We had our 2nd reveal of the year, and as always it didn't fail to amaze! 

Challenge:  Ice Ice Baby

Icy Diamonds by Teddy Wenner
27"x 35"

Vanilla Ice did the song Ice, Ice Baby.  I used to watch him on HGTV when he did renovations on South Florida homes.  Ice can also be associated with diamonds.  

Big Blue by Lynn Tubbe
21" x 26"

The base fabric is an ice-dyed piece I made using the gravity dyeing technique.  the diagonal pattern looked like the radiation petals of a flower.  I used Terial Magic to stiffen the center of the flower as well as the "fringe' to prevent raveling.  After I stiffened the white fabric for the center, drying it into a dimensional shape, it was a challenge to hand sew through the unwieldy and really stiff fabric.  Lesson learned, along with bleeding fingers.  I trust gluing things only so far and felt sewing would be more secure.

Explosion by Marylee Drake
35" x 41"

Last year one of our Sierra Sisters' members, Sandra Mollen, showed us how to do gravity dying with ice and procion mx dyes.  I used some of the dyed fabric and added fused applique and free motion quilting.  I love this dyeing technique because you don't know how it will turn out until its done.  The fabric lends itself to a variety of uses in art quilting - backing, background or piecing.  

Picos de Europa by Michelle Peerson
20" x 17"

My ice dyed fabric reminded me of the colors of the Picos de Europa in Northern Spain.  I feel it needs a focal point and will put one on once I figure that out.  

Snow Globe Sojourn by Tracy Visher
22" x 13"

I actually thought I’d make an iceberg quilt but got distracted and by the time I came back to it, I had a vision of driving on a snowy night. I was seduced by the idea of trying to make the image look like you were looking out of a windshield. It is ice on the road that fits the challenge.  My inspiration is from living in a place that snows every winter. There is a long road out to my house where we have to pay particular attention to wild horses at night. It is often the first place I have to turn on the 4-wheel drive on my car when I leave home. It can be treacherous but is always beautiful too. Tulle was my friend in creating layers of depth. I used cotton commercial fabric, batiks, acrylic paint, monofilament thread. Glitter tulle and plain tulle. Hand couched metallic threads. Iridescent sequins. The biggest challenge was truly making the feeling of looking through a frosty windshield at night. I wanted ice build up and a foggy feeling. Beyond that, I wanted a road that felt like you had to pay attention, with snow and ice on it as well. All of that made harder because it was at night. Where I live, this is a regular occurrence, and I love it.

Challenge:  All Creatures Great and Small

5 Trees by Mary Stori
28" x 17"

Because the trees are mostly neutral fabrics, the 3 cardinals were added to draw attention to other areas of the quilt and add a few sparks of color.  The inspiration was the desire to use some of the popular 'grunge' fabric looks that I've created using my gelli plate.  I gelli printed the grunge style trees on cotton and raw edge.  I densely machine quilted and hand embroidered.  This piece is a continuation of my quest to crate my own unique fabrics through dyeing, painting, screen printing, gelli printing and other surface design techniques.  

Sunset over Heritage Placer Vineyard's ponds by Mari Stori
28" x 19"

The addition of geese and ducks in this landscape scene helps to draw the eye around the piece as well as echoing what one might see in nation.  The inspiration was a photo taken by a resident and published in our community online newsletter.  This was inspired by a Bobbi Jayne DeLozier photo and used with permission.  It's appliqued, thread painted and quilted, It uses ice-dyed and batik cottons, ultra-suede, gel printing on fabric, oil pastels & Prisma pencils. Orange is not a color I normally use, therefore there was very little in my stash.  Much of the quilt has been created using my gelli plate or over-colored with various marking tools.  

Fan by Elisabeth Baratta
24" x 30"

I like Japanese Fans.  I added flying geese to meet the theme.  This is foundation pieced and is all silk.  It does not have a heartbeat, but it is a fan.  Flying geese will have to do.

