L is for...

You know how an idea can swirl around in your head for a long period... and then you can see part of it clearly... then it swirls around again while you need some more inspiration?

Several months ago, I read an article (in Quilting Arts, I think) about making fabric book pages with a Letter as the theme. I thought about using this idea to make something for my sister and brothers for Christmas. The ideas certainly didn't gel enough in time for Christmas, but an idea stuck in my head for my sister, Lee.

Lee is our family historian, who has done an enormous amount of genealogy research. The image that kept popping into my head was of a glittery letter L that had an old tree growing around it. (Possibly fueled by a wonderful photo we have at work of a Moreton Bay Fig tree growing around a park bench in New Farm Park, Brisbane.)

It got to the point where I had to sketch the design to get it out of my head. I used to draw a lot when I was a teenager and have not done a lot since. But it was wonderful to pull out a sketch pad and pencil and get the design to a more concrete state.

In my vision, a person is standing at the top of a cliff and can see into a distant valley. This symbolises looking into our past, particularly to the green rolling hills of Britain, where most of our family line is from. The old tree is in the foreground, with a large L firmly entwined.

And a poem also emerged... a bit basic, but emerge it did.

L is for leaf

L is for Lee

They both fill the branches

Of our family tree

And then the sketch sat on my cutting table. I pulled fabrics - a great sky fabric with clouds, several woodgrain fabrics, lots of greens, some earthy fabrics and a dark purple fabric for branches in deep shade.

Last week, I started putting it together - cutting the background freehand - it didn't really matter if the mountains were a bit different. The tree I traced onto tracing paper and then pinned to the woodgrain fabric, cutting loosely around. I cut chunks for the cabin.

The Letter L is a piece of yellow fabric with gold foiling. My first try of the foiling technique.

The leaves and grass are all free-motion embroidered with wonderful variegated thread.

The branches are also emphasised or darkened with free-motion embroidery. Highlights were added with white Inktense pencil.

The person is drawn on with permanent pen, but the river in the background is sewn.

I've also used Inktense pencils for some shadowing, particularly the mountains.

Bali pops - more

I've made 36 blocks from the strips. From each strip, I cut 2 each of the 3 sizes I needed for the logs. eg for the pink/purple logs, I cut 2 1/2 inch, 4 1/2 inch and 6 1/2 inch logs.

I chain-pieced each section of the log cabin blocks, taking the next log from the pile, without specifically choosing the log, excepting if the same colour would end up next to each other. I wanted a random look.

As the tones are very low contrast, I wanted a layout that would show the colour differences between the pink/purples and the blue/greens. These are the three layouts that I ended up deciding between:

Bushfire quilt

I've been busy quilting lately, but not taking photos or blogging. :-)

Early this week, I completed a wall-hanging, with the name "There was an eerie light in Marysville, after the fires".

This wall-hanging started as a hand-dyed Lisa Walton 'Aurora' kit (Dyed & gone to heaven).

http://www.dyedheaven.com/workshops/

The fabric in my kit was gorgeous - a dark pink, running into yellow-blue. The idea is to machine quilt all over and then use the supplied beads in whatever pattern you want. I didn't quite know what the fabric wanted me to do with it. There was a section in the yellow that reminded me of the clouds on Jupiter, so I borrowed several planets books from the library to see if that would inspire me.

I was quilting the piece in February - right when the bushfires were devastating Victoria, Australia. http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/bushfires/

You could not escape the images of burnt out homes and countryside. It was incredibly emotional to constantly see these images. While quilting, I kept seeing images of burnt houses and trees superimposed over my quilt. It got to the point where I had to find some black fabric and fusible web, draw up the trees and iron them to the quilt.

Then on to the beading. The supplied beads were mainly blues and gold. For the next few weeks, I was looking for silver, grey, black and red beads. Gradually I added more and more beads - some to represent burning embers in a stump, others smoke through the air, or flakes of debris blowing in the wind. Until finally, it was finished.

Close up of the smoke rising from the stump.