That's Better...

It seems I'm no longer happy with machine stitch on its own. I sat down and added some hand stitch to this piece, along with a some text, and now I think it looks finished. It was a fun little diversion, and now I feel I can get back to the two more labour intensive pieces that I have in process...

Out of the Blue

Once I came up with the final concept for this quilt, I struggled with the decision to share the meaning behind it.  If you've been following my blog you'll know this is 'Plan B', but as I worked on it, a reoccurring theme kept coming up.  As I researched the text covering this quilt, which relates to all things blue, from the various colour names to facts about the colour blue, one theme kept coming to the forefront...that of depression.  And so I decided to embrace it and really focus on what that means to me.

As such the quilt, like depression, is messy.  It doesn't have square edges and it doesn't lie flat.  The text itself is depicted as sort of a 'blah, blah, blah' droning on in an endless, flat fashion.  In the midst of the quilt is a deep, black hole, and from it there are lots of people struggling to escape...Out of the Blue.  Those numbers are important, because although depression is a dark and lonely place, the prevalence of people suffering depression is staggering.  And, while you are in that deep, dark place, you are unable to see that you are not alone, in large part because of the silence that still surrounds this disorder.  The quilt hangs from a rough piece of driftwood that has somewhat harsh, broken ends.

So, yes...I'm putting it out there.  To quote a friend, I'm putting on my big girl panties and I sharing this art quilt and the meaning behind it because the message needs to be shared.  As Clara Hughes says as the spokesperson for Bell's National campaign, LET'S TALK!

I've included a bit of information from the Depression Hurts website:

During their lifetime about 1 in 10 people in Canada will experience an episode of major depressive disorder (the diagnosis given to those suffering from depression) ⁵ 

Unfortunately many people, unaware of how common depression is, avoid seeking treatment because they worry what others will think of them. They feel like they’re the only ones. Depression is in fact a widespread medical condition:^6,7

• Depression is among the leading causes of disability worldwide⁶

Another UFO Completed

 A very long time ago, I took a Sandra Meech workshop in which, among other things, we worked with paper and fabric to create wonderful stitched collages.  I finished this piece, to the point you see here, about a week after the workshop.  It involved tearing and gluing the various painted papers to create the initial collage.  I then used various crayons to add some additional line and detail. The paper collage was then layered with batting and backing and stitched.

I have looked at this piece off and on for a few years, wondering how I wanted to finish it.  Enter our GOE challenge to complete a UFO (see a related post by clicking here) and out came this piece again.

I finally got the idea to paint a background on canvas and mount the quilted piece to that.  A plain canvas wasn't enough, so stepping way out of my comfort zone, I decided to get out the paint, mix colours and create a background that would allow the piece to seamlessly blend into the background.  Although this sort of painting is not something I feel very confident about, I'm pleased with the results.




When the paint had dried and I put the quilted collage on top of it, I decided that I wanted to echo the hand written text out onto the painted canvas.  Using a micron pen, I wrote random things about the origin of graffiti (the topic of the text on the original painted papers).





And, here's the end result:

Text on Quilts: Techniques for Adding Words on Quilts

I'm excited to announce that my piece, Play, is in Interweave's book Text on Quilts: Techniques for Adding Words to Quilts.  The best news is that it's on sale for only $6.96 and available for immediate download!