The blog hop where there are oodles of free quilt row patterns to be collected and lots of prizes to be won! I hope you have been following along with the My Happy Place row-along at Seams to be Sew, collecting the free patterns as they’ve been released and before they expire. And of course, entering for the insanely large collection of prizes Marian has gathered. But if not, don’t despair, there is still plenty of goodness up for grabs. Join me today for my interpretation of the “My Happy Place” row-along theme, download my free quilt row pattern and enter for the latest prizes.
I’m sure you know that it’s healthy to let your hair down once in a while. Well, let’s do that today and be just a little bit silly!
Have you got a friend who knows exactly how to make you smile when you think you’d rather be grumpy? Who won’t let you indulge in the doldrums if there’s even a whiff of ridiculous about the situation? The Purple Bear is one of those people…. and he wants you to smile today! Please welcome June’s Purple Bear of A Little Bit Silly to our growing Beary Colourful family.
The sixth bear in the Beary Colourful Quilt BOM series is a bit of a clown. Totally harmless, but can always be relied upon to liven things up a little. Great to have around when things are a bit glum or the weather is gloomy. Or when you are feeling great too, for that matter. Add this fun bear to your collection for a touch of eccentric on your Beary Colourful quilt.
And then go check out the rest of the 2018 Color Challenge posts for other ideas of how to celebrate the colour purple and enter for June’s prize.
Happy Galentine’s Day! Colour Inspiration Tuesday meets Island Batik Ambassador project theme… Crazy about My BFF!
After Local Quilt Shop Day, the next theme on the Island Batik calendar is 13th February – Galentine’s Day. Galentine’s Day?! Yes. GAL-antine’s Day, for celebrating Gal-friends, ie your best girl pals, BFFs.
To celebrate Galentine’s Day, the Island Batik Ambassadors are creating mug rugs or quilted postcards or similar in a Galentine’s theme. For reasons that will become clear in a moment, my Galentine is created with crayon not batiks. My Galentine is also a little tongue in cheek rather than sentimental, and I hope it will make you smile. As a bonus I have turned my Galentine into a virtual postcard that you can download for free and send to all your friends. If you’re game! But before we get to that……
Gettin’ in the mood!
Apparently, Galentine’s Day is the unofficial holiday for chicks……
What could be more everyday inspiration these days than Emoji?!? They are everywhere. On your phone, on social media, in advertising, on fridge magnets, stickers, tattoos, cushions…. 🙂 here…… You name it, someone has probably stuck a smiley face on it. Do you know where Emoji started? You might be as surprised at their long history as at their very recent rocket to fame.
Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 18
My daughter bought the emoji cushion pictured above while we were living in Germany. All the other kids had a cushion on their chair at school, but initially she didn’t want to conform. At home in Australia she didn’t have a cushion on her chair at school. So at the time, even something so simple seemed to be a threat to her identity and a source of homesickness. But in the Christmas Markets we found familiar and happy faces…… She chose the expression she wanted. I am not sure I would have been comfortable at sitting on this particular face, but she was happy. I should probably just be thankful she didn’t choose the poop emoticon…. LOL
How am I inspired by Emoji?
You could have a lot of quilt fun with emoji-like pictures, and get in some appliqué practice at the same time. Draw up your own series of yellow faces, turn them into appliqué squares and put them together quilt-as-you-go. Here’s an example of a design I would enjoy making. I have coloured it using classic yellow emoji and my great aunt’s garden as inspiration.
Smiley-face quilt inspiration
There are all sorts of icons now recognised within the emoji family – including animal, food, flags, activity, travel and object emoji. Here’s one guide to a vast array of Emoji for inspiration. Just remember, existing pictures are subject to copyright, so don’t cut and paste willy-nilly. But thanks to the simple nature of emoji, and the public nature of the general idea, you can easily draw your own variations.
I hope this inspiration has put a smile on your dial. A smiley-face quilt would be very easy to create, and would make a fun addition to a young person’s bedroom. If I wasn’t already in the process of making my daughter a quilt, this would stand a chance of getting made!
P.S. Did you know that there is such a thing as World Emoji Day?!? Yes. Really. 🙂 17th of July.
G’day! Today is the last day of the 2017 Fall Art with Fabric blog hop, hosted by Alida at Tweety Loves Quilting. I hope you are here because you have been following along all week. But if not, the good news is that you have a lot of fun art quilt exploring to catch up on. Either way, I am so excited that you are here!
The parameters for the Art with Fabric blog hop are pretty broad…. posts all feature an original art work done in fabric, inspired by a “more conventional” form of artwork (for example a painting, sculpture, etc). The blog hop also has a secondary theme. All works are to celebrate Mother Earth in some way. When I heard about this blog hop, I knew immediately which artist I wanted to use as my inspiration. Thanks for including me Alida!
Inspired by the work of Kim Toft
As my muse, I chose an Australian artist whom I have long admired. Her name is Kim Michelle Toft, and she is a silk painter who illustrates books. She resides in Brisbane and is an active advocate for environmental protection, especially of the Great Barrier Reef and the world’s oceans.
I first discovered Kim’s work when I rescued one of her books from a local library’s excess book disposal sale. I bought it “for my children” but it was the bright flowing pictures that attracted me, and the book has spent most of its time since on my resource/inspiration shelf in my sewing room. 🙂 Her art appeals to me in a similar way to my love for batik fabrics.
My slightly worn copy of Reef Superstar by Lesley Killingbeck and Kim Toft.
The book is called “Reef Superstar” and is about a talent show amongst the creatures found on a coral reef. It is written by Lesley Killingbeck, illustrated by Kim Toft and published by Brolly Books (2005). The text is cute (even though a few rhymes are slightly forced), but the illustrations are superb. It is out of print.
