Day 2: FB Art Challenge

This is more information about my 2nd Day of the Art Challenge currently circulating on FaceBook. I was nominated by Pam Biswas - Thank-you Pam. For this second day of the five day challenge, I am sharing three of my quilts made for challenges with the Beyond the Borders Art Quilt Group, affiliated with the Quilt Guild of Greater Houston (QGGH).  Each of these challenges resulted with the individual quilts being assembled together into a larger group quilt which we then entered in the QGGH quilt shows.

This first piece featured is a challenge designed by Bethany Carter for the BTB about 5 long years ago (or longer? as many aspects of this challenge were discussed and debated which resulted with the "deadline" being pushed back repeatedly).  This group quilt is titled "Alice's Odyssey".

Bethany drew out the puzzle pieces in different sizes and shapes first.   We 'claimed' our puzzle piece as well as our section from the classic story "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.  As you can see, our efforts won a few awards in our 2011 local quilt show, including the coveted Best of Show.  Click here to read more about this group effort.

I made the vertical puzzle piece of Alice growing tall before shrinking to slip into the magical garden.  My piece features several 3-d effects: a wooden door into the garden secured with a tiny brass lock, tags on the bottle on the table and on the candy on the floor, a buckle on the 'patent leather shoe' and a loose-free-swinging skirt and apron on Alice.  Here is a view of my puzzle piece while in the construction stage.  Notice that the skirt is entirely different, the 3-dimensional pieces haven't been added and more ... clearly the piece is still evolving and growing.

I named this piece "My Big Foot Alice" and often think of it as the last piece in my series of big foot quilts.  Click here to see two close-up views of details on my tiny quilt puzzle piece.

 

The puzzle quilt had its own special exhibit during the 2011 International Quilt Festival. Here is a photo of some of our group.  Left to right they are: Connie Fahrion, Hannah Mallon, Sara Sissenwein Norris, Elaine Connelly and myself.  Elaine was our leader at the time and she has since passed away.  Elaine, you are missed very much still.   

Click here to find out more about "Alice's Odyssey".  It was great fun to complete this excruciating group effort.

In this next challenge, we each had to make a quilt block that measured 8"x10" using the color "Honeysuckle" (the Pantone 2011 Color of the Year) and some dupioni silk.  The quilts were all meant to have a whimsical bird theme.  Click here to read my original blog post about this challenge.

When the deadline arrived, only five quilters turned in completed quilts which were assembled into this simple vertical quilt.  We titled our group piece "Bird-Brained Blocks".  Mine is the pink flamingo watching her egg hatch open.  We won second place in the Art Quilt category at our guild show.

For the curious among you.....

the 2015 Pantone Color of the Year is Marsala.
Hmmm, I am itching to start a new challenge with this color!

This last BTB challenge piece had to comply with only three specifications:

theme - tree

size - 20" long with any width between 6" and 12"; 

color - any but Green  Absolutely NO GREEN may be used!

I thought that using no green at all was the easiest part of this challenge.  My quilt, "Solitude", is a tree at night in the dead of a winter with no snow.  The tree is composed entirely of used coffee filters, generously donated to my project by Liz Broussard.  Thank you Liz!

Here is the full view of "Beyond the Branches",  our green-less tree quilt.  Click here for my original blog post about this quilt, which includes a list of the artists that made each piece.  Click here for an earlier post on how I created "Solitude".

I nominate Janice Daniel McKeehan to join this 5-day Art Challenge by posting three photos a day of her artwork, and nominating another artist to carry the challenge ever forward.  Janice, I look forward to seeing your lovely posts!

Photo Ops with Alice

Beyond the Borders, my art quilt group, had our "Alice's Odyssey" in a Special Exhibit at the International Quilt Festival this fall.  It was our challenge piece that was started perhaps 2 years ago .... and we were thrilled to be sharing it with the quilting enthusiasts that flock to the largest quilt show around, especially since it will soon be dismantled with each individual puzzle piece being returned the its original maker.

