Southern Rosebud Tree

I just went on a little spring break adventure to DC with my daughter Amanda. While wandering around the city, I spotted this amazing tree, called a Southern Rosebud Tree. It had flowers growing all over the branches. Not branches with flowers on the tips like most trees, right out of the wood! Gorgeous colors. I imagine it is a rare find...will have to look up more information on it. And yes, that really is me...I usually only put up abstract paintings of myself, so now everyone can see what I really look like. Shockingly normal, right?

Spring=Mud

The ee cummings poem that was our starting point for this month's Arts in the Cards ATC exchange had me baffled. I couldn't think about charming children of yesteryear shooting marbles and playing hopscotch in the sun when all around me all I could see was mud. Inside, outside, mud everywhere. So, I decided to go with the flow and let the muddy footprints on the carpet and dormant lawn and garden inspire me.

I used some paper fabric that I made from recycled, dried tea bags and coffee filters. I stamped them with handcarved floral and leaf stamps, as well as a commercial face stamp, using brown distress ink. A piece of hand-dyed green cotton that a friend in Norway made, placed at the edges reminded me of grass just beginning to grow, and I added a strip of mesh tape, painted with green Lumiere acrylic, across the middle to give the idea of a garden fence that needs a little repair after a long, cold, hard winter.

The face, while not mine, felt like me looking at a cold, wet, muddy mess and wondering where the heck the pretty spring weather that cummings referred to was.

Earth Day 2011

For the LisaLisaLou ATC trade [on facebook] this month, the theme is our planet. Since April 22 is Earth Day, what better way to honor the earth than use recycled materials? The background for my cards was made from a discarded tyvek FedEx mailing envelope. I slit it open, painted the inside with Lumiere acrylic paint and heat distressed it by ironing the painted surface. It crinkled up nicely and gave an irregular bumpy surface that reminded me of a topigraphical map of the earth. I couldn't resist my inner 70s hippie, so I cut a peace sign out of a recycled coffee sleeve, threaded a strip of sewable, woven copper fabric [real copper...my only non-recycled item, leftover from a previous project] and added a strip of sheer copper ribbon and machine zig-zag stitched it all together. The symbolic wrapping of the peace sign around the painted earth is a statement on how badly the planet needs healing.

The LisaLisaLou trades, run by artist Lisa Fulmer, are open to anyone, beginners or experts. We send one card with a self-addressed stamped envelope, and get one in return. No big committment, no hassle, lots of fun.

Slicing and Dicing My Circle Quilt

The circle quilt, using my original fabric (along with a few commercial prints and checks) is about half done. I haven't done the final stitching yet, but have it pinned together and am pretty happy with the results. I would like to try one on a larger scale (this has nine 4" squares) and maybe one with squares rather than circles.

The photos show my "watercolor butterfly" fabric before and after I sliced into the layers to reveal the fabric underneath, the 10 layered and reverse appliqued blocks[I made one extra just in case I needed it], and the 36 little pieces rearranged and ready to be stitched. All in all, I am pretty happy with this new technique, and relieved to find a use for my fabrics. [the fabrics are available at spoonflower.com. Just sign in, then do a search for Edzellinni to see my line]

Beryl Taylor, Spoonflower and Me

I have been stalling for months, trying to think of what to do with the original fabrics that I designed for my SAQA visioning project. I was leafing through a Quilting Arts, and saw a photo of Beryl Taylor's reverse applique sampler. I found the back issue that had the directions in it and decided to give her technique a try. Many of my own fabrics were too busy to use, so I made 9 stacks of assorted 4" squares of fabric using some of my designs mixed with commercial prints, solids and checks. Tonight I experimented with stitching a few lopsided circular lines and snipping out pieces to reveal the layered fabric.

So far, so good. I like the technique: it is planned, yet unplanned. Geometric, yet random. I also like the raggedness and irregularity of the circles. I have 5 more circles to go, then I will split each one into 4 pieces and reassemble it.