New Wall Art - "Dancing Colors"

I am transitioning from more traditional quilting to fabric arts more generally.  I just finished this one yesterday and mounted it on polystyrene.  I put a black cloth "frame" around it. 

I used my stash on this, which included ric-rac and bric-a-brac.  I had many colors and sizes of ribbons and hem binders and blanket bindings that I'd picked up in thrift stores over the years.  I also did free-motion machine quilting, pebble style in a couple areas, and added some Kantha-style large stitching and French knots.  A little international flavor, wouldn't you say?  A friend of mine who is one of the original team that sequenced DNA, our wicked smart friend, we call him, looked at this before I'd framed it out and started waxing elegantly in physics lingo about the prism and color spectrum and all.  We'd been imbibing over dinner and I want to just blame my failure to fully comprehend on drink and not lack of smarts on my part.  It was fun though.  I wish I'd captured his words for fun to add in here.  

This wall art was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest which came from a Flikr photo.  

Here's my work on the wall in our foyer. 

The picture, above, was done with the yellow topped straight pins holding down some of the ric rac. 

Mom's Quilt

Here is Mom's quilt that I completed in 2020 but had stopped blogging for a while.  

Like the one I did for my dad, I wanted it to keep my mom warm while she spent her days in a nursing home with remnants from strokes and Lewy Body Dementia.  I used old lace doilies I'd found in thrift shops or that were given to me by friends.  I also used some piece work some unknown woman had done but never made into a quilt.  I found those in a thrift store too.  I also added my own applique of a Carolina Wren since I was living in the Southern Appalachians when I made this quilt and the little fatty wrens were always serenading me and visiting me just outside my windows and on the porches and deck. 

The browns I used in this quilt were done partly because they were already in the pieces I found at a thrift shop and wanted to use but also because I remember Mom and Dad's bedroom out on the farm in Iowa was done in brown shades and I had always liked it.  It was part of the story of their life. 

I wanted this quilt for my mom to also be feminine and it did have the pink with the brown in the applique pieces, but I used a touch of turquoise in the trim around the edges to give it a little pop, and then I used printed flowered brown squares at the intersection of each larger square, and I hand-quilted free-hand flowers in all the brown strips between the squares. 

The binding I used for Mom's quilt is the same one I used for Dad's quilt.  I wanted them to be connected in this way. 

Here, below, is a look at my free-hand flower quilting.

On the applique'd piece below of the Sunbonnet Sue that I'd found in a thrift shop, I added the sun because there was just too much blank space in the upper right corner of that square.  Then I quilted in the sun rays.

Above is the backside of the Sunbonnet Sue showing my hand basting. 

You might also notice that I quilted in a baseball bat into the Sunbonnet Sue's hand.  That's an old family story that is probably not appropriate here.  

As with the quilt for my dad, this one for my mom is destined for a sister of mine after my mom is gone.  The one for my dad went to my sister, Karen.  This one will go to my sister, Barb. 

Below is a picture of the layers, the topper, batting and backing, taped with painters tape to the clean wooden floor in preparation for hand basting. Note one of the knee pads in the left foreground of the picture. It's careful, grueling work crawling around on top of this to baste it starting from the center and going out to all the edges. 

And below is a picture of when I was still piecing and before I hand stitched in all the vintage lace doilies.