The Green Man

OK, now it's getting very late, sorry, I have been having trouble with my upload speed today. (The joys of the country)
I had lots of ideas for my piece, and you have all seen the back.

Well, I had an idea, one that I have had in my mind for over a year now, and so basically, I just made a collage on top of my little quilt.

It's very dimensional (seen here from the side)

And there are lots of different green fabrics ( stiffened with medium or PVA), then beads and buttons and yarn and thread, and a bit of paint and...nail polish

I don't have much green stuff left!

It's a green man.  Which I thought was a Celtic legend, but apparently it is found in most cultures' history.  You can read about it here.

And here he is looking at you!
As it is now very close to the witching hour over there (it's tea time Mon here), I will just post.
I am so impressed with all the other work, I felt a bit shy putting this one up, lol.  But it's what I wanted to do.
Only one more theme until it's MY turn (I have no idea)

Green...in green...on green!

I initially drew a blank with this one, but I grabbed my pencil and started writing words that suggested "green".  As the list grew an idea started to take shape. Here is the result.

I thought I would print the words out on different green fabrics, but after several failed attempts, gave up that idea.  Besides I had to get packed for my trip to Empty Spools and I would let the idea percolate for a while.  Good thing I chose to wait because a trip to a quilt shop in McMinville, Oregon on the way there provided the perfect fabric to put my idea in motion.

You can see the fabric piece here.   Half the width of the fabric was used for the background, while the other half was used to make the words. 

I felt the piece was a bit "top heavy" so to balance it out I added small embellishments; a leaf that I made from two layers of tulle and some frog buttons.  I would like to add some beads vertically to the left of "fern".  What do you think?

My little gem and weeping raintrees

Working with green fabrics was an exercise I need to explore more. I can’t say I’m already liking the colour, but I have some favourites in the scala of greens. I was inspired by minerals (gemstones) that my mother collected (jade, emerald, malachite, peridot, calcite, moss agate and serpentine). Gemstones are often composed of flat faced crystals which reflect light to all sides. I sketched some ideas and finally chose for a diamond shape, consisting of four fabrics. All fabric pieces are fused to a background fabric and raw edge appliqued by machine after I basted the little quilt.

My little Gem, 16" square

I used sharply edged quilting in part of the diamonds to illustrate the crystals and finished the quilt with a non-mitred facing.

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But (I hear you think), what happened to the green quilt idea without green fabrics? Well, that one was made very quickly after I heard about the theme.

Living green was on my mind. More and more rainforest is destroyed to meet the demands of the developed world's paper industry. I try to live green in my own little way, but I use colour catchers when I wash my finished quilts. That way I’m also contributing to the (not so necessary) use of paper. Normally I would have thrown the used catchers in the paper wastebin, but I started to collect them with the idea to recycle them one day. 

Raintrees

The used tissues have the most fabulous soft colours and some stay neatly white. I did cut small strips which I stitched together to symbolize the trees of the rainforest that are chopped down. When the top was finished Mr DC said it looked a lot like rain. He didn’t know about my idea behind the quilt, so that was really nice to hear. I quilted straight lines in the middle of all the strips and I loved the simple look and the faded colours and thought that adding anything would ruin that look.

weeping rain trees
made from colourcatchers, 16" square

But the message was not quite clear yet, so I had to add something. I made green water drops with watercolour pencil and Sigma pens. My rain trees are weeping green tears.

It’s always good to try out stuff, but I like the quilt better without the tears. I didn’t finish it with a binding, but just stitched along the edge at 1/8".

I had a lot of fun working from two totally different points of view to make my green quilts. Thanks Lisa, for a fun theme that got me thinking outside the box!

Nicolette

Spring Green

Thanks for a great challenge Lisa! I thought about this one for awhile, but living on the wet west coast of Canada, we're pretty much surrounded by green year round.  Being spring, inspiration and fresh greens abound.  I think green and I think ferns.
I started with these

cut some squares, played with some layouts

did a little applique

and then the fun stuff for me - some thread painting and free motion quilting!

and here's my interpretation of the theme

Spring Green

I'm really happy with how this turned out.  Don't forget to go check out the other Tanglers! 


Happy quilting!
(this post has been scheduled to appear on Sunday, May 27, as I may be otherwise occupied in Halifax and not able to access my computer!)

A New Leaf

While pondering the “green” challenge”, the idea which came to mind repeatedly was leaves. I began by making square blocks of green fabric loosely based on the log cabin pattern. Each block contained at least one fabric with a leaf pattern. Although I liked the direction this was taking, it was not really breaking any new ground. Then I saw a PBS program, Craft in America: Threads, which featured among other artists, Faith Ringgold. One of her works which was based on eight triangles in a rectangle, was inspired by a design used by the Kuba people of the Congo. Miss Ringgold has frequently used variations of this design in her work.

 Incorporating leaves into this geometric pattern became my goal. Gloria Muddle’s technique of painting on fusible web and adhering the painting to fabric described in the February/March 2012 issue of Quilting Arts inspired me to try printing leaves onto fusible web. This method was fun and yielded varying degrees of success. Printing on fusible web instead of directly onto the fabric meant that I was not ruining fabric if the leaf print was unsuccessful.

New Leaf - Challenge 6

Detail

Just getting green....

....and just getting started ...... I ran a 10 step color variegation after experimenting last week making a variety of greens. I was hoping that my not-so-exact measuring technique wouldn't ruin my run but I'm happy with my greens.

This week my Asiatic Lily bloomed! It has inspired the perfect 'green' orange that I may be able to work into this quilt.

Have fun everyone in our count-down days!

Coming Along

My contribution for the challenge is coming along, finally. Here is something to whet your appetite.

A little green

With only a small amount of time left before reveal day, I thought now would be a good time to give you a small amount of peeking at what I'm getting ready to reveal.  So here ya go!

That's enough for now.

sneak peek of exercise in green

That’s all for now, a little green teaser!
Nicolette

hand quilting

I thought I would share something green with you.
Here is my first piece of hand quilting,

My stitches are very big, but I think it's OK for my first go.  I used some perle cotton which I had hand-dyed green and the piece is actually medium dark green, although it looks blue here.
Now what has this got to do with the challenge?
Well, it;s green.  But really, this will be the back of my piece, although none of this will be visible from the front at all.
Oh, and yes, it is a bit wrinkly.  I had just handwashed it to remove my guidelines when I took the picture.

Pulling greens

a variety of silks and cottons and velvets so far, with maybe some netting in for good measure

I think I need to add some more.  Have you gotten started yet?

Did someone say green?

Look what I came across while travelling to Asilomar for the Empty Spools seminars.

Yup I'd say that's pretty green.  And so are these....

They were selling them at

I'm seeing green

on the trees' new buds, on new blades of grass, and........in my bead box.

Sorry about the poor picture quality, but couldn't resist showing you all my green.

all this talk of grasshoppers made me think of

Grasshopper Pie!  Haven't had this in years!

yum!

how about this ?

All I need is a grasshopper and a top!

Nicolette

fun is the new green

original photo found here

Electric Drive by Smart, with the slogan ‘fun is the new green’ !

more green

Hmm, Green and Brown.  A new fashion trend?  Or just a new TT challenge?  Picture by Billy Lindblom via Flickr creative commons  Just type in GREEN

four leaf clover love

I know I’m too late for St Patrick’s Day, but I love these four leaf clovers.

Umm...

Did I mention that I like green????!!!!

green no 1

photo by Chris Bogle via Flickr Creative commons