Wednesday, January 26, 2011

A Tree Grows

My online beading class is progressing wonderfully. I was looking for technique instruction and inspiration and am highly pleased so far in both respects. We are in our third week of class. Our instructor, Lisa Walton, is a wonderful teacher and happy to tweak the course to meet our needs.

I was so enthused with the potential of the beading process that I quickly began a project I had in mind for several weeks. The idea for an art quilt came as I read an old Persian proverb, "When it is dark, you can see the stars," in the pages of a report from Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson's Central Asia Institute. I immediately made a note of the quote for a future piece.

As I began to see the potential of beading for creating a star-filled sky, I immediately starting using some dyed fabric I had gotten from Lisa a few months ago to quickly construct a background.  Then, I built upon an idea for thread painting a tree from a blog, Anne's Creative Threads. Anne has created the most amazing series of African sunsets and details her process in her blog. I decided to try a similar thread painting approach using a tree I had photographed on a recent trip to Maui as a model for a silhouette. Everything flowed beautifully and, after some quick quilting, I am now ready to add some stars, using my beading technique.



  You will have to wait a bit more to see the finished piece!

7 comments:

  1. Judy this is a really nice start. I like the depth created with the shadings in the fabric and the balance you have created with the off set tree. I will be watching to see where you take this.

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  2. Thanks, Janice. I hope to post more next week. I agree that the hand dyed fabric really adds to the scene.

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  3. Judy, this is a lovely piece -- and I am fascinated by the tree, silhouetted so beautifully. You are right about the perfect use of hand-dyed fabric. I am learning to dye my own right now in my City & Guilds program; it's a process that both surprises and delights. Also thanks for the link to Anne's blog -- she does stunning work, and makes it look easy!

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  4. I like the feel of energy in the piece already, look forward to more. I recently listened to the audio version of Greg Mortenson's book...an amazing person! The quote is lovely.

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  5. Thanks Margaret and Linda, as always. This is an adventure. Margaret, I am going to start dyeing more in the spring. I can feel it coming. And, Linda, you are right. I have a lot of energy flowing on this piece. Hope it will carry on to some other ideas I have come up with!

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  6. Judy I am pleased that I came over to your blog to see the start of your Tree Quilt. I agree with everyone the fabrics are perfect. Look forward to seeing more

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  7. Thanks, Joy. I should have the finished piece up on my blog by tomorrow.

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