Breakfast by Bonnie Ellering
20" x 20"

Eagles are great and are pretty small.  

Challenge:  Native Cultures

Homage to the Chauvet Cave Artists by Kathryn Madison
39" x 29"

This is a rendering of ancient cave paintings.  The inspiration was Werner Herzog’s documentary, “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”  I started with Muslin because I wanted the texture.  I used organza, organza, monofilament, Tsukineko inks and Inktense blocks.  I felt the pressure of trying to authentically render another artists’ work, to do it justice. As I learned about them and the environment they lived in, I had more and more respect for how difficult their lives were and yet they still felt making art was important.

 

Lost Tribe, Lost Art by Tracy Visher
51" x 32"

 This represents the lost Ariona tribe of the Southern Sinagua Indians, a cliff dwelling people.  I have visited this cliff dwelling sight in Valle Verde, between Phoenix and Sedona Arizona.  I have had a long fascination with the Anisazi Nation, of which the Sinagua were a part.  Their dwelling is on the edge of a desert, separated by a small river.  I was taken with the fact that there were so much energy and industry along the top of the cliff and along the river, but then there were miles of uninhabitable dry land beyond.  One half of the 'meaning' in this quilt is an homage to the lost handwork arts created by women over the centuries.  I have collected bits of old linens with embroidered, tatted and crocheted designs on them.  It is rare to see these kinds of handiwork in the world any longer.  You will find bits of it throughout the 'desert' portion of this quilt.  I used commercial cotton and batiks, decoulourant, decorative threads, embroidery thread, inktense pencil, hand dyed linen.  I was clear about my concept but wanted to move to more of an abstract representation of the topic.  I decided to try to make a continuous cured piece along the top, with the land strip and the sky strip.  It was hard to lay flat, but I got it!  I used decoulourant to create the white clouds in the blue batik sky.  I did a skinny insert strip for the river.  The entire quilt is PIECED, not collaged like I typically do.  It was overall, the most difficult piece I have constructed.  

Challenge:  Going in Circles

Going in Circles by Michelle Peerson
17" x 24"

I wanted to try a new technique.   I used a piece of thicken dyed fabric I made as the background. Circles were stamped using dye dipped toilet paper rolls and straight lines were made with the edge of a credit card.

Mooniversary by Sophia Day

I have many, many full moon photos.  My husband and I had our first date on a full moon and then bought a house where we can watch the moonrise. I have always wanted to use the photos in a quilt. Going in Circles was a perfect theme.  I found a perfect commercial ombre fabric for the background. I used a stamp and paint for the phases of the moon. I wanted to channel my inner collage artist and I didn’t totally succeed.  But I found a perfect ombre fabric which gave me a lot of inspiration.  I used fused circles this time instead of piecing them in.  

Out of Darkness, Hope Rises by Kathryn Madison
21" x 34"

I wanted to experiment with diluted spray Tsukineko inks on fabrics other than cotton. I used panne velvet, crystal organza, batting, cotton, mistyfuse, monofilament, soldering iron, crystals.  With all the horrible news of today, I wanted to create something that reflected my hopes that we, as a country, will rise from the darkness we are suffering in now.

Going in Circles by Robin Hart
40" x 34"

When I think of something going in circles, the planet Saturn comes to mind.  A banded planet surrounded by ice fragments of a lost moon in an orbital flat plane.  Circles around circles that are the jewels of the Solar System.  I was inspired by a closeup NASA phto of Saturn from the Casini mission a few years ago and did an Adobe illustrator rendering of the planet, it's rings and some of it's moons.  This was output on percale fabric by Real Graphics and then heavily thread painted.  Doung all the rings in tight formation was a challenge for this project and also getting it to lay flat because of the extreme parabola shape of the rings.  I had to block it twice.  

Circles Again by Elisabeth Baratta

The inspiration was the border print fabric.  I used African wax prints.  This quilt is made from a border print.  It has 36 10-degree wedges.  The border was made of the leftovers from the center.