Z is for Zebra

Hoffman 2020 was a white on white floral. The fabric was pretty in itself but getting some sort of impact into a design was more problematic. I chose to create this zebra using the challenge fabric for the white stripes and a variety of small scraps for the black stripes. I had learnt from Tuatara Tropicana to simplify the outer edges for binding. This one also travelled with the collection for 12 months

Carrion

And then came the Hoffman NZ entries. This was my first attempt in 2017. The competition chooses a fabric which you must purchase 1 metre of and use sufficient of that fabric in the wall art for it to be recognisable. In this case the fabric was surfboards. The finished quilt had to fit within a metre square dimension but not be square or rectangular.

Off I went creating the feathers from the fussy cut surfboards and creating the head and body from confetti piecing (small pieces under organza free machine quilted together). The top of the legs are velvet and the claws are bound wire clutching some fur material that I had left over from cushions made for one of my girls.

The piece was returned without any explanation. That was interesting because a year later I discovered the reason. My hanging on the back was not regulation, so rather than point that out, my entry was simply rejected. If I had been less confident in my own work that could have been quite disastrous from a development point of view, but I was quite pleased with this piece and still have it hanging in my lounge today. A word to the wise - The judge/jury at competitions is only an opinion and does not necessarily desecrate the value of your work.

Kaleidoscope Kiwi

My interest in collage fabric was peaked when Sophie Standing (then living in Kenya) was scheduled to come to NZ to teach a course. It was horrendously expensive for one day but she is a marvellous tutor and her African animals had always been one of my gotos for inspiration.

The course was a bit different from what I might normally attend as every student was making the same basic format that Sophie had chosen - the kiwi. All the finished projects were quite different with some students adding crotchet and vintage embellishments and some students turning up with printed backgrounds. I had just opted for a colour wash.

The interesting thing was we had to chose one fabric from our stash that we didn’t want to do without and from that we were to chose five fabrics in tones to go with the chosen one. These were then expanded out to 12-20 in gradations to tone in together.

Next came the pattern. We had been asked to bring along a photocopy full size of the kiwi photo provided. This we cut out and then cut into to make sure the eyes on our piece were in the right place. We started with practice eyes because the eyes in any piece are the most important. Once we had our eyes right we used the pattern - cutting further into it as needed to get things in the correct placement. attention was directed to have light colours at the top and darker to the bottom.

Once the collaged pieces were stitched down the fun began with bright coloured machine stitching adding detail and going over the individual pieces to blend as a whole.

This was certainly a departure from my normal comfort zone with the bright colours that I opted to use but I was quite happy with the result

A Beginning to Collage Quilts

I guess with a new technique you have to start somewhere. With fabric collage, I started with an online course with Susan Carlson. it was all about using multiple colours in very different fabrics to achieve this result. It is not one of my best quilts but i did learn a lot and when I look at it now with fresh eyes I find the colourways interesting. The palette of the spiral moves from black to green but there is no blue fabric in the piece - maybe I needed to coil in further to lead the eye from green to blue. A lot of the lighter background fabrics and from my own printing whereas the spiral fabrics are mainly scraps of commercial prints. I do note I used a lot of African and native prints. I collected quite a few of these over the years but haven’t really used them in my work. I love the African Savannahs but am more drawn to take from my New Zealand heritage in most of my work - that and my travel dialogues. Maybe one day I will get to Kenya and see the savannahs for myself.

The koru form is all about growth and unfurling so as a subject for where I was at at this time it was probably appropriate. Susan glue tacks he fabrics initially and I have modified that system to better suit my own needs. Over the next little while i will show some more of my collage quilts and where they lead