Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The Sentinel ~ my final Fiberactions Challenge

 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnm   

That first line was from Broccoli. He has missed me, because I was working the past 2 days, & haven't been home much.
Below is the piece I made for the last Fiberactions Challenge.  The word was 'Structure', & I chose to build a 'Cairn'. It's a rock structure that hikers build to mark paths, or spots to alert other hikers. This one is placed by a river to mark a safe crossing.  
The first photo  shows the quilt how it looked when I first finished. As I had it hanging on the wall, I realized there was a hole in my stack of 'rocks' , & it bothered me. I made the rocks from the Shibori pole wrap process that my friend Sandy Winfree taught me this past summer.                                                       

After contemplating how I might fix that hole, I found a real rock that looked very much like the ones I made from silk. I threaded some long pieces of thread through a button, then glued the rock to the top of the button, & stitched the threads through the quilt (a process I learned from Allie Aller).
The raven standing guard by the Cairn is the one I made entirely from thread, free-motion on wash-away stabilizer.
The leaves are all from fabric that I straw dyed this past summer, appli-quilted in place over the couched yarns for branches. The challenges have been a lot of fun, but I've decided to challenge myself this next year. Changes are in the wind for us. Warren will retire. I will have to go back to full time. I am thinking about what I'm going to do next......we'll see.
In the meantime, I'll warm myself by the fire.

11 comments:

Marsel said...

This is amazing!!!

Hope the transitions that are in store for you all go smoothly.

Michelle Auer said...

It took me a minute to find the real rock. Very Where's Waldo! ;-)
This is really cool!

Delighted Hands said...

It took me a long time to find the real rock but I did finally! Very clever fix~

Well, back to work full time will make some changes around your quilting but you can do what you have to for now, right?

Ali Honey said...

I like that very much. Congratulations it's a beautiful piece of work.

I also like the shapes and colours you are gazing at in your fire....more greens than we get.

Vicki W said...

It's fabulous! I love all of the great texture and, of course, I adore the raven.

Françoise said...

I also had to look a little to find the real rock. The silk ones look very realistic. The colours and textures of this piece are so rich. Beautiful!

CJ STITCHING AND BLOOMS said...

Wow, Deb. a very fantastic creative fiberactions creation. Love it. The rock was perfect. I look forward to seeing pics of it finished.. Isn't great to set beside a new warm fire burning in the Winter. Hugs Judy

Judy said...

What a unique quilt! It sounds like each section was challenging in its own way. You did a wonderful job dyeing the leaves. I hope that your transition goes smoothly.

Kathy -MIQuilter said...

Your quilt so inspiring, how you pulled all those pieces together, along with a real rock, I love it.
As I always say "no body does it better".
It seems if your alive, life doesn't stay the same, hope yours works out well.

Stephanie said...

It took me a while as well to find the real rock, I agree very clever fix.

I love the pic of the fire, wish I could do that here.

Melodie said...

I toggled betweem the 1st & 2nd photo and the rock appears then disappears, appears, then disappears......(doesn't take much to entertain me!)