Friday, March 19, 2010

Life without quilting-impossible

After I finished the 2 pieces for the Tokyo Electron Exhibit I felt like all I
had been doing was piecing and quilting and attaching sleeves, etc, etc...
I decided to take a few days off and concentrate on different endeavors. I gave myself a week off. Well, that didn't last, after 3 days my fingers were itching and I kept looking for excuses to go to my studio. It is a good thing I didn't tell my
DH to lock the doors to it. So after a short break I went back to quilting full swing and I finished my entry for the Texas Museum of Fiber Art exhibit actually a couple of days before the deadline. YAY!!

The theme of the exhibit is "Blending of Cultures". I decided to make another Texas themed piece. I had been playing with an idea for this quilt but I needed to do some research so I went ahead and visited the Center for Cultural Studies at the University of
Texas in Austin. Finding out that Texas is comprised of about 27 different cultural groups gave me the idea for the title: "Texas DNA". With that in mind the rest was just a matter of translating all the elements that represent Texas in one way or another into fabric.
I started with the silhouettes going around the quilt which represent a timeline, starting with Native Americans and different periods of history, finishing with an urban landscape and a plane, which is modern times. I made the flags in circular shape using the actual colors of the country they represent for accuracy. The big colorful circle is a representation of our global community, many cultures, many colors. The star in the center represents the flag of Texas.
I quilted 4 big stars on the background fabric and free motion quilted the whole quilt. I enjoyed the whole process but I was happy to get it done and here we go again. After working on it for so many days I think I'm ready for another break, only this time I know it won't be more than a couple of days. Life without quilting is impossible.
Here is a sneak peak of 2 sections of my piece. Hopefully it will be juried in the exhibit.





5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You've outdone yourself Martha! Que hermosa. I cannot wait to see the whole thing. You are such an artist.

shellysquilts said...

Martha, This looks fabulous! I can't wait to see the whole quilt. You rock! Happy quilting, my friend!

Ronda said...

OMG!!! BRAVO!!! Absolutely AMAZING!!!

Lalitha said...

Wow Martha!! Such a beautiful quilt. You have such a creative mind, can't wait to see the piece in its entirety at the MACC. No surprise it was picked for the exhibit.

Martha Tsihlas said...

Thank you Lalitha...It is going to be an interesting exhibit! Looking forward to it.