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Friday, October 23, 2015

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Art Quilt - Fall 2015

Vincent
Dimensions: 13''x15''
Entry for the AMB Tiny Quilt Challenge


This is my first entry for the Blogger Quilt Festival, Art Quilt!
Second entry here (applique).



If you are new around here, WELCOME!
If you have been around for a while, THANKS AND WELCOME BACK! :)

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If you are new around here, let me just point you to my main addiction: designing and sharing for free tons of paper piecing patterns :)


As you can see from one of my old headers arrangement, I design patterns for Disney characters, Peanuts and Snoopy, Downton Abbey, Alice in Wonderland but I have many many more (Maleficent, The Simpsons, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Betty Boop, Minions and more)!! Some of them have to be tested, some of there are tested. You can find them just navigating the different tabs or just typing the character name in the search box at the top of the page.

And my other recent endeavor is SYS 2015 (Stretch Your Skills): a monthly series of tutorials to practice in different crafts skills. Until now we had Foundation Paper Piecing, Quilting, Crochet and Pixel Quilt.



If you want to know more about the series, check out the Series Page. Links to the tutorials are there... and did I mention that you can link projects for monthly prizes? Just saying... ;)

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So let me tell you their story!

Everything started with my obsession about Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" and the amazing work of Adam Lister (adamlistergallery.com).

When I read about the AMB challenge, the use of solids (and just solids) didn't make me very excited (I don't like solids, don't hate me please :) ). However I thought that it could be the best excuse to finally put Van Gogh's painting down to fabric! But how exactly? I started googling around images of the painting and I came across Adam's wonderful "pixellated" reproductions of classic art and famous characters. As soon as I saw his version of the painting I had the moment "That's it! That's exactly what I was looking for!". I immediately got in touch with him and he was very kind and curious to see how his art would translate into fabric!

Now the difficult part: how can I reproduce this look and keep somehow the spirit of Van Gogh's irregular impressionistic look?
Raw edge applique and thread painting look the only reasonable option!
Of course I never tried any of these technique :) but luckily July tutorial of my series "Stretch Your Skills" was exactly that! So thanks to the wonderful tips and instructions by Kristel (wipgirl) I was able to make a little practice piece that gave me the confidence I needed to attach the big project!

A lot of designing, cutting, fusing and sewing later, this is what I had!



The irregular edges of the different pieces, combined with the irregular crossing of the quilting makes the piece really "impressionist" (IMHO).
I didn't want to add any distraction with the binding, so I used a pillow case method to finish it.
And this mini WAS ACCEPTED in the 40 (out of 230 submitted) minis for the Road to California exhibit!!

After finishing this piece, however, I had a lot of solids leftovers. One day I went to visit the Phillips Collection and I saw a painting from Piet Mondrian (Composition No. III) and I realized that I could make another mini for the challenge!


Since I didn't have white as leftover but blues, I decided to play with the colors and this was the result. It's very simple and the quilting is random straight lines to echo the simple shapes that Mondrian is famous to paint.

This quilt was not accepted in the exhibit, but I still think it's pretty and it balances the impressionistic look of "Vincent"!

So if you happen to be in Ontario, CA in January, stop to visit this fun exhibit!

And if you see my mini, please send me a picture!!

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If you have any comment about these quilts, I would love to hear!!!
And  check out more wonderful art quilts over at blogger's quilt festival!!

5 comments:

  1. Truly like everything about your mini :)

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  2. I like both of your pieces. The Vincent one, even though it's obviously different than the painting, is instantly recognizable. Very nice work.

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  3. I love the colours, wonderful:))

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  4. Voted for Vincent as one of my Viewers Choice selections! Good luck!

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  5. Lovely! Great interpretation.

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