Symbols quilt finished!

Finally finished my symbols of our culture quilt challenge. We had to create a quilt based on something that was about our culture. I decided to do one based on our fixation with the rich and famous. Based on the Brittany and Paris tabloid headlines, I created this blonde haired woman larger than life using hand dyed fabrics, fabric paint and colored pencils to create details in her face. Her hair is angelina fiber sewn down by hand with metallic threads.
She is almost snotty in her demeanor. She thinks she is above everyone else including the law. The law reference is a light from a police car at the top right hand side. People are standing behind a rope to prevent them from coming near. We find ourselves gravitating towards them in spite of their obvious flaws. The figures are created by hand quilting around the figures which makes the figures pop and look three dimensional. I used colored pencils to create the figures. The rope is made from puffy paint and puffy velvet, then painted - suggestion by my friend Christine S. Thanks Christine!

The group below her is the photographers that dog their every step. They were created with crystals and beads.

Alzheimers Quilt Initiative

So the big Houston show was going on and a group of us would not be attending. So a yahoo group challenge was issued to create a small piece - under 9" x 12" - using what you had and finish in two weeks. The finished piece could be donated to the Alzheimers Quilt Initiative to help raise money for Alzheimers research. Here is the website - http://www.amisimms.com/alartquin.html
Well I managed to create four!!
First, I used scraps of fabrics and pieced them together adding batting and backing. Didn't know what I was going to do until this challenge came along. So I ended up cutting this up into 4 pieces. I trapped tinsel under turquoise netting to create water. Then used fabric crayons to add more details to the rocks and then thread painted them. It was the first time trying the thread painting technique and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved doing it and the final look of the pieces were so nice. Needless to say, I will be doing that one again.
Please stop by Ami's website to browse all the wonderful art and hopefully you will find one you have to have for yourself.
Thanks

Wind

Well here is the next installment in the elements in fabric series. It is wind. I had to create clouds and a storm. I went for a great big sucker! I think I will be adding some small details to the other side like a flock of birds and some small buildings and trees.

Online Class with Linda Schmidt

I am taking an art quilting class online at Quilt University. I was so excited when I signed up and thought it would be a great way to try new techniques and ideas. Well it did just that. But it wasn't as easy as I had expected. The water piece was the hardest one for me. I have to say though, I am VERY pleased with the results. Mind you, these are not the final pieces. I am going to be making 4 quilt tops using 4 elements - water, fire, wind and earth. I am currently on wind and loving it.

So I have decided to post my works in progress. Water and fire are the first two up. Then when I have wind and earth complete, I will add them. The final lesson will be how to finish off our pieces. I will post finals pictures of all the quilts upon completion so you can see the before and after. Feel free to leave me any constructive advice.

Thanks

Another jean jacket

Here is a jean jacket I painted for my niece. She loved the cheetah pictures and wanted one on her jacket. It took a little time but I loved how it turned out. I painted with fabric paint and sewed cheetah fabric on the collar to finish the piece off. She wears it all the time. What a nice compliment.

Jean Jacket

So I finally found the pics of jean jackets I have done in the past and thought I would share some of them with you. I will have to break this up into several entries I think. Otherwise it might be all pictures and very few words of description. In this entry I am showing two jean jackets with closeups of the each. They were made for a friend. The first was a commission piece of her spirit guide. The image is of her guide as he came to me and it has a bear claw in the background with an eagle in flight. He is painted with fabric paints and then I beaded the necklace and added novelty yarn for the hair. I hand painted the eagle feather in his hair. The tips of the bear claws also have beads. The piece was stolen out of her car while shopping one day.
So I gave her another jacket which was of a wolf pearing from behind the tree. I also painted him using fabric paints. The tree was made from puffy paint and then painted over to add more detail to the bark. The wolf to me seems a little sad to me but I may be too attached to the piece.

My First Entry

So I officially made it into my first Quilt/Fiber/Art show! Woo-hoo.
I was unable to attend the American Sewing Expo so I asked the Quilt Art list for help. Lera Cavanaugh was kind enough to photograph my Dancing With Jelly's piece and email them to me. I am putting them up on my blog as proof! Ha-ha. I also was notified today that I will be getting my postcards back. The peacock made it into the top 50 picks. Thanks to everyone who voted for me! They are putting together an idea deck for those of you who may be interested in learning how to create postcards from fabric and fibers and various other do dads.