A fraction of one double page of Reef Superstar. Every single page is a riot of colour and activity like this one.
You can find Kim Toft’s website here. She has published lots of books since this story, all with excellent illustrations. Please note, several attempts to get into contact with Kim about this blog hop have been unsuccessful, so this post in no way represents her opinions or endorsement. But I hope this will not stop you popping over to her website to have a look. She is very talented.
The background to my Fabric Art piece
In 2015, our family did a 3-month road trip around Eastern Australia. Thousands and thousands of km in the car with two small children and a camper caravan. It could have been awful. But we loved it. One of the many highlights was the ReefHQ Great Barrier Reef Aquarium in Townsville. Here I fell in love with the Pacific Cleaner Shrimp. Amazing, shy little guys that help keep reefs healthy.
Pacific Cleaner Shrimp in a tank at the ReefHQ in Townsville 2015
Ever since then, I have wanted to have a go at depicting these creatures on a piece of fabric art. They are bright red on top, with white “speed stripes” and are just fascinating. Pacific Cleaner Shrimp eat refuse and clean up the reef, keeping it clean. They also remove parasites from client reef fish, such as parrotfish.
Parrotfish meets Pacific Cleaner Shrimp
So without further ado, I give you my fabric art piece. It is called “Remember to thank the Cleaner (Shrimp)”.
On one level my art piece is a celebration of the colours and life on a coral reef…. and hence the link to the Mother Earth theme and Kim Toft. But it is also a statement piece about being grateful for the people in your life who do the less glamorous jobs that you couldn’t live without. The hospital orderlies, the garbage collectors, street sweepers, office cleaners and other “sanitation engineers”. The reality is that these people are indispensable to healthy communities, but are too often taken for granted.
The Details
The Pacific Cleaner Shrimp is thread painted over appliqué and has a little black bead to give him a goggly eye. He is oversized, because for today at least he is being recognised for his importance.
Pacific Cleaner Shrimp, thread painted, detail
The background is improvised patchwork and appliqué using batik and solid snippets from my scrap bins and is lightly quilted.
Remember to thank the Cleaner (Shrimp), background.
Over the background I have appliquéd coral and anemones inspired in the style of Kim Toft. The reef creatures are more sparse than in the illustrations of “Reef Superstar”, because the reef we snorkelled at the Great Barrier Reef was disjointed, with large stretches of sand and rock between coral growths. So this reflects more my personal experience.
Kin Toft-inspired reef creatures.
I drew the reef creatures onto batik fabrics with black permanent fabric pen and added extra colour with wax crayons. The glitter on the pink coral was already embedded in the wax of the crayon, and on ironing, became very firmly stuck to the fabric. This was more a lucky discovery than a ensured outcome. Sometimes it pays to experiment! I then cut the shapes out and attached them to the collage with quilting.
The parrotfish is purposely partly obscured because he is not the star of this piece. The parrotfish is derived from Kim Toft’s book illustrations, although we did see (and hear) parrotfish while we were snorkelling. (Parrotfish scrape the reef with their beaks for food, and it’s quite audible!) To create this fish I combined wax crayon colouring with dense thread painting.
Parrotfish detail
Fabric art, not a quilt
To finish the piece I stretched it over a painting canvas. I display in my dining room it on this art stand.
Remember to thank the Cleaner (Shrimp) on display in my home.
I hope you have enjoyed my fabric art, and will visit the other contributors to this blog hop. You can find the schedule and direct links for all the blog posts at the bottom of this post.
I like using wax crayons on fabric. They are so vivid and easy to use. Have you used them to decorate a piece of fabric art? If so, what did you make? – I’d love to know. Or would you like a tutorial on how I get this result from wax crayons on fabric? Happy to schedule one if people are interested.
Fabric with Art Blog Hop – say hello to the other fabric art bloggers on the hop list:
P.S. Today’s post also doubles as part of my 31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday series. Day 13 to be precise. By the time this publishes, I will be on the first of several airplanes home, so I hope you will agree that is fair!
Anyway, two good sources of inspiration you can use for your own quilt designs are represented here: picture books and animals in your local aquarium/zoo/wildlife park. You can certainly learn a lot about capturing the essence of your quilt subject by studying illustrations in picture books.
I hope you enjoy(ed) the Art with Fabric Blog hop!
The blog hop where there are oodles of free quilt row patterns to be collected and lots of prizes to be won! I hope you have been following along with the My Happy Place row-along at Seams to be Sew, collecting the free patterns as they’ve been released and before they expire. And of course, entering for the insanely large collection of prizes Marian has gathered. But if not, don’t despair, there is still plenty of goodness up for grabs. Join me today for my interpretation of the “My Happy Place” row-along theme, download my free quilt row pattern and enter for the latest prizes.
Have you got a friend who knows exactly how to make you smile when you think you’d rather be grumpy? Who won’t let you indulge in the doldrums if there’s even a whiff of ridiculous about the situation? The Purple Bear is one of those people…. and he wants you to smile today! Please welcome June’s Purple Bear of A Little Bit Silly to our growing Beary Colourful family.
After Local Quilt Shop Day, the next theme on the Island Batik calendar is 13th February – Galentine’s Day. Galentine’s Day?! Yes. GAL-antine’s Day, for celebrating Gal-friends, ie your best girl pals, BFFs.
Fabric Art and the Art of being Grateful
I hope you have enjoyed my fabric art, and will visit the other contributors to this blog hop. You can find the schedule and direct links for all the blog posts at the bottom of this post.