sherri McCauley, Niki Vick, and me, Kathy York. We picked a color scheme, purple, teal, and yellow and decided on 6" blocks. The idea of altered states was to make sets of original quilted art blocks and redistribute in the group. One block was kept as an original, and the other block (or blocks) was altered in any way the artist saw fit, burning, cutting, painting, embellishing, applique, whatever! We had so much fun on this exercise, that we accidentally kept altering blocks from the wrong pile. So, not every block on the left is still in it's original form. The quilt is arranged with original blocks on the left and altered blocks on the right. Find the matching pairs and enjoy! Altered States was juried into IQA, A World of Beauty and is currently on it's way to Houston!

Little Cities

Little Cities
97 x 96

Finally quilted and bound! Hurray! I can't say that this was the easiest pattern to quilt, as I typically avoid any pattern that has to be marked first. I much prefer a free form style of quilting. However, this quilt had so much going on, I really thought it needed some simple lines, and concentric circles really seemed the best solution and very congruent with the construction of the quilt top, concentric squares. See below for photo of the complete quilt top.

Art Quilt Bee

Art Quilt Bee
12" x 12"
Private Collection

These fish represent all the members of my art quilt bee. We make wonderful group quilts together and really enjoy each other's company. In this quilt, we are swimming away from the boring buttons representing our daily chores and towards the ring of pearls. It is hand quilted with cotton craft thread in a large spiral. I bound it with copper adhesive tape. The fish are 3D pillows and embellished with: fusible applique, copper tape, fabric paint, copper wire, copper beads, stamped, copper painted tyvek, machine quilted with copper thread, a copper painted washer, beads and embroidery floss. The spiral in the center was my first time to play with metallic foils. I love it! This piece is about the spirit of cooperation and fills me with optimism and safety of belonging to a group.

Martha's Pumpkin Men

Martha's Pumpkin Men - 2002
30" x 39"

My friend, Molly, takes Halloween more seriously than
Christmas, I mean, she goes all out with the decorations. Several of her wall quilts inspired me to make a Halloween quilt, but I couldn't decide what to do....Until I saw this issue of Martha Stewart's Halloween Issue!! She had carved these pumpkin men and they looked so awesome! I knew this was the perfect inspiration for my quilt. I used her pumpkin men, and added the carrot skirt for the middle guy. I tea dyed the orange fabrics to make them darker towards the horizon and give depth to the piece. The pumpkins in the foreground are also of her design. I added the pieced blue sky, moon and bat, and the tree branch. It was my hope to use zig-zag to add some shading. My sewing machine was hopelessly inadequate to do satin stitching, so I settled for zig-zags to cover all the fused edges as well. I also used bleach pens to make the peas for the collars and eyebrows. I used some paint on some of the pumpkins to add depth, and I hand embroidered the original poem around the border. One of my favorite parts of this quilt was the quilting in the border because it took on such a nice graphic appeal. It has a lot of starts and stops and yes, they do show a bit, but practice will improve my skills with this. This quilt won 3rd place at the Austin Quilt Show in 2002, and went to the IQA Houston Quilt Show in 2003.

Lunar One -2003

27" x 37"

This started as a geologic quilt of the back side of the moon. I decided I could make the colors prettier than the geologists (or should I say, planetary scientists?). However, as I was working on the images of these craters, the significance of how they were created, by huge impacts began to trickle over to my subconscious. I began having images of all these people trying to raise their voices against domestic violence. Hence the back image of the quilt was born.

The quilting lines that serve as topographic information on the front become concentric targets for the faces on the back. As a survivor of domestic violence I had a huge disconnect of my head and my heart, so I decided to present just the faces here. It was my first time to try to depict human forms in fabric and I was really surprised when the first one, "orbital" came out looking like a a recognizable face. I also wanted to show that it is not just the victims who are affected by domestic violence. Whole communities are impacted, children, parents, brothers and sisters, and friends. This quilt was accepted to Quilts for Change, a fund raiser in Cincinati, OH in 2004. I was so pleased to have a venue to show it. I had hoped that it was able to hang where both sides could show, but since I didn't get to attend, I suspect only the front side was shown, with an occasional look at the back from quilt angels.

Little Leaves

Little Leaves -2005
9" x9"

 This was made from some left over scraps from a large group quilt made by my art quilt bee. Leaves won 2nd place in group at Houston last year (unfortunately, I don't have a good digital image of it yet). There are two blocks on this quilt that I heavily beaded and were my first attempts. I loved the way they came out. Unfortunately, the time I spent on them made my dog jealous....and she STOLE them. They stayed hidden for a good 6 months before I found them. The other blocks were stamped with fabric paint with a leaf stamp that I made myself. I love the way this quilt came out. It was donated to the hurricane Katrina, Open Hearts Open Hands project. Presumably someone bought it and is enjoying it!

Visions of Grandeur

Visions of Grandeur
12" x 12"

Fine Focus 2006
I was inspired to create this little quilt during a brief obsession with a celebrity. Hence, the sleeping fish dreams of a better, somehow, more glamorous life. I love the fish's beautiful dream and it has helped me appreciate everything I have during my conscious hours. The fish and the pillow are both 3D quilt pillows.

I sent 3 entries to Fine Focus. And even though I like this one the best, I was surprised that it was chosen because it took the least amount of time to make. I tend to labor under the false assumption my art needs to be the most tedious and labor intensive undertaking that I can possibly imagine. Check out www.finefocus.net to see the other artists included in this exhibit!

Little Cities

Little Cities
97" x 97"

I started this one 2 years ago and it has been redesigned quite a few times. I actually bought the fabric for it 5 years ago when my bed and bath were being remodeled. But I was stuck and couldn't decide what to do with it (probably related to my marital woes). AS soon as the husband moved out, I knew what I wanted to do with this, although it has been revealing itself to me along the way. The smallest blocks are 1 " square with small circles appliqued with satin stitch on them. There are about 1000 of those. The biggest blocks are 12" square, and there are very few of those! Don't ask how many total blocks, I don't know. And now, I would have to say that sewing the blocks together was NOT the fun part.
The quilt reminds me of a city, surrounded by water. There are roadblocks and resources and little communities. I have always been fascinated by the way people form groups, for the similarities they embrace and the differences they seek out. At what point do the differences become too much and we need to wall ourselves off?
On another level this quilt represents healing for me. I had a lot of grief when my husband left and made me a single mom. The red represents rage and passion, the orange represents changes, the pink was the love I still had, the yellow was the fear. The green is in every block and represents a growth path through time and everything I do. The center is about integrating the feelings. I unknowingly made a spiral out of the center blocks (you have to squint to see it). The blue was the sadness and isolation, and the purple was the healing (the color of healing bruises).
I finished piecing the top for my birthday on Sunday. It was my present to myself to get it off my design board so that I could move on and start some other projects. I will quilt it this summer while the kids are in camp.