Floorcloths

I was digging through all my digital photos looking for some pieces I had photographed, but couldn't remember where my DH filed them on the computer. In the course of looking, however, I stumbled across some of my floorcloths. I painted the monarch butterfly from a small photo in a book and the peacock was from a childrens book in the library. I created him with metallic paint. I loved how they turned out.
I did sell both of these pieces. Now I miss them. But at least I have photos of them and I can share them with you guys. I have some more but I guess I will find them when looking for something else. Ha-ha

Time to vote!

Alrighty people. The time has come to vote on your favorite postcard. It's a tough choice since there are 162 entries! I have two of my postcards in there. One is Peacock and the other is Ancient III. The link to vote is posted at the bottom of this post.
Peacock was created on blue fabric and I used a rubbing plate to create the "feathers". Fabric crayons rubbed on the plate, heat set and then hand quilted on the lines in a varigated green sulky thread. I then painted the peacock body using fabric paints in regular and metallic. I beaded the top of the feathers on the head and then used gold and green sequins with blue beads to create the "eyes" in the feathers.
Ancient III was created using my rust dyed blue fabric. I used a foam stamp and fabric crayons to rub on the leaf form. I heat set it and sewed around in thread to highlight certain areas. I then sewed on small beads for added interest.

Here is the info for casting a vote:
TIME TO CAST YOUR VOTE
It's time to see which cards will be featured in the 2007 Idea Deck! For registered voters, our Gallery will be transformed into a "voting booth". To cast a vote for your favorite postcard, simply click the button beneath its photo. You get only one vote and it can't be changed, so click with care!

Voter registration is easy and password-free, requiring only your email address for fairness and security. A Voter access link is your "ballot" and will be emailed to you automatically, so be sure to check your Junk Mail if the message doesn't arrive in your Inbox within a few minutes.

To limit the potential for abuse by outsiders, only 300 access links can be sent each day. The voting booth will be active until 11:59pm on Thursday, September 13, so there's plenty of time and ballots for Weekly Update subscribers, the card artists, and everyone's friends and family to cast their vote.

To register to vote go to: http://www.artcardideas.com/2007/vote

Snapdragon challenge quilt

Well hello. I know you have all been anxiously awaiting all my cool stuff. Yeah right. But I am finally posting my latest piece. It is a snapdragon piece for the flower power challenge. Once everyone has their quilts in, they will have an online gallery showing. I will send you the link when it is up and running!
I created it on hand painted fabric. I created the flowers out of cotton face pad cleaners. I dyed them and then sewed around the edges to get the wavy look. I used fibers to create the stems and leaves. Then beaded the background with various flowers. I also fused dyed dryer sheets onto the background to create poppys. I added detail with thread, fabric crayons and colored pencil. Let me know what you think!!

Patty

All things Peacock

I have always loved peacocks and their feathers. It is kind of ironic that I married a man with the last name Cox. When writing my new married name, I realized I was P.Cox. Hence the name of my blog. I guess you figured that out on your own.
Since then, I have created some pieces using the peacock. I am posting my peacock jacket today. I have done an ATC which was in a previous post, an art bra which I entered into a contest but don't think I made it in and I have just finished a postcard of a peacock. I will put that up in the next few days.
I finished it over a year ago and had the guts to wear it to the International Quilt Show here in Chicago in April. It was my first art show attendance ever and I was so excited. I completely forgot I was wearing it until I kept getting stopped to "model" it for everyone. What a heady experience! I had one lady tell me to submit it to Belle Amore and another one asked me to show it off so she could take pictures! I felt like a mini celebrity. A lot of people wanted to pet it! I have to admit, my self esteem got a much needed boost that day. My mom kept teasing me because I would apparently blush profusely when stopped and asked about it.
What a glorious day. It made me all the more determined to keep at it with this medium. I think I have become more fearless because of that experience. So much so that I put my art quilt on line at HGTV's Rate My Quilt. If you would like to check it out, it is labeled as Waterfall. Too bad the photo was so dark. I think it would have done better had the picture would have been a little brighter. Oh well, you live and learn.

Rust Dyeing

I have been a lazy slacker when it comes to my blog lately. But in my defense, I have been busy signing up for various challenges and finishing up other projects.
For instance, I did rust dyeing on fabric for the first time and it inspired me to do my last set of postcards for my exchange. Very cool to get something done.
Rust dyeing fabric was deceptively easy. I thought it would be this long drawn out process that required all my time and a bunch of expensive materials. Was I wrong! I used a remnant piece of white cotton that was prewashed and soaked it in vinegar. I placed it in a pan and put things that rust on top of it. I used steel wool and long rust nails. I placed it in the sun - 90 degree days) and watched the miracle unfold. I just kept moving the material around as various areas rusted and added more vinegar when it was looking too dry. Two days later, I have new material to work with. You have to rinse out the vinegar. I rinsed until it was clean and then added some soap and water to make it smell less like rust. I let it hang dry and it was ready to go. I don't recommend the steel wool because it breaks down into tiny pieces and is a mess to clean up. Use nails, screws etc. - much better.
I am posting photos of the two I did. One was on the white fabric and then for fun, I used a predyed sky blue fabric. That one turned out awesome and was the inspiration for my postcard series. I will post them once I finish the last one. But the blue fabric turned this interesting rusty orange/brown and green color. So now I will have to make some more since it was fun and easy. However, I ran out of vinegar and need more. Some people add salt to there vinegar. I tried both ways and both work.
Later

What kind of flower are you?

