Exhilarating:

Creating an art piece from scratch is an exhilarating experience; choosing to reinvent it is even more stimulating and that is what I did to a project I formerly called Courthouse Friends # 13 of 14. Today’s journal entry will address her butterfly moment.

Original Appearance:

I have a tub filled with random quilt blocks. Some of them are leftover from other projects and others were thought too ugly to use. This item was created from one of the ugly ones. Typically my first step is to slice the ugly block into strips or sections. After slicing this one I decided to rearrange the strips to achieve a more pleasing appearance.

Immediately surrounding the renovated center is a white border. Chosen for color replication was a batik with leopard-like spots. The spots mimicked the design of the small lilac strip in the center of the quilt. Giving the composition movement are the spots that almost appear to dance around the perimeter.

The Beginning:

Early in 2020 I decided to reinvent a number of my art pieces. This item was one of the specimens I tackled. To begin the task I first had to remove the facings that surrounded the outer edges. After removing them I decided to add two new borders using a light grey and a multi-colored print fabric.

Embellishments:

With the functional tasks complete I turned my focus to the embellishments. The previous version, of this art quilt, had been assigned an identity that recognized its origin; a court house square block. Since I had decided to refurbish the fiber art piece I saw no reason to maintain that existence. To carryon with that goal I studied the image to learn about its features. This exploratory phase revealed to me an image; that of a bird.

Let’s Make That Happen:

To convert the pieced center into a bird I added feathers using one of my favorite stitches, the drizzle stitch. A variety of thread colors, many of which were already incorporated in the fabrics, were used to create the spiral-like protrusions; their presence gives this item a playful appearance.

The added embellishments didn’t stop there. In the white background I echoed around the bird as well as other defined areas. The leopard-like print border was given rows of wonky x’s and sporadically placed grey French knots. In the grey, I added a single row of running stitch. The very last embellishment this lady received was her beautiful, two-tone blue eye.

New Name:

With the amazing renovation just completed it seemed only natural to give the lovely lady a new name. Her playful nature inspired me to call her Trudy. I have a second project that has similar elements. These two snazzy birds, when lined up correctly will face each other. Trudy’s sister is known as Gertrude. You will find her story here.

Take a look at Trudy.

Isn’t she sweet!  I would love to hear your thoughts!

Thank You:

Thank you for visiting! I look forward to our next adventure.