"Memento Mori- She Sells Sea Shells...."

It's only been this week that I have had a chance to get stuck into my "Treasured Memories " pieces.
I have had the research and some of the prep work done for ages but lots of other projects have kept me very busy these last few months!

So here's my first piece:

                                            "Momento Mori - She Sells Sea Shells....."

Momento Mori (we all must die) is a medieval christian practice of keeping a reminder of death near, not as a morbid act but to remember that we all must die and so should live life to the full. 

I have been using the skull image as a theme in my work for several years now and still find new ways of exploring and playing with it. I'm a huge horror and science fiction fan and ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer brought vampire and horror into the mainstream I don't feel like such a weirdo working with this sort of image!

I spent a lot of time by the sea as a child and have lots of memories of collecting sea shells and bits and piece on the sand.

I found old drawings of shells and used a photo transfer method to put them onto fabric. They were then stitched onto a black fabric and then appliquéd onto a background and quilted.

Gold vein

And here is my 2nd quilt for this year called 'Gold vein'. No hand dyed fabrics this time, but all commercial ones.

Precious metal and stones

It took several months before I came up with an idea for this year's theme, but I finally found one. And coming up with the idea, is the hardest part, don't you agree with me? Here is my first quilt called 'Turquoise'.

I used my own hand dyed fabric for this and covered it with a layer of zapped lutrador. Second quilt is also completed, now I have to find it again to take a picture. It is somewhere in the luggage I brought home with me this week.

First of my 'Treasures' slow start - fast finish !

This is the first of my 'Treasures for 2016  'Red Centre'
I have based all 4 pieces on Australia and its treasures. 

Exhibit in St. Cloud

The show in St. Cloud was a success. The quilts of Stitched and Voyage were hanging next to each other in the special exhibit area and attracted a lot of attention. Some of the comments made were:
- Simply beautiful, over the top
- Lovely! Such creative people! Nothing like a commitment to produce!
- Wonderful!
- Loved it!
- Awesome!
- Favorite exhibit of show!
- Gorgeous! Favorite? Can't pick just one
- Wonderful + inspiring
It was not possible to take a picture of all the quilts together, but I took pictures of all quilts of the individual artists. Pictures were taken before the show opened, so no visitors on it.

Wil Opio Oguta:

Ildiko Polyak:

Pat Archibald:

Betty Hahn:

Jean Marshall:

Gretchen Saunders:

Frances Murphy:

Elaine Maunder:

Shoshi Rimer:

Sandra Sullivan:

Paula Rafferty:

Kelly Hendrickson:

We are invited for the next annual show of the MN Quiltters in June 2017.

Here are some pictures from the exhibition at The Prague Patchwork meeting in April

Gillian

This is my first Treasures quilt. 

Porto is a UNESCO World heritage site and a favourite city of mine. I love all the coloured houses, the balconies  and the washing.

It is simply lots of little pieces of fabric appliqued on to a calico backround with some machine stitching

This is my second treasures piece

I've taken a detail from one of my photos of Porto.

I painted and printed some of the background and added machine stitch and appliqué

Gillian

Voyage 2016

'Treasures'

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

1.

'Colour Entrapped'

One of my quilting friends gave me some 'colour catchers'. I was fascinated by their delicate tints and the texture of the paper. This led me to start playing with them. Here is the result. Woven and appliqued colour catchers, machine quilted using rayon and holographic threads.

What I am working on

During the month of May I will be talking about stamps and stamping on the Fire-blog, a total of 15 blog posts. As I want to have them all done before May starts, I am in the middle of those posts at the moment. Most of the text has been done, but I still have to stamp a number of pieces of fabric. You will understand that I cannot show you any pictures of what I have done.

Work in progress

We said that we would keep each other updated about other ongoing work that we have.
I started a series of work a couple of years ago about the Middle East and my experiences there so this is piece number 5 - only three more to go for an exhibition at the show in Beaujolais!
Apologies but this image refuses to be in the correct orientation.
Pat Archibald