4. Journal Quilt!

After I used my first "carte blanche", it was about time I did my 4. Journal Quilt. I still was fascinated by the theme "opposites" - so I used it. Is there a stronger contrast as the one between white and black? To me, no - so I wanted to play with that. And I became more and more intrigued by handstitching on the surface - just a sample for this is the work by Lisa Call. Last not least, I wanted to explore the contrast of straight line and curved lines.
So; I set to work: ironed a piece of white linen of about 7", backed it with a piece of thing batting and picked a fairly thick silk sewing thread (guess it's supposed to be used for buttonholes?). Than I settled in front of a nice movie and started stitching - by hand ... and I liked it!  First, I tried to do straight lines across without marking. Not a good idea ;-)) So I unstitched my first few stitches and wondered how I could mark my line? The pojagi class I took some weeks ago came to my mind, and I tried pulling my needle along a ruler across the fabric with a little pressure. It worked ... I should have used it for ALL of my straight lines ;-)) I did 7 straight lines on one half of my piece. For the second half, I wanted a contrasting way of lines. Hmmmm ... how about circles? Yes. I started with a circle - and made it bigger as I had first thought. And I made up my mind - just one circle is enough.
I am very pleased with my 4. Journal Quilt - I will for sure explore hand-stitching further. Oh my, many more possibilities ;-))

opposites | my journal quilt

Hi, Marlis here. It’s hard to believe that another month is almost over. I had a lot of fun working with this month’s theme OPPOSITES – in the sketchbook as well as with fabric.

Opposites. So many possibilities: black/white, shiny/dull, patterned/plain, organic/geometric, vertical/horizontal, circular/angular – to name just a few. The next blank page in my sketchbook was aqua green, so I decided to opt for the color first. Aqua green’s complementary color is red – not my favorite color combo. But sometimes we should get out of our comfort zone, shouldn’t we?

When I prepared my sketchbook, I applied a candle resist to some of the pages before painting them. More often than not, I used one of my favorite marks: the “curved” cross. A couple of months ago I started to use this mark extensively and in various ways: stitching, drawing, stamping. I even carved some stamps out of erasers. I guess, I have to think about why I just love these marks…

To finish the pages, I added some drawings and the flip-out part is created in the opposite color scheme: red on aqua green.

Still in the opposite frame of mind!

Color Wheel Opposites

I thought I was being so clever this morning when I googled the color wheel to see which colors were opposite each other.....then I read through Lynn's process of stitching her Oranges and Apples and realized she was one - maybe two - steps ahead of me.  Can't go wrong with opposites.  A fun challenge!

"Apples and Oranges" #7/2011 Art Journal Quilt

You may click on photos to enlarge and see more detail

The first thing that came to mind when I heard the challenge for this month was OPPOSITES was "Apples and Oranges". So I gathered my materials cutting them out from new orange and light green wool and scattered them across an old piece of dark green felt. I machine felted them into place, then free motion sewed them with spirals and circles.I used variegated embroidery floss to outline the fruit to make it stand out more. I mixed some orange netting into the oranges for contrast in fabrics and added beads for more texture. I learned that orange and green are secondary colors on the color wheel and thus opposites too. I free motion sewed around them all making rows in which to sew more beads sometimes with matching colors opposite each other. I sewed buttons of matching colors in opposite corners in opposite sizes of large and small.

It was my day off from my job so I was able to work on this from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. utilizing opposite ends of the day and night!

It was fun making this challenge quilt filled with opposites of

Apples and Oranges!