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

Waterfall

Today I am posting a wall hanging I finished a few weeks ago. I created it to look like an actual waterfall with rocks and grasses etc. My camera was giving me a pretty hard time. Then I took the picture the wrong way and didn't have a program to correct the orientation. Steve finally helped me out. Thanks Steve!
I was pretty happy with the results. I created the log and the rocks out of the puffy paint and used dryer sheets to create the water cascading down. The finished piece came out far better than I had imagined. This will open the door to a lot more ideas and pieces. I have a few ideas banging around in my head. I just have to put paint to fabric and get started.
I have hit a period of burnout at the moment. School is winding down and summer is upon us so it is a little harder to get things done. I also have 6 more postcards to do and no energy to do it. Maybe when the slow pace of summer hits, I can get some things accomplished. Ha-ha.
Later

5 more postcards

Hello,
I am posting some more fiber postcards. The first one is called Bubbles. I was filling a pot with water to cook some pasta and noticed this really cool pattern. So I decided to try and create it in fabric and beads. Not really what I wanted but the final outcome was pretty cool.
The next three are a series created from hand dyed fabric. Finally had a nice day outside so I decided to pull out my sun printing dyes and create abstract flowers. Wasn't as happy with the results but . . . .
The last one was another experiment in textiva, free motion sewing, fabric sheets and beads to create a sea and sand kind of motif. I liked it a lot and think it might be a bigger project in the future.
Have a great day
Patty

Dance of the Jellys

Hello,
I am posting a photo of my latest creation. I hav also decided to enter it into a quilt show. The theme is Swirls, Twirls and Pearls. It was created on white fabric and I appliqued the jellyfish shape onto the background. Then I quilted the entire background by hand using silver thread. The next step was coloring the background. I layered dyes and paints until I achieved the colors I liked. Then the jellyfish themselves were painted. The fun part was then adding all the embellishments. The jelly on the left side was made from sheer fabric, cut into the shapes and handed stitched and beaded. They were also stuffed with irridescent fibers (the kind used in Easter baskets and wrapping). It was also used on the top of that jelly. The bottoms of the jelly's were made from material used to create roman shades. I dyed them and them pulled the tread to scrunch them up, stitched it to the quilt and then added beads. i couldn't find the color I needed so I painted them with irridescent paint after stitched. The top of the right hand side was white yarn, dyed to get the purple color. The litle jelly's around the quilt were created using textiva and mutlicolored fibers. It was a lot of work but I am pleased with the results. Hope you like it.
Patty

Devil is in the Details

Hello,
I just realized that I haven't posted a picture of one of the latest quilts I have finished. It was an answer to a challenge in the Quilting Arts Magazine. There were four phrases to choose from and devils in the details just jumped out at me. It looks like a rather simple little quilt at first glance. Then you notice the colors and you move in for a closer look. Then you see that the bark is actually millions of little stitches in various shades to help add texture to the trees. As you look closer, you will finally notice the tiny little ant walking across the leaf. I thought this perfectly fit the idea of devil in the details since it is the very small little things that make the overall piece a success.
Hope you like it. Feel free to drop me a line or comment.
Patty

pillows

good morning,
I am posting pictures of some pillows I have created. They go way beyond pillows that you would toss on to your couch - especially with my two little ones. But I thought I would put them up for you to check out. The abstract flowers in purples, pinks and oranges were dyed with Setacolor and then fabric paint to add some more details and additional color. I cut the fabric in half to make two matching pillows. I then went in with various threads to create flowers. Beads were done to create additional flowers. I loved how they turned out. I am thinking of putting them into a local at show. Let me know what you think.
The second pillow is a picture of my stargazer lilies. One of my favorite flowers! I used commercially dyed fabric for the background (none of which shows now!) and bleached out the area for the flowers. I then went in and painted the lilies with fabric paint and added additional details with thread and beads. I then created the "ground" with various fibers and beading. I may put this one into the show as well.
Have a great day!