Jacob's Ladder Study

Here are more in my "Jacob's Ladder" series. This is a shot of one of them in the featured artist display currently up May/June at the Oasis Gallery in Harrisonburg.

This is the pair of them, though one of them has some frame damage so I need to figure out how to handle that.

I do love these frames though, they are perfect for small art quilts!

Here they are up close and personal (pre-quilting)

I love the hand dyed fabrics, these pieces just had such cool pattern!

Jacob's Ladder Study 1 & 2

Hand dyed cotton, batik

Fused and Machine Quilted

6.5 x 6.5 framed to 17 x 17

$198 each, framed

Happy Creating,

Carmen Rose

HELP! My Sherbet turned to Mud!

Well, I started well. I fell in love with a brick of batik’s that I found at my favorite quilt shop in “sherbet” colors. I loved them. It was infatuation only, I’m certain of it now. As time went by I liked them less and less. I’m down to talking to them now: “It’s not you, it’s me.” (But always gently and with respect)

I know why. I tried to use them all in one place. All these colors, all about the same value. When I put these little treasures together my delight with them faded as they all… turned… into… MUD! ARGH!!

I love vivid color, I love contrast… This. Ain’t. It.

So then… I’m determined to redeem my investment. Determined! Or maybe stubborn is the word.

I want this quilt to match these three little canvases that I created ages ago. (They are much cuter in person.) These little fleurs deserve a nice spot in the new house, just not sure where. The hope was that this quilt, these canvases plus a piece of dyed and painted silk I did years back might be a happy family of colors in some room here somewhere. But I’m not big on having MUD in the house. Unless it’s the footprints of puppies, then somehow I just don’t mind that much because they are just so good for my soul.
And I have two yards of this… that I was going to mix in with the sherbet. And it looked so beautiful in the quilt shop. It even made the sales lady sing as she cut it! And I felt it to. At the time. Now I see pretty colors mixed in MUD! Eeeek! Should I have my eyes checked?

Ok, so I’m going to add some contrast into the middle section, and hope like crazy that we can turn a corner here and fall in love all over again. And I don’t know what all will happen, I am very much playing it by ear. I even had a wicked little thought about a ton of ivory buttons I have in the stash that might have to make an appearance in the redemption of this muddy mess. Or maybe I just put up, shut up and finish this thing so it can go to someone else’s house. SOON please, so I can get back to the real colors.

Ok, done venting. If you have ideas, by all means – share them. Anything to turn my mud back to sherbet once more! If such a thing can even be done!

Batik Heaven

Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas to me...
I spent some of my Christmas money this morning at Rachel's Quilt Shop! I bought a chunk of fabric that looked like a brick. I have never done that before, I like to choose my fabrics, thank you very much. However... this one just made me drool, I saw it a while back and passed because it is $35 but still - there it was in the back of my mind, begging to come home with me. :)

Ok, this is the point where I should post the photo of that fabric "brick" but come on... I had that baby open before I even left the store!! And when I got home and laid them all out, this is what I have. 40 strips of batik, 2.5 inches wide. Yummmmm....

Drool!

These come in five different color ways and I chose "sherbert." I might consider the "mulberry" as well, the others are just too dull for me. I wish they did one in the vivid colors.
I've even got a sketch for the next quilt idea:

I've been away from quilt design for quite some time, so this is really fun. Plus I have a huge mess with all the tiny scraps on my floor and I just don't have the heart to clean up all those bits of color off of my carpet yet and thankfully hubby doesn't seem to mind too much. So I'm into making quilts for a while longer! :)
Oh, and these fabric 'bricks' appear to be available here.