Wednesday, October 11, 2017

"Visions Past"......remembering Frank Lloyd Wright

"Visions Past" 19 in by 26 in
I am posting a day early.....we are heading out of town and I won't have time tomorrow morning before we leave to post.

I fell in love with the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright when I saw Falling Water  https://www.fallingwater.org/ back in the 1970's.

When I thought about the theme of this challenge being nature the idea that popped into my head was to do one of his stained glass windows that looks out onto a nature scene.  I happened to have the tree fabric that I had printed at Spoonflower this past spring and thought it would be perfect.









I drew out the placement lines for the leading and the dark blue sheer fabric right on the tree fabric. The leading and the blue sheer fabric were fused to the tree fabric and then it was heavily quilted. My husband came up with the title.


"Visions Past" detail




Original tree fabric used














Here is the fabric.....I wish the piece of fabric which was only a half yard was bigger. Making a bigger window would mean I could piece it rather than fuse it. Keeping the fused leading which was between 1/8 in and 1/4 in wide was hard to keep straight. You can see that I was not completely successful. Of course piecing would not have been perfect either. I need to move away from geometric quilts so I don't have this level of required accuracy to deal with! Pieced and with less quilting would be how I would redo this idea.

I love the simplicity of the design of Frank Lloyd Wright's windows. They are elegant rather than gaