Revealing All....

So.... did you have any thoughts as to what the theme of the quilt I made for the 100 Fundraiser?  Here's the whole thing...

It is entitled 'Natural Graffiti', and measures 23" by 32".  It's a bit of a steal, for the price; it would sell for a bit more than the $100 that is being asked for it.  It was inspired by a number of things.  I've always been interested in marks in nature, where natural phenomena like erosion cause unexpected effects in the landscape.  And I love looking at graffiti, of the manmade variety; there's a lot in the area of Norwich that I park in when I go shopping.  And several years ago, I took photographs of two different buildings, one a church, one a cathedral, where copper had changed the colour of the stonework, as if something had been poured down the walls.  That's what inspired the discharge dyed centre of the quilt.  It was pieced using a variety of dye printed, dye painted and discharge dyed fabrics, in a single piece.  It was then folded to find the optimal positioning and stitched together, which is why it has no edges (I hate binding, and it wouldn't have been appropriate for this work). Finally, it was discharge dyed and a little drawing added, before finally stitching by machine.  The stitching is minimal, because I think that in this piece, the fabric does the talking.... so I stitched to support the patterning and give a bit of texture.

I do hope someone likes it enough to give it a good home; I love this piece, personally.    I've come as close as I can to the colours of the original in the photograph.  The 100 deadline is Wed 4th Feb, and full details are available here.  There is a lot of amazing work available... go check it out!

More on the 100 Quilt...

Another detail image for you.  I wanted to show all the different surface design techniques that are present in this piece.  Batik is something I rarely do, but thoroughly enjoy whenever I do it.  This piece has one of those elusive batik fabrics in there...

The cloth on the right hand side is the batik piece.  It started out as a piece of white cloth; you can see the bright white marks of the original cloth really clearly.  It was overdyed in orange, and finally in blue, to produce the brown background.  The piece next to it was a double dyed piece, which was then discharge dyed; once the quilt itself was assembled and stitched, it was discharge dyed again, across both pieces of fabric.  You can quite clearly see on the left hand side piece that it is lighter in some places, where it has been discharge dyed twice.  There are a few places at the top where I've allowed it to return to the original white, but by and large, I've used the discharge technique to alter the colour, not to remove it.

So... any closer to establishing the theme of this quilt?

ps more about the 100 here...

This is one of the hardest things I've ever had to write. When I read on my friend Lynn's blog that she was fighting cancer, I was concerned. When I got in touch, I discovered that I was, in fact, too late; Lynn had died and her funeral was to be a couple of days later. I was stunned; Lynn was bright, breezy, full of life and creativity. Her Christmas card said we'd definitely get together this year. Sadly, that wasn' t to be.

I met Lynn Bunis when I was still living in Scotland. I got an email from her, saying that she was coming to live in Scotland from the US, was trying to get in touch with art quilters and could she come and visit my studio? Of course, I said, and she and husband Don arrived one afternoon. We all hit it off immediately, and it was to be the start of a fast friendship. When she finally did move over here, I donated some of my fabric to her stash, as any quilter would. And besides, I was moving myself, to Norfolk, and it was a good way of trimming down the amount I had to move...

I went up to see Don last week in Comrie, where he and Lynn had built a home together. The house is full of her art quilts, and they look stunning. Don had invited me to come and take some of her stash and bring it back to Norfolk. I was, of course, honoured to do so. Those of you who know me as a fabric junkie may rest assured that I did leave some behind for the rest of Lynn's quilting friends, though perhaps not as much as I might have done... I hope Lynn would have approved. Other people's stashes are always so much better than one's own; but on this occasion, I found fabric of mine still interwoven amongst her own hand dyes and some gorgeous commercial prints. I took fabrics that I thought would stretch me a bit, as well as things that I felt really comfortable with. It will be interesting to see what comes of using this new source of inspiration.

There was rather too much fabric to take back with me on the train, so most of it is now stored in my sister's house, waiting for transfer in October, when we will meet in York for the weekend. But I did take a small bag of scraps with me, and I have begun making collages for next year's Collage Mania. Collage Mania is being headed up by Karen Stiehl Osborn this year, and, as always, is in aid of the American Cancer Society. It seemed like a great idea to use some of Lynn's stash to support a cancer charity. I hope many other artists will take part; it's a wonderful cause.