Dragonfly

I wanted to post another of the series before I go and bury myself in the studio again this afternoon.  This one is a 9x9 piece in pink, purple and a sagey green.  The main square is hand marbled fabric and the rest are hand dyed white on white, hand dyeds or commercial batik.  The color is a little off on this first image.

I quilted it and set it through the laundry, framed it up to 9x9 and added a lovely little forgotten dragonfly from my jewelry box.  I'm really enjoying adding an expressive little detail to each quilt.  The dragonfly has a little sparkle and the tail moves. 

My heart goes out to those in storm flattened areas.  I was there after Katrina, I remember what that was like.  Then to see such amazing damage again, it simply blows my mind.  My love to all of you in the South East today, I hope you and yours are safe and sound.

I'm working on this series of quilts for an exhibit called "Whole."  Each quilt has a found object piece included representing different aspects of my life in the last year.  Some pieces have included items from the junk yard, puzzle pieces, scrabble tiles, broken china and now a forgotten dragonfly from my jewelry box.  These bits and pieces are a little unexpected in my work but express my broken and discarded condition as my divorce nears completion. 

I was shaken by images of the storm torn parts of my homeland, as we all are.  Here the power went off and on a few times during the night and a tree nearby was down this morning.  We had no tornadoes in this area, just high winds.  The images of great loss that I saw this morning on the news reverberated with my own losses of the last year.  My home on the golf course, my dogs, my sense of security, my losses were by my own choice, theirs were not.  So as I continue to incorporate broken and discarded images into my work, I'll do so with a prayer for those who lost everything in the storm last night. 

I just updated the Kickstarter.com project with this note

"Dear friends, in light of the brokenness caused by the storms last night, I will be donating 10% of the project total to a disaster relief charity at the successful close of this project.  Please pray with me for peace, protection and provision for our friends in the South-East United States today.  Thank you, -Carmen Rose"

Puzzling

This is the second piece in the "Whole" series. It consists of hand marbled fabric I made ages ago, some hand dyed white on white, hand dyed fabrics and commercial batik.  I think it's fun to see how different they look flat like this when the piecing is done:

Then after I've quilted them and run them through the laundry to get that cool laundered texture, then framed them up on canvas stretchers. This one is on a 6x6 canvas stretcher.

And of course it doesn't stop there, this one has three puzzle pieces added to complete it. Isn't this fun?

I sure think so.

I've been really struggling with my sewing machines. The Necchi acts like it's clutch is slipping, I just took it BACK to the repair shop to try and see if they can get it fixed this time.

The Singer drops stitches like a drunk co-ed even though I got it back from the repair shop on Friday. However, the problem is very erratic. I never know when it is going to happen but I can't use it for quilting when I can't get a happy seam out of it.

I just got my third machine back from the repair guy today and this one works. I hesitate to even mention that it works because it may decide to quit on me also. We shall see.

So far I've spent more $$$ on repairing sewing machines than I had budgeted for fabric for this project. I do hope that at least one of the four will stay working long enough for me to finish up this project in time for the art opening.

Have you seen my project at Kickstarter.com? I really love the whole concept of kickstarter and have my eye on a few projects that are happening there. A friend of mine is an inventor and I hope to bring one of his projects to Kickstarter.com. I also know of an artist killed in Iraq who documented the people and war in Iraq through his photography while serving in a medical mission there. His voice, his vision... is one that should be seen even though he is no longer with us. I hope to host a kickstarter project to see an exhibit of his work come together as well. So many ideas, so little time. I hope you'll check out my project and consider buying one or more of my quilted textile and found object pieces like the one in this blog post. Or perhaps one of my cool enameled keys, those are just SO COOL!

Happy Creating,
-Carmen Rose

Tease!

Oh, alright....

Here is another teaser:

Love This

Some of my friends are huge fans of Mumford & Sons.

I totally see why!

Check this out:

White Blank Page, Mumford and Sons

Happy Creating,

Carmen Rose