We tried gathering everyone for a group photo ... finally agreeing that we were too many to coordinate the same one day and time.  So we scheduled two photo-ops with our Alice.

First is our Thursday gathering ...

 

From the left (seated) are Nancy B. Dickey, Linda Teddlie Minton, Ann Schaefer and standing are Cheryl Johnson and Jo Sweet.  I'm the one kneeling.

Then we gathered again on Saturday ...

 

Connie Fahrion, Hannah Mallon, Sara Sissenwein Norris, Elaine Connelly all joined me this time around.  

Missing from these photos are the Alice puzzle-piece makers Bethany Carter (the originator of this challenge), Susan Carter, Gloria Kohnen, Janice McKeehan, Susan Fletcher King and Liz Broussard. 

Our quilt as seen at the Quilt Festival (with protective barrier in place).

Alice's Odyssey

 and for the curious among you .... here is my piece.

I like to call it "Big Foot Alice" ....

Alice's Odyssey

 Look at this!  It's the Best Of Show quilt from this summer's Quilt Show extravaganza held by the Quilt Guild of Greater Houston (QGGH).  See the names?  Mine is on that list !

"Alice's Odyssey"

This quilt, Alice's Odyssey, was made by members of Beyond the Borders art quilt group (BTB) - my fiber art friends.  It began a few years ago when we were dreaming up a new challenge to taunt everyone with.  Bethany suggested we do a puzzle quilt and off we ran ..... this quilt is a puzzle, made of separate smaller quilts shaped as puzzle pieces.  Each puzzle piece depicts some aspect of our many favorite stories and plots found in the classic "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.

We each "signed up" for a specific puzzle piece -- they vary in size -- and also selected which mini-story within the larger story we wished to illustrate.  Then we were off and running, tackling many problems as they arose, and forever pushing back our "must be complete by" deadline (beware of this phenomenon if you choose to participate in a group piece).

Perhaps the largest puzzle, err, challenge, was figuring out how in the world to put all the puzzle pieces together.  Or how to transport the final version of our quilt may have been a larger stumbling block.  Regardless of the many issues we hurdled together, this is our glorious end product.  I find it stunning, if I may be so bold to say so.

Good news:  Alice's Odyssey will be in a special exhibit at this year's annual International Quilt Festival and Quilt Market that start later this month.   As it is very true that photos simply do not do justice to fiber art  ... this is one quilt that has to be seen in person, so be sure to come to the International Quilt Festival this year!!!

Best of Show!

Back to Alice's Odyssey -- Above is simply another photo of our prize-winning group quilt.  Congratulations to all my friends in Beyond the Borders (BTB)!  We were quite pleased when our group quilt won "Best of Show" this summer in our local quilt show.  It is the highest place one of our BTB group quilts has every achieved!

Bird-Brained Blocks

This is the latest group quilt made by my friends in Beyond the Borders (BTB), a local Art Quilt group affiliated with the Quilt Guild of Greater Houston (QGGH). 

Bird Brained Blocks

Our original challenge was to create a small 8" x 10" quilt (no larger and no smaller) with a whimsical bird theme.  Additional parameters were to use "Honeysuckle" (declared the 'color' of the year - as of last spring) and to use silk (preferably raw or dupioni).  Five quilts were gathered to create our finished quilt "Bird-Brained Blocks".  The five bird quilts were made by Elaine Connelly (our current BTB leader), Jo Sweet (the longest participating member of BTB), Janice McKeehan (who made two quilts for this challenge) and myself.  We were quite tickled and honored to win a 2nd place ribbon in the Art Quilt category at our guild's 2011 Quilt Show, "A Quilt's Odyssey".

I confess, I was surprised to find myself making another variation of my oft-repeated Big Foot theme.  My piece is the flamigo curiously peering at the egg that is cracking open to reveal a new member of the family.  Click here to see a few of my earlier Big Foot pieces.

