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The purpose of this blog is share with others the processes involved in my favorite form of creativity- silk art quilts. The creative process itself is a fascinating thing. I am constantly amazed by it- both its simplicity and its complexity.

I feel strongly that I am a better person since I truly started following my dream. Because of collectors--those who actually buy original art-- I am able to live my dream. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You can see more of my work at my website http://www.rebelquilter.com/.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Peach Mango Salsa

Okay. This stash won't qualify me for neatest studio.
What you are seeing here is approx 1/3 of my working stash.
These are a collection of mostly silks-- hand-dyed and not, metallics, cotton prints and stripes.
I have an entire 8 x 10 room with my undyed fabrics plus older cottons etc. Those are mostly in stacks and boxes so I'm skipping sharing those with you.
This is the other side of that mess--my golds, yellows, pinks, reds & oranges.
I didn't dye any new fabrics for the front of this piece.

Theses are the fabrics I chose to represent the mangoes, peaches, garlic, red onion, jalapeno, cilantro, chile powder & lemon

This is round 1 with the initial blocks and circles before any stitching.
This is round 2. The newest layer of circles came from the underside- the bottom layer.

We're robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gee- sounds like my life!

This is round 3. This layer came from the bottom again but it was the original circles that are used. As you can see, I scramble each time so the same fabrics don't repeat on a single block.

After building the blocks I then cut them into quarters. I call them quadrants.

The challenge here is to replicate randomity. It isn't as random as it looks.

This is the fabric for the back. I have gathered for shibori. The effect came out more subtle than I expected so I'll not give it a big ta-dah!
Okay. now I am excited. I made these stamps from craft foam. It is 2 layers of craft foam adhered to plexiglas. I paint the stamps with a brush and then lay it down onto the fabric and apply pressure.

Here's the overall effect. Keep in mind--this is the back.

Here I have layered the top, cotton batting and the back. You can still see the tracing paper that I used as patterns for the images I stitched into it.

Ta--dah!!!!! Here's the completed quilt.

Peach Mango Salsa



Size is 35" x 35"


I FINALLY remembered to photograph the completed back.

The thread for the back was a varigated peach to cream.


Here's a detail shot of the front showing the variety of stitching. The small boxes are chopped up mangoes, there are peaches, cilantro and lemon in this shot. There are also red onion and garlic. In between the ingredients I did a jagged roughly triangular pattern. Most of the ingredients are stitched in various metallic threads.

6 comments:

glennis said...

love your quilt...
i like that you showed the progression- very informative.

Susan Lumsden said...

I'm glad that communicated to you. I often am trying to explain things when I am at the art festivals but pictures sure help.

PaMdora said...

This was a wonderful demostration Susan! And today I saw the real quilt, better than the photos, but not much because your photos were so well done!

Unknown said...

I love it. Wow. Thanks for detailing it. I may try my hand at one.
http://thetravellingquilter.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I *hope* you took a little time after round 1 to play Twister! :)

Barb said...

WOW! What gorgeous quilts. Such rich colors and I love the design. Incredible quilt art. Thank you for sharing and for showing how the process was done.