Solstice

I've finally finished the piece. I'm calling it "Solstice". The name came popping up while I was working, so that's what it will be. I really love this piece. It incorporates four items that I might otherwise not have used. The first is the main body of the sun. It was supposed to be a forest fire piece for an online class. I tried twice to make it work, but I just wasn't pleased with the results. In times past, I would have tossed it in a box or drawer and let it haunt me until its dying day. Instead, I threw some extra sparkle on top, cut it into a circle, and it became the sun.

The fat quarter African print is the second item. It was part of a fat-quarter pack, and although I loved the colors and the images, I have not been using novelty prints in my artwork lately. I didn't know what I would ever use this fabric for. But hey! That sun sure looks good on top of it! An idea was born.

For the suns rays, I decided to duplicate the process I used to make the border in my Crashing Waves piece. I chose a gold batik for the base. This batik was the third item. It was gold with butterflies, but it was obviously a misprint. The butterflies were flawed and there was a huge blank spot in the middle. Actually, it only had butterflies on one edge - there was something different on the other edge, so maybe this was the point on the base cloth where the printer changed the design pattern for the batik. Who knows! Anyway, it was a creatively folded waste of money! So I covered it with a dark red sheer, and some fused Tintzl and now it is just right!

I added the beads and created (by hand!) the shell fringe border. I bought a piece of bamboo twisted with a vine and painted it black, and used drapery hangers for the hanging piece. Almost finished ... but that circle of the sun is awfully big! It needed something. I tried beading it twice, and took the beads off both times. Recently, my husband's grandfather (who is in his late 80s and is just now thinking about leaving his condo for an apartment) sent us a box of things he had cleaned out from a closet. Most of them were knick knacks that his wife (my husband's grandmother, who passed away a few years ago) had bought and saved to give as gifts through the years. One of the items was a box of butterflies on metal sticks, made from painted feathers. One of those butterflies alighted on that sun (much to my husband's delight) and the piece was complete! Item four!

The last bit of adventure with this piece is finding a spot to hang it.

This week I have also finished quilting the baby quilt for my son's teacher. Yesterday I took a picture of the class with the quilt, which I will print for a label. I have a few other projects in the works, so hopefully I'll continue to find time to create and I'll post again soon.