Two other bird-brained quilts were in the Quilt Odyssey show as solo entries.  Liz Broussard  named her quilt "I'm Ready for My Closeup, Mr. deMille".  She used snow-dyed silk as a backdrop for a henna inspired design.  Inktense pencils, crayons and acrylic paint were also used.

I'm Ready for My Closeup, Mr. deMille

Barbara Jensen made "Tripped by the Tulle, a Ballerina's Fall".  Her original piece was inspired by the movie "The Black Swan".  She had fun adding detail elements to her prima donna ballerina -- such as her false eyelashes, her fancy tulle and her glamorous hot-fix crystals.

Tripped by the Tulle - A Ballerina's Fall

Barbara won a 2nd place ribbon in the miniature quilt category for her birdie quilt!  Go Barbara!

Fiber Bowls

I collected bowls from two of my fiber art groups, Beyond the Sunset and Beyond the Borders (both are affiliated with the Quilt Guild of Greater Houston).  These bowls are donations for the 7th Annual Empty Bowls - Houston, but I thought I would share photos of my favorite ones before delivering them to the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

 

This "sunflower" bowl is the colorful creation of my friend Janice.  She has crafted the petals with fabric and fiber snippets and lots of stitching, anchoring each petal into the flower's brown center.  I like the red threads she's added for additional color.

Elaine, current leader of Beyond the Borders, created two bowls this year.  Both are made with fabric-wrapped cotton clothesline (a technique I plan to do one day, as I have the requisite clothesline ...now to find the time).  The green one (above) has green accent stripes incorporated into the bowl's design.  It has a slim, elongated oval shape, which I like.  

Her second bowl (below) also has accent stripes.  Elaine's bowls have decorative elements at the rim (helpful to disguise the ending of the clothesline!).  I love both the green button and the trio of yo-yo (similar, yet different).

Another donated fiber creation came as a match set of a bowl with a matching plate.  These were made by Pat, our leader of the Beyond the Sunset group.

The bowl was shaped by saturating with a liquid stiffener (watered-down glue), then draping over a plastic, fluted vegetable container to dry.  A wired beads were added as additional accents to the rim of the bowl.

A peek into the bowl, from above, reveals additional beading (tinier seed beads) anchored in the base of the bowl.  I love the variety of textures these beaded additions bring to Pat's bowl.

The plate is easily a stand-alone piece as well, and coordinates lovely with its matching bowl.

Perhaps the oddest of the bowls that I will deliver is one of my own....

I knit this bowl using a chunky (non-feltable) yarn.  I plan to stiffen this floppy piece into more of a classic bowl shape before delivering it to Empty Bowls, but time is always a tight element of my days.... Chances are strong that this soft, drapable bowl will be donated in this limp form.  It may be interesting to hear the comments of the bowl-shoppers at Empty Bowls!

The variegated yarn worked up nicely with the purple stripes going across the bottom and up the opposing sides (of course it is also due in part to the pattern of the knit-design).  This bowl can also double as a warm hat .... but only one liveds in a cold-climate area (which rarely describes our Houston winter).

The BTB forest

Beyond the Branches

Here is our finished piece from my Beyond the Borders (BTB) challenge to make a "Tree" quilt with these two restrictions:

1) The color green may not be used.
2) The size must by 20" long and 6" - 12" wide.

It is quite fun to see everyone's tree together our funky forest!
I am still confirming which tree belongs to which friend but believe this may be correct:

Trees on the top row, left to right:
Ann Schafer, Susan King (Monarchs in the Pine Boughs), Rex Watson, Susan Byrne, Susan Carter

Middle row:
Ann Schafer, Bethany Carter, Elaine Connelly, who?, Janice Daniel McKeehan

Lowest row:
Cheryl Johnson, Jo Sweet, Cathy Winter (Solitude), Connie Fahrion and Sara Sissenwein Norris



Congrats to the group -- We have won our Second Honorable Mention ribbon (the first was for our Pizza quilt at the last QGGH show).