Art Stream meeting 06-08-24

I drove to San Diego this morning for a meeting of an art quilt group I belong to  - "Art Stream".  There are six in the group, all of them live in the San Diego area. I am the only "outlier" with my two to  three hour drive down about every other month. We meet in member's homes, except for when it is my turn and I find a place down there to accommodate us. We usually have an assignment, all of which we choose at the beginning of the year.  Therefore we can get started  anytime on  any of the projects.   Somehow I never do that and am frequently unfinished or even just lacking.  Don't know why  they put up with  me.   This month the subject was  "Cut-it-up", using an unsuccessful previous work or parts rescued from UFOs, Everyone had a different idea so it was an interesting discussion. 

My incomplete project  was  using the cut offs from trimming previous quilts, I have a large box of them saved over the years. Also including some I have rescued from fellow students trash bags.  The black represents  the black already quilted pieces that  I  have cut to  "sash" the blocks.  The pieces are butted edge to  edge  and  zigzagged a la Paula Kovarick. 

"D" created a background of gently curved strips, which  she but into wide slashes and then fused this  fantastic fused bird.  Love those  blue mum  petals for wings.

"JWT" experimented with raw edge rectangles arranged on a background of similar prints and quilted with meandering vine like lines. It gives a soft meadow feeling.

"N" used a quilt with abstract appliqued forms that she never thought worked.  She arranged  various colored triangles over the previous applique and heavily over-quilted with more vertical lines.  The different widths of spacing makes a great texture.

"A" started out with a  strip woven background she bought long ago at a quilter's sale.  She had some large flowers from other fabric which she cut and fused along  with  the vase shape.  The  texture was lovely, but she found the heavy thickness  difficult to sew through.  

"E",  as usual had a beautiful complete quilt.  She does exemplary hand work and there is a lot of that on this piece.  Cut out flowers, fantasy flowers, leaves, squiggles, and vines, along with  just on folded rose bud, are  applied to a fabric printed with tiny  dots.  

It was a lovely meeting and so interesting to learn from each others experiments,  decision making process, and how they solved the problems they encountered. 

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