Variations on a Foggy Rodeo Beach at Dawn Theme

For a new self-directed photography class, I elected to shoot a series of photos based on invisible forces of nature, which were to focus on the unseen forces of gravity and magnetism. So, I got up at dawn to shoot high tide at Rodeo Beach.  It was very foggy.  My favorite picture didn't even include the tide.  And when I thought about it, I realized every photo ever shot represents invisible forces of nature.  So I shifted gears and decided to do variations on a theme instead.  The theme is my dawn photo session in the fog.  The variations reflect different techniques.  Here's what I ended up with:
Top to Bottom
1 and 5:  Original printed photos, taken at Rodeo Beach, of Fort Cronkhite and of the high tide
2:  A digital patchwork of 3" square sections taken from several foggy photos
3.  The Fort Cronkhite scene printed on fabric, then quilted and machine and hand embroidered
4.  A digital composite of the Fort Cronkhite scene with a photo of my father in 1942, in the army during WWII, combined with a periodic table of the elements and a table of fundamental force particles.  My brainy father, who I miss, was a rocket scientist, chemist, lawyer, artist and photographer.  He would have understood the science.  He hated the army.
6:  A reshoot of the original foggy high tide photo with two wooden artist models playing with a red rubber ball.

A Story of Three Quilts

Quilting takes a looooong time, at least for me.  Here is the story of these three new quilts:

Top #1:  Florida Spoonbill, 85 1/2" long x 80" wide.  I started this quilt a year ago and only finished it last month.  Then it was too big for me to photograph, so I took it to the exceptional Jay Daniel at Black Cat Studio (link here), which took a bit more time.   The quilt was put together in 9 pieces to accommodate my small Bernina sewing machine, and is intended to represent the elusive spoonbill in a Florida swamp, with the blue sky above.  I stopped planning as much as I had with my earlier quilting efforts and cut and sewed most of this quilt without doing too much measuring.  I also learned to cut and sew curves.  I went to Florida in 2014, to Singer Island, looking for a Spoonbill, but never found one in the flesh so had to create my own.  The brown & blue batik fabric in the quilt was brought back from India, where I had the good fortune to buy it directly from the Mundra artist, Shakil Khatri, who designed it.  This was the 3rd quilt I made with his beautiful fabrics. Unfortunately, I sold the 1st one before getting it photographed.

Middle #2:  Amber's Marathon Quilt, 85 1/2" long x 72 1/2" wide.  This quilt contains only about 1/3 of all the winning T shirts won by my marathon running daughter.  Sewing stretchy jersey was a pain, as was the dot minky fabric backing.  To personalize the piece, I took photos on various trip to Seattle of Amber's awards and sewed those fabric photos into the quilt, along with various drawings I did of running shoes.  It came out a bit lopsided, so you can tell it is hand made!

Bottom #3:  Albion Bird in Window, 30 1/2 x 30 1/2.  Now that I'm taking a lot of photographs, my desire is to do something practical with them, such as printing them on fabric and sewing them into quilts.  This is one such example, having taking various photos of the windows in a shed in Albion.  I combined the photos then added an applique and embroidered bird before quilting the entire piece.  This is a new wall hanging format, rather than my traditional 'lounge on the couch' size.

Embroidered Blue Birds

Above are six new felted blue birds, created for a bird quilt in the works.  These birds are based on my button bird and friends poster (as seen in the bird print with moon).  Each bird is made by machine punching hand dyed Falkland wool top into Kaufman Kona cotton cloth, then adding machine and hand embroidery. The wool, apparently, was grown on sheep in the Falkland Islands.  I bought it from Twisted Filament's Etsy shop.

Fabric Birds

Wool-punched and embroidered birds on cotton fabric for an upcoming Bird quilt.  Here's hoping they don't disintegrate in the wash!

Two New Small Quilts

Top:  Aspen Poppies 8"x10"
Bottom:  SF Bay Birds 24" x 20"

Note to self:  Maybe best to stay away from stripped bindings!

1+5+7 = New Fiber Arts Projects

Above top to bottom:
1.  Two Women - 7x10 Quilt Sampler
2.  5 New Grocery Bags:  Bird of Paradise, Crow with Yellow Hearts,a Geranium Bricks, Red Crow and Yellow-faced Bee.
3.  Detail of Red Crow on quilted grocery bag panel
4.  7 new hot pads:  Roosters and Chickens, Bees, Bark and Honeysuckle.

Crafty Monday

Top:  The first four of a new line of Lucy Autrey Wilson original art grommet hot pads
Bottom:  Bee Bag, quilted panel on Simple Ecology canvas shopping tote

E.A. Autrey Quilted Grocery Bag

Now that 93 year old E.A. Autrey cannot drive his van anymore, I made him a deluxe two-sided canvas grocery bag with one of his self portraits on one side and a favorite bucket oil painting on the other.  Going to the store on the bus with this bag should be lots of fun!

Fun With Fabric

A gift bag, five treasure bags and a grocery bag with a quilted art panel.  Having fun sewing with printed art on fabric, laminated fabrics, and grommets!