GUINEA FOWL FEATHER COMPLETED

This project was one of two pieces I intended to donate to the Alzheimer's Priority Quilt Auction held at Quilt Festival in Houston in less than two weeks......unfortunately I didn't make the deadline. If you are planning to attend Festival, please stop at the AAQI booth. The silent auction this year will include 1,000 quilts.....so surely there will be one that catches your eye for a good cause.

I did complete and donate one piece which I blogged about on July 28, 2009....click here and scroll down to that date to get a preview of Inner Strength. Each of my previous year's 9" x 12" contributions sold for $350.....so if you are attending the show, perhaps you'll like this one just as well.

Guinea Fowl Feather Remembered 9" x 12"

SOLD

Because AAQI's online silent auction doesn't offer the in person inspection of my work, I've decided to either hang onto this one for next year's Festival, or sell it myself (my own stimulus package) and make a different piece for next year's auction. Email me if you are interested in purchasing it....click on my email link at the upper right side of this blog.

I've been plugging away on Guinea Fowl Feather Remembered for awhile. As with most of my pieces lately, the fabric is woolfelt, which I feel provides such pleasant warmth and texture to the hard bead surfaces. One area where I've struggled when making these designs, is how to add interest to the main fabric rectangle, without competing too much with the beadwork. I don't just mean visual competition, I'm also referring to the integrity of the fabric. Adding inappropriate stitching to the background can draw up/distort the woolfelt and may cause the beadwork to buckle.

After way tooooo much pondering, I decided to program a single eyelet stitch on my sewing machine. Gray rayon thread tested the best...it wasn't too heavy which might cause distortion, nor too thick which might overwhelm the overall design. Once the decision was made, it didn't take long to sew the circles through the stabilized woolfelt gray background. However, it DID take a long time to pull all the thread ends to the wrong side and tie them off. I had no choice....I'm a stickler for creating tidy work.

You can review step-by-step photos of the construction process by clicking here.....and scrolling down to my Sept. 5, 2009 post.

I've been attempting to add more dimension in my beaded feather/leaf pieces, with color, rather than raising the height of the beads. I achieved it here by changing the angle of the lines of beads coming off the center spine of the feather. Unlike fabrics where gradations of color are fairly easy to come by, that's not the case with beads. Though, I already have a new design in mind and will actively seek out seed beads with close colorways.

In closing today.....a reminder....I'll be presenting a fashion trunk show at Waechter's Silk Shop tomorrow, Oct. 3rd. at 2:00 PM. The talented staff of Waechter's will offer additional demos throughout the day.....their is no charge for attending any of the events.