Pain

I've written several times before about FANE (Fiber Artists of the North East). We meet monthly under the tutelage of Jane Davila. We share our latest work, ask for and give advice, and discuss the ins and outs of art quilting. We have put on two shows and we have had several mini challenges. This quilt was made for our "Word Challenge" We chose words at random and put them in a basket. In another basket went the names of all the people at the meeting. I chose Natalya's name and she got to choose the word, which was "pain". We each had to make a quilt of any size (Natalya and I decided on ten inches square) and work on them separately without consulting each other.

For some reason, high heels came to me immediately. I just love them, but can no longer wear them..... just too painful. Anything over 1 1/2 inches is too high for me. So I just drool over them in the stores, catalogs and magazines.

I started with plain white cotton that I coated with acrylic medium. I then drew on the shoes with ultra-fine Sharpies and colored them in with very watered-down acrylic paints. Next I put it on Timtex (a very stiff interfacing). The quilting around the outline of each shoe was done with Jeans thread, a very heavy thread. The words were also written on with Sharpies. A black button-hole stitch finished the edges. Click on the picture for a bigger view.

Natalya hasn't posted her quilt yet, but all the quilts will be posted on the FANE blog next week. Hers was very beautiful and very much in her ethereal style, so different from mine. There were some very interesting and creative pairs. Some of the words were "extrapolate" "peripatetic", "poignant" and "solitary". I thought I got off easy with "pain". Check the FANE blog next week to see them all.

Also, in case you think I have been frittering away my time (well I do that, too), I have been working on things that could not be shown, like this quilt. But I also made three quilts to enter into Quilt National. They only want new, fresh work that has never been exhibited or published anywhere. They just take 83 quilts out of over a thousand entries, so my chances are very slim. But I am happy with the quilts I made and will have them to enter into other shows. We don't find out if we are accepted until Oct. 8. Wish me luck.