Leaves again

I have been working lately in the evenings on more collages a' la Beryl Taylor, although my content and colour scheme are a little different to her pastel scheme. My last one was red, but this one is green and gold.  Here are some of the motifs I am working on.  As usual, I have probably made enough for several, but they will be used.

 The top piece is a real gum leaf, under some sinnamay (made of abaca fibre, the stuff used to make fascinators).  The bottom three are just fillers made with polar fleece topped with heatgunned organza and magnetite beads.

These four are made using an oval yoyo maker.  I will decide on embellishment for these when I put everything together.

These are free machined on satin with gold thread on felt.

These are made from the same satin, folded so that the folds meet on the vein line, then appliqued onto felt and beaded.  However, I don't like the continuous beads and will re do the edges with a bead every few stitches instead.

This is a large piece, with a printed leaf on painted newspaper, layered over more sinnamay and satin.  It is thre focal piece, but I haven't decided what stitching to do on it yet.

These four are simply leaves with raw edges gut from various yummy fabrics, the lines are feather stitch and they are layered on copper foil on top of small hemmed squares of textured fabrics.

These four are some stretch fabrics layered on top of hemmed satins, with a little bit of  textured stuff I got from a florist's as ribbon and some quartz beads.

So that's what I have done so far on the motifs and I am busy stitching on the background

It is a piece of gold brocade/satiny curtain fabric with leaves on it in a pale green.  I intend to have rows of feather stitch in black, green and gold overlapping, so that will take a while.
Anyhow, it is very enjoyable to work on in the evenings, which are extremely cold here at the moment.

Create every day!

A couple of leaves

This is where my leaf quilt was at last week.  I have worked on a couple of leaves since then.

Here is the first one I worked on, with my sketch in the top left.  My idea was to have a fabric paper leaf and have the veins of the laf go over the top of it, using bugle beads.

first I just tacked down the fabric paper leaf with some vein like stitches.

Then I started stringing the bugle beads over that.

But the problem I found was making the bugle beads fit nicely.  I suppose I could have shortened a few, or added some beads to fil, but instead, I took them off.

And did some fishbone stitching instead.

And added some beads, but then realised that I had already drawn this design on my sketchbook page.
Oh well, these things happen.  I will have to design another one, won't I?

On the next leaf, I wanted to string a grid and put beads and sequins in the squares.

Here I am stringing the first layer of the grid.

And here is my very wonky finished grid.

and here I have filled all the full square with sequins and beads( the wonkiness at the tip was a bit difficult, but I just stayed symmetrical)

Then I decided that the centre vein needed a few bugle beads.  I did audition the green sequins, but it was a bit christmassy.  I still think I might add something else between the bugle beads, perhaps a cross stitch in glod thread on the intersections....hmmm.

Anyway, as you can see, I am working on these small pieces.  I am enjoying the process, but it is taking some time to complete three fiddly pieces at once (plus all my other bits and pieces I haven't even talked about!

Art is not a thing; it is a way.  

Elbert Hubbard

leaves

I have been toying with the idea of a leaf quilt along the lines of Beryl Taylor's heart quilt for a few months and this week I finally got started.  Here's a brief outline of my construction, which is slightly different to that in Beryl Taylor's book "Mixed Media Explorations" ,

Above, with the book are my design notes and some silk fabrics, chosen for the leaves.

Here, I have selected a cream silk background (A large quilt on which to attach the little mini quilts), and some satins and silks for the mini quilts which will be about 4" square and felt squares for the batting in the mini.quilts.

Here, I have my silk leaves cut out,  cardboard backings and batting to go in the leaves and at back, the  mini quilt foundations and felt, spread out.

Above, I have basted the leaves together, ready to embroider and layered the little mini quilts ready to quilt.

Here are all my pieces set out in a grid arrangement so you have an idea of what my quilt will look like when I have finished all the and sewing.  Of course it is totally unembellished here, but it will be totally overembellished when I am finished with it, lol.
I have actually found that I like this type of work, and get a lot done in the evenings.

Laura Kemshall commented once in a design matters video that it can be easier to do complicated quilting sometimes, because the simple, repetitious quilting become so boring, it is easier to persist at something more complicated.  I find the same thing with constructing my pieces.  It is not that I am patient, or persistent, as some people comment when they see some of my complicated work, it is just that fiddly, complicated work keeps me interested where something simple would bore me and I would never finish it.

Anyway - as I say, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it"

Have a great weekend!