Poison!

My creative friend Misty Cole has designed an unusual and intriguing block of the month - poison bottles! She asked me to interpret two of them, so here they are.

The first bottle looks a lot like Misty's sample. I chose a brown background, and because of the word "poison" I couldn't stop thinking about poison ivy, so I added some. I thought it looked sort of like an old bottle you might find tucked in the back of a barn, and wouldn't it be ironic for it to be sitting in some poison ivy?

Pre-stitching

The background and bottle were created from fabrics I designed in photoshop, while the leaves are hand dyed.

I think it's kind of fun.

The next bottle Misty calls a "coffin" bottle. Well, it looked kind of like a vase to me, so I went with that. I went a little wild and carefree with this one, screen printing the flowers and using some fabric I designed for the vase.

Pre-stitching

After quilting.

I was going for sort of a retro cut glass look on the bottle.

I like the flowers, but feel that the white ones still need something - maybe a few lazy daisies in the centers and some French knots?

If you'd like to join in the fun head over to Misty's blog and download these free patterns.

Thanks for inviting me to play, Misty!

Winter's Tarnish

As the trees begin to lose their leaves I realize that in the craziness of this past year I never shared one of the quilts I made. I created it specifically for an exhibit called "Tarnish" that was held at Visarts in Rockville, MD. Here's the description from the Visarts website:

"The Studio Art Quilt Associates present a juried exhibition of contemporary quilts from the Maryland, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina regions. Artists address the idea of “tarnish”- a patina that affects the outside surface but protects the underlying layers- with inventive quilts."

I've always been fascinated by the sculptural quality of deciduous trees in winter, as well as by the wide range of colors in the woods that routinely go unnoticed when overshadowed by the brighter colors of spring, summer, and fall. It occurred to me that many of the colors of the woods in winter resemble those of weathered or tarnished metal - verdigris, rust, browns and the like. This inspired me to combine and manipulate photos of trees and leaves to represent what I think of as the tarnish of winter.

Winter's Tarnish copyright 2014 Diane Rusin Doran

Detail Winter's Tarnish copyright 2014 Diane Rusin Doran

The exhibit and exhibition space were beautiful as you can see from this shot of myself, Misty Cole and Linda Strowbridge at the opening reception. I felt honored to be part of this wonderful exhibit!