New Art Quilt Group, Toad #1

Several people attending Sherrie Smith's Wednesday class at Bits and Pieces have agreed to start an art quilt exploration group. We met last week for the first time and hammered out a few rules. Mostly we decided we're a pretty free-and-easy group. Come if you can, skip a project if you feel like it, small quick projects, one week turn around to keep the momentum going, etc.

So far there are 6 of us, but I'm hoping more may wish to join in as they see what we do. If any of you out in cyberspace would like to play along, you're welcome to join us. If you do, send me pictures and I'll post them to this blog.

I had a long list of possibilities for challenges that I presented to the group and others had some great ideas as well. We decided to randomly select one and it happened to be a 3-part challenge.

First week's challenge: make a simple sketch. Using fabric, interpret the sketch 3 different ways. A small "quilt" is due for the next 3 weeks of class, one per week. We also randomly decided that the quilts should fit inside a 12" square.

Here's my sketch: a toad. (Okay, not the most elegant of subjects, but I love the idea of different interpretations of the texture of his skin.)

And here is the first interpretation. I have to admit that this one was not too much of a stretch for me. I've done trapunto many times before and I outlined him using free motion zigzag, which I've done once or twice before. The leaf background quilting pattern is new though.

I don't know why, but I was totally excited to find the dotty batik I used to bind it since it reminds me of frog spawn. I've never seen toad spawn, but somehow I imagine it's similar.

Now on to next week's reinterpretation of the sketch. Something toadily different! (haha, I couldn't resist.) And this one is something I've never tried before. Let's hope it works!

Lisa