Cay Denise

There is alot of hand-sewn embellishment in this project. In it's quilting, I did two bird images (wings in air) in the background first. As a result of doing it this way, the fabric got bulky in other areas of the quilt sandwich. So, I had to quilt the remainder of the sandwich (excluding the figure) with small stippling in order to shrink that bulk. In addition, there was bulk to the fabric bird (perched on the hand). Instead of machine quilt it, though, I did a freeform cross-stitch in perle cotton. This project started in an online design class with Pam Allen. If you don't know Pam's work, it is quite funky and highly embellished. Usually, figures do not look real...they are very Picasso-like in form. In any case--Pam, I hope I've made you proud!

This is a test construction paper weaving. The goal is to create a sense of motion through the weave design.

I always create a finished piece and then title it. But today, I got the name for a piece (after having a germ of a design idea for it), though I haven't worked that design out or even started the piece yet. How do you work? From a title and then create a piece based on it? Create a piece and give it a title after completion? Do it both ways depending?

John Fox, a San Francisco Bay area Poet and Poetry Therapist, is actively working to see Arts-in-Medicine programs introduced at hospitals nationwide. These programs are intended to provide patients with the opportunity to utilize the expressive arts as part of their medical treatment and healing journey. John is a talented and sensitive poet and author of books of which Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making is among. He has led numerous people on personal quests to put their pain, grief, suffering, woundedness , etc. into poetic form. That form is not bound by rhyme, meter or number of syllables per line. It is a free form that encourages the writer (regardless of skill level) to emote through soulfully-selected words that create a unified work. I know this from the experience of having attended a workshop. His books showcase the rich work of many of his workshop participants. Healing Words is a program that has been filmed at Shands Hospital in Florida showing John working...

I'm working on the quilting of a wall-hanging that has a bird image in it. (The bird is sitting on the hand of a person.) In thinking about how to quilt the piece, I got the idea that it would be neat to quilt a parrot flying in the background in a non-contrasting thread color...sort of a ghostlike image that wouldn't distract from the overall piece. I found a photo on the internet of a parrot beginning to take off and made a freehand pen drawing of it. Some liberty was taken in abstracting the body/head to simplify the overall image. Then I took a test quilt sandwich (muslin/batting/muslin) and sewed the drawing (again freehand) with feed dogs down. Silver metallic thread was used on top and a colorful cotton (coral) on the bottom. It came out very well!!! You can see the progression in the photos below from drawing to front and back of stitched test sandwich.