Friday, September 7, 2007

Pink, the new lime green?

Kay Sorensen offered the theory of pink being the new lime green and started several quilters off on a new path of color enlightenment.

A black, white and pink challenge by host Leigh Ann Haygood offers a bouquet of unique responses to her challenge. Featured here is just one, by Jodi-Marie Horne of Leduc, Alberta, Canada. She used 100 percent commercial cotton fabric and rayon thread in her raw-edge fusible applique that is machine quilted.

Jodi-Marie said, "This experiment of transferring a fractal image to cloth was pure joy! It also showed me how little pink I have in my stash!"

I'm in the mood today to just search for examples of what art quilters are producing. Inspiration, perhaps, for all of those quilts I think I want to make, dream of making, but can't seem to get started.

My dear cousin gets an idea, jumps into it and produces the most exquisite creations whether it be crocheted, doll clothes, beading, or quilts. Today she wrote to say she found a new book at the library and is busily creating a quilt based upon the techniques in the book. I tend to look at the book, think 'Wow, what a great idea. I should make one." Then it is time to return the book and I move on to yet another 'what if!' idea.

So, while my cousin is cutting cloth and creating. I'm wandering the Internet finding so much inspiration. One exciting spot is the Art Quilt Network with links to its many members sites as well as galleries of various types of art quilts. Vita Marie Lovett takes us on an excursion of doors in her mixed media fabric creations, not to mention her extensive list of links to other exciting websites.

One of those links to Nancy Billings' Nancy B Designs and her vibrant quilts. They make you smile just to look at them! And the pillows. Her woven pillows inspire me to use up some of those odds and ends of fabric that I can't let go of, but still have not found a use for. Here she has included an embroidered insert.

Of course no surfing for art quilts could ever be complete without a trip to the Bryerpatch, Caryl Bryer Fallert's home page. I don't often understand exactly what the quilt artists attempt to say in their creations. I get bits and pieces of it. But, I think if anyone sees her 2001 quilt pictured here and remembers September 11, 2001, the message touches the viewer right to the heart.

I wonder if Caryl dreams in technicolor -- she certainly knows how to use color in her quilts!

From pink to technicolor, surf away. Of course on the Internet, surfing never ends. I hope you'll take a few moments -- hours -- days -- to check out the links from just this little foray into art quilts online.

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