Friday, March 10, 2017

Enjoying every stitch!

When I was at Quilt Market in Houston, I was delighted to see Carrie Bloomston. We've met before (I'm not sure where... maybe just through friends of friends in the online world.) and she warmly welcomed me into her gypsy tent introducing her fabric line, Dreamer, with Windham.


A few months later, she posted some fabric scrap packs for sale on Facebook and Instagram. On a whim, I treated myself. They sold fast and I was excited to get one. You can't really see them all here. It was a wonderfully fat bundle.

Later Carrie shared that selling the scrap packs allowed her to put down a payment on a studio outside her home, enabling new adventures and dreams for her professional and creative life. I found that quite gutsy and inspiring.

I wanted to use the fabric to generate some new adventure and dreams for my own professional and creative life. I set out to create several small art quilt collages each using at least one of Carrie's prints and some kind of shape symbolizing ideas to pursue and celebrate in 2017.

Here are the six finished art quilts. They are all 5x7 inches.

For Nourishment
The triangles on green are from Carrie's scrap pack.

For Growth
The bee is from the fabric collection.

For Family
The green fabric with the white plus that says "birds flying" is from Carrie's fabric. Does this symbolize Claire getting ready to fly away from home? Maybe. I loved stitching those tiny birds.

For Momentum
The blue bit with the selvedge at the top is from Carrie's line. I love incorporating an interesting selvedges.

For Stability
The bit under the rocks is a print from the fabric pack. This little collage surprised me the most. It took me a long time to put all the right fabrics, shapes, colors and stitches in just the right place -- now I think it's my favorite of the collection.

For Lightness
The green triangle points at the bottom (and on the left edge) are from the fabric collection. You can see I used a bit of my favorite stripe here too! You know the phrase, "Light as a feather?" Here I am thinking of clarity, buoyancy, illumination.

These were a delight to make. I enjoyed every stitch. They are all framed and available in my Etsy shop.


In addition to sales of the artwork, I will be developing a workshop around this series. It will be about personal symbols, simple compositions, working in a series, creating small art and enjoying every stitch! 
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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Love your small quilts! how did you frame them? was it expensive?