"Wisdom" Owl quiltlette

 9.5" x 9.5"

 

This owl art quilt is one I did for my friend, Misha. The owl has some significance between her and her husband, and I've always been partial to them myself. So I guess this could be a late wedding present for them, but I'm just using that as an excuse. I would have done it anyway. 

 

As usual, I started with a drawing of what I wanted to do. I rough sketched in the quilting lines I thought might work. Then I drew it again on the fabric:

 

 

 

I decided to try cutting out the purple fabric to reveal the yellow and green fabric I had placed below, but it didn't work out so well. I used a X-acto knife to cut the fabric that had been stabilized with heat bond interfacing, but my X-acto wasn't very exact-o, and left some jagged edges. As usual, I work with what I have and figured I'd deal with those rough edges later on in the quilting process. 

 

 

 

One the photo above, I free motion quilted the lines of the owl, and the feathers. The eyes kind of sucked. They looked much better in the ink sketch than they did when quilted. So once again, I fudged around with it until I found a way to make it bug me less:

 

 

 

 



So the eyes are better now. I used yellow Jacquard textile paint to paint over the eyes to tone down the thread work (although the thread work now gives it some dimension, which I like) and it also made the light bounce off of the eyes a little more, which for an owl pic, is a good thing. I toned down the pupils by painting them black and added a dot of white in each because prior to doing that, the owl looked seriously pissed off.

 

I also added some metallic copper paint to outline the owl to make him pop a little more from the background. I also highlighted a few feathers with silver metallic paint for the same reason.

 



 

I finished up by quilting all of the little chucks of owl I had sectioned off, although once again, it's difficult to see in these pics. I also hand sewed some metallic silver thread to accentuate the feathers and part of his face. I took the above pic at an angle to show a little bit of the reflective qualities of this guy. I really need to work on my photography skills though, because so much is lost in translation.

 

 

Here's a closer view of the thread work on his face. 

 

 

 

And this shot is just to show how the reflective paint helps to make the owl glow from a distance. 

 

 

 

And here's the little guy bound and ready to deliver. I haven't seen Misha in awhile, and I miss her. One of the things that I love about making a fabric piece for someone is that the whole time I am working on it, I am thinking of that person. It helps to make someone who is far away seem close.

I have, however, encountered the problem of starting out making something for someone and then falling in love with it and not wanting to let it go. This happened to me with the Zombie quilt I did. I have to get past that. It wasn't an issue when I was doing bed quilts, but for some reason, the art quilts just give me an attachment disorder. Maybe because they're impossible to reproduce in a way that bed quilts aren't? I dunno. I am interested in selling my stuff at upcoming art fairs and the like, so I suppose I'd better get over it.

Also, I have no idea how to much to ask for these pieces. You can't use a traditional calculation of a per hour formula because there is way too much time spent on them to make that feasible. I think perhaps I just have to come up with a figure that allows me to be able to feel good about parting with the piece, while still keeping it affordable enough for people to be interested in buying. I wish I could just create and have someone else sell.

"A Zombie in Springtime"

 IF YOU'D LIKE TO SKIP THE WORDY BITS AND JUST SEE THE FINISHED PROJECT, SCROLL TO THE END.

Okay, I am back and buzzing on prednisone! Instead of making me insane, this time, it is actually helping. Helping! For the first time in about a year, my sense of smell has come back for visits. I was making the Zombie quilt (yeah, yeah, I'll get to it), and suddenly I could smell! In a fit of excitement, I ran around the house searching for things to sniff. I sniffed everything I could think of...from rubber bands, to fish food to, of course, chocolate. It only lasted a little over an hour, but it was divine. And tonight? It came back again for another hour. I'm hugely excited about this because, not only are scents remarkably cool and under appreciated things, this means that my olfactory nerves are not dead after all. They have just been lying dormant under a year's worth of sinus goo.

So, I'm manic happy. While buzzing from my scenting high, I decided to tackle a piece that I wasn't sure I was going to pull off, and not only did I pull it off, I got it done in less than 24 hours. Insomnia can be so cool that way.

I decided after my last few pictorial pieces, that I wanted to go outside of my comfort zone again. My normal plan of attack for these fabricky pieces is as follows:

1. I find a clear photo (or part of a photo) that I like.
2. I turn it into a line drawing, if I can (some things just don't want to lose dimension easily).
3. I take the line drawing and try to transfer it (with ink or pencil) onto the main piece of fabric I want to use. Again, not always successful.
4. I then begin free motion quilting to "draw" the same line drawing onto the fabric with thread. This is where it gets tricky: Fabric can bunch, sewing machines, needles, thread and bobbins can have little fits of rebellion. I also have to manage the foot/hand/eye coordination that goes along with proper foot peddle speed and the speed of my hand pushing the fabric, twisting and turning. So again, doesn't always work out, but at this point, I've invested some time into the piece, so mistakes are a bit annoying. But if it's not going to work out, I usually know it by at least this point. I lament. I move on to something else.
5. If it's made it this far, it's time to bring out the colored pencils.
6. If it wants more, I will add fabric paint.
7. Now it's anything goes and I add a bit and futz around and by this point it's morphed into whatever it going to be, more or less. I'm just fooling around with finishing touches.

On my previous pieces, I chose things with simple lines. Girl With a Pearl Earring, Gone But Not Forgotten, Copperhead, and even the Guitar Quilt all had pretty simple lines for me to free motion quilt. But I wanted to do something that was more detailed with the free motion quilting. Looking for inspiration, I came across an image I had saved a while ago of a zombie head shot. It was pretty gruesome, so already out of my normal comfort zone, but captivating none the less. I am still looking around for the original artist, so if anyone sees anything familiar in it, let me know so I can flatter them and hopefully make them happy they gave me the idea instead of making them regret the internet. This is the original image:

And here is the line drawing (just paper and a Micron pen) that I made of it. I realize it's a crappy shot, but I'm moving on anyway.

And here it is with only the ink on the fabric:

 

I like how the fabric already gives the illusion of veins (you know, if you squint and are on prednisone), but since it was on the dark side, I still used the Micron pen for drawing on the fabric, and added in a Sharpie as well. I needed to remind myself of where I needed the thick thread spots to be, and what I was planning on doing with the colored pencils (so I wouldn't accidentally sew those spots).

 

 

 

At this point, I'm feeling pretty happy. That is a huge amount of thread playing around in there, and I didn't really have many mistakes as I was quilting it. (I should mention that on this particular piece, I didn't want the thread to show up on the backside of my finished piece, so I am only quilting the top and the batting underneath, with no backside attached yet).

Now the colored pencils come out. This is one of my favorite parts. It's very meditative...It's too bad we stopped using coloring books as adults. It's also a very forgiving part of the process. Since I want to layer color anyway, I can start with (almost) any colored pencil I want, just to set a foundation. If I don't like it, I blend it away with something else. I am now relaxing at my table, watching Dr. Who on my lap top, and just whiling away the hours with my pencils and the image.

First thing I did was to differentiate between the open mouth (and rippy holes that peek into it), so I put the base down for that first:

 And so on:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to be honest. At this stage in the coloring...he's starting to give me the willies. When you are working on a piece, close up, for a long time, you'll get a sort of camera flash after effect...the image stays in your vision when you close your eyes. Like I said, it's outside of my comfort zone, but I call out of bounds when he's still there when I blink!

Solving this problem actually brought a whole new level of enjoyment to the piece for me. After talking to the future husband, we both agreed that cutting him out and sewing him into a different fabric would be better. The overall effect was just a little too dark for me. Literally and figuratively. So I went on a hunt through my fabric stash to try and find something that would work. I didn't find anything until I hit my long unused stash of novelty fabric. That's when it occurred to me that this piece could go in a whole different direction.

And here it is...the finished project:

 

I went from hating to look at this piece to loving it! Instead of seeming to be a sinister threat to the viewer, he suddenly looks annoyed as all hell by the butterflies. So the title "A Zombie in Springtime" was born. He makes me laugh. I love him.

Before I sign out, I just want to add that I decided not to add a border to him. I would have preferred to, honestly, but nothing worked. Everything distracted from the overall effect of a zombie surprised to be caught up in a butterfly migration.

Although you can't really tell from the picture, he has a bit of a 3D thing going on. Under the head is a layer of batting, then the bottom fabric, then more batting, then the backing fabric. I just used the inside out method of binding him, so as a bonus, I didn't have to cut any strips or buy any pre-made stuff.

(Consider this pic to be an outtake from the blog. It's just a shot showing the progress of cutting him out of the purple fabric and seeing how he works with the butterflies. If he looks a bit soggy, he is. After I color/paint, I use a textile medium to fix the colors, but I have a hard time doing nothing while I wait for him to dry.)