it started out as b/w

A friend of mine knows that I love b/w fabrics and send me a piece of this:
There was a lot of fabric, so I cut it up into several pieces. About half a yard remained white. The 3 other pieces I dyed. One using only turquoise dye. For the other 2 I used alpine blue and basic blue, both colors on a piece so that it looked like this:

A nice mixture, but I wanted to add more blues to it and picked a selection of paint. Textile paint and acrylic, in total 5 different colors. As stamp I used a piece of insulation tube. The result is:

On purpose I sticked to blue colors, as I want to use some of this fabric in the water of the canal houses project

metal

Today I attended a workshop which was supposed to be on combining metal wire with textile. The teacher brought different types of metal wire for all participants and the participants were supposed to bring textiles. Only nobody had told us that. The result was a change in the teaching schedule and we now worked the whole day with metal wire. This was something I had never done before. We used different techniques with the wires: hammering, winding, weaving, knitting/crochet and a couple of connecting techniques. As I said I had no previous experience with it, but I see some new books and new tools in my near future :-). There are definately ways in which I can use this in my work. The picture shows what I made today, mainly samples.

Fractured flower

It is some time ago that I posted a picture of the four pieces I received from the fractured flower project. Last week I stitched everything together and quilted it. And this is how it looks now:

Top left is made by me, top right by Karen. Bottom left is made by Gena and bottom right by Kelly. Size is 17"x21"(42x52 cm). We had so much fun with this project that we are starting a new one. This time 10 of us will each make 10 canal houses. These will be swapped so that we each end up with 10 houses made by 10 different people. In size this project is bigger, but essentially it is an easy one as there will be less lines which have to match than with this flower.
Coming months I will be working on those houses - in between other projects -, due date is November 30.

Cubism

It took a joined effort, but the cubism piece got its title. Thanks to Lynn and Kelly, it is now called 'Breaking free'.
The last couple of days I have been working on two quilts. Pictures will follow in a few days.

Fantasy leaves

I am working on so many projects at the same time, that I decided to finish first a couple of them. If I counted correctly, I have 8 quilts on which I am working right now and that is a bit much. Their sizes vary between journal size up to 60" square. Some of these have just started, but other ones only need a title or a label stitche to them. Let's get these done first. This is one of them. It started as an excercise in Pamela's class. Background is a snowdyed piece of fabric, while the leaves are made from commercial batiks. Why stick to the colors of nature, while other ones might be just as much fun - or maybe even more? Size is 15,5"x17,5" (39x45 cm), title is Fantasy leaves.

Klimt

This work in progress is a translation of one of Klimts works into fabric. At the moment it is only fused and a second panel will be added to it. The skirt is made from two different batiks woven together. Size is 40"x10" (100 x 25 cm). Because of this size I had to take the picture while the quilt was on the floor, that is why the picture is distorted. Next step for this panel will be to quilt it. I want to have this done before I start working on the other panel.

Cubism

For one of Pam's classes we had to study Cubism. This style I always liked, but I never really studied it. There is such a wide variety in how the painters worked. I found some inspiration for future use there.

The next step was to translate cubism into fabric. And this turned out to be much more difficult. The paintings look so easy but to create something like that in fabric is really hard. After several starting points that did not work out, I ended up with this piece:

Size is 12,5"x14"(32x36 cm). It has no title yet, no idea has popped up yet. So if you have a suggestion, please let me know.

Give away winner

As promised I would pick a number today. Using a random number generator it gave me number 14 as the winner of a half yard of snow dyed fabric. Counting the comments Lynn is number 14. So congratulations to you Lynn! Please email me your address and I will put it into the mail. My email address is wil at wilopiooguta.com.

new website

My website has been redesigned and looks so much better now. Take a look, this is the link. Originally I did it myself, but realised quickly that it would look much better if I could find a professional to do it for me. However to find one who could do this, took longer then I had expected. Some small details have to be added/changed, but that will be done the coming days.

African dancers

This quilt is the final result of the first of Pamela's lessons. I blogged about it early February when it was still a work in progress. Now it is quilted, binded and ready to hang. All the fabrics used are my own handdyed/handpainted ones. Size of this quilt is 19"x19" (47x47 cm), plus a bit extra where the palm leaves have grown over the binding :-)