Fourth Piece for Take It Further Challenge

Finally, I have finished my fourth piece for the Challenge. The challenge was to pick someone we admire to inspire our piece. I chose Jean Littlejohn and her piece in which she uses the Embellisher. I did the first piece so quickly, I felt guilty and made a second piece. Then Sharon posted a link to some vintage samplers. I saw one I wanted to copy and ended up doing two more. Now I think I can make a wall hanging of the four pieces. Not sure how yet, but I'm thinking of a large piece of black felt for the background. I hope to get to that before the February challenge starts.

Well, here's the finished quilt. I just have to add another layer of black felt, embroider the edges together, and hang it. I'm going to miss working on this piece.

TIF Challenge 3rd Piece Finished

I finished my third piece with the Kantha stitch background in two colors. The stitches should have been more random, but I didn't start out that way and had to finish the whole piece in nice neat lines. I'm not sure I'll use the Kantha stitch again. Now to do the fourth piece. I'm going to use the periwinkle felt but don't know yet how I will approach it.

Working on the Background with the Kantha Stitch

I switched to Firefox browser and am now able to upload my latest in-progress TIF challenge image. See my Flickr site for more description.

(I couldn't upload an image this morning so I put all the description on my Flickr page.)

What To Do Now?????

I've reached a crossroads.  What to do?  I'm almost down to doing the background stitching.  At this point I don't feel very creative.  Following the piece of vintage embroidery I found on the Internet has been interesting; trying to stick to the colors and design has been challenging.  However,  doing the Kantha running stitch on the background will result in a piece not like the other two I've completed.  I'm considering embellishing yarn onto the background.  I started out emulating one of Jean Littlejohn's embellishment pieces for my "inspiration" in the TIF Challenge. With this piece I totally took off on a tangent not inspired by Jean at all.  What it comes down to I think is that I don't feel I'm being creative.  I'm choosing colors not by intuition but by solving the puzzle of which colors go where.  I'll need to take off these handcuffs for my fourth piece.

A Little More Progress

Please click on the link for my Flickr site for a description of my process.  

Third Piece in Progress

After doing two pieces on the Embellisher, I was craving some hand embroidery. Ahhhhhh! So satisfying. I'm keeping to the same colors and the spiral.

Sharon, in her blog, showed this museum sample which I also noticed on the website she gave us. (This kind of running-stitch embroidery is called "kantha." I looked it up on the web.) The piece inspired me to use this technique for my third creation in the First Challenge. I will end up with four felt pieces and then have to decide how to join them together in a wall hanging.

These are photos of my second piece for the first TIF Challenge. I've used silk ties, as you see in the top photo, to embellish felt circles.

The bottom photo is a detail of one of the silk-tie-embellished circles. The rambling yarn is also embellished to the felt background. Some circles are completely covered with silk and some are covered only in the center. The fuzzy circles are felt that has been embellished from the back side.

My third piece in this series will use the same felt colors and circles, but I haven't decided how to "embellish" them. I may try hand embroidery.

First Week Progress

I'm amazed!  I finished this piece in less than two hours.  Now what do I do for the rest of the month?  I don't feel the piece needs anything more done to it.  Perhaps I should do a series of these.  Hmmmmm?  That sounds like a challenge.

The entire piece, except for the wandering yarn, is made from 100% wool felt.  The circles have been attached to the background felt using my Embellisher.  The yarn also was embellished to the felt background.  The photo on the top right shows the piece from an angle to show the way the circles stand out from the background felt.

Felt Colors for the Take It Further Challenge

These are the colors of wool felt I have chosen to use for my embellishment.  I haven't decided yet which color to use for the background.  The Littlejohn piece I am using for inspiration is monotone.  I plan to make a design using six colors.  I don't usually make a sketch of a design; I let the creative process work out the design.

Take It Further Design Challenge

Jean Littlejohn is a fiber artist I admire.  I am going to use this embellishment piece of Jean's for inspiration.  I have a lot of 100% wool felt that I plan to use.  I will do embellishment with my Baby Lock Embellisher, plus some thread embellishment and hand embroidery.  The colors I have in the felt stash will determine my color scheme. The two photos are of the piece by Jane Littlejohn that I took on Quilting Arts Magazine Alaska Cruise in July 2007.