Dance of Dusk

Photo of tree printed on copper

The first is my first quilt mixing leather, weaving and quilting, not to mention metal.  The quilt basically has a giant hole in it where the woven leather sun is.  The top is a rod pocket to hang from a bamboo rod.

Dance of Dusk was made to evoke a sunset and fence line at dusk as the birds are scurrying to finish up the day with one last bite, flight or snuggle before heading back to the nest as the sun goes down.  What at first seems to be a quiet calm reveals that there are pockets of quiet motion of the birds.

Photos printed on leather

Dreaming of Dusk

Dreaming of Dusk

Dreaming of Dusk detail

This piece was fun to try out some more techniques like bobbin work and using some fabrics with surface designs.  I also embellished with some silk fibers and a carrier rod.  This quilt also used my original photos on fabric and leather and evokes the same business of dusk in the life of birds.

There is an artists’ reception this Friday March 2,  6-10 pm. and will hang through March 30th.

Harrison Center for the Arts

1505 N. Delaware St

Indianapolis, In

The large tree in the foreground is a dark maroon leather applique.  I have been enjoying using leather in my quilts over the last year and do not feel I have finished exploring its use in quilting.

stamped and thermofax screened trees

I used the tree challenge fabric to make a similar hand carved stamp that I used with thickened dyes on hand dyed fabric, the unobstructed tree in the photo to the right. The tree on the left partially covered is a thermofax screen print and is from a photo of a tree I took in Bolzano Vicentino, Italy,  Where I lived for three years.  My sister and her husband came to visit and we decided to take a walk and found a path with a sign about an old church that led back behind houses and into a field where the church was.  The old church is utilized once a year for a communal celebration.  We enjoyed seeing the old church (look for a quilt with photos of the church in the future) and found a tree with the trunk covered in ivy.

The other thermofax screens were made with my photographs as well, one in Italy and one since moving back to the U.S.  I enjoyed using so many different techniques and exploring the use of various methods to overdye and remove color from the commercial fabrics.  You can scroll down to earlier posts as I worked on dyeing the fabrics.