I've finished 3 quilts in the past couple of days.
2 journal quilts… called 'conversations in thread' and a Woven Watercolor portrait.
What was the inspiration?
Well for this first quilt, I came upon these ladies, deep in conversation at the QAGoMA , Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane.
I wonder what they were talking about?
I wonder what they think about the corrugated iron installation as an art piece.?
I printed this image of iron onto fabric. It wasn't anything fancy, I just used my inkjet printer and the fabric was muslin (calico in Australia).
Its not a fancy quilt.. Its capturing the moment.
The ladies are silhouetted in raw edge applique. The corrugated iron is quilted to add texture.
The small photo images are conversation bubbles. I've written the dialogue on the back of them.
The fabric is hemmed white linen strips from Ikea, so its quite irregular. I used black 50 weigh thread on the top and in the bobbin so you get a sketched effect on the back.
I was there with two of my special friends Di and Carolyn.
We had a wonderful lunch in the Japanese restaurant and we talked a million miles an hour catching up on all the news of the past year.
The phone rang, it was my daughter who was worried I might be in the city. "There's a gunman loose" she said. Indeed we looked out of the window to see the police had cordoned of the road and the reports were that some guy had gone troppo in the mall just walking distance from us.
Carolyn and Di feigned fear, but then their phones began ringing, with concerned friends and relatives telling the same story.
We had an amazing vantage point, we were quite safe, it was serious, but our demeanor as friends doesn't allow that sort of distraction and we continued our conversation and meal.
I used the same white Ikea linen panels for this quilt.
Sometimes I get a bit embarrassed about these quilts. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and these are a little out of my comfort zone.
However, I need to expand and do more 'free' pieces of textile art.
So here they are for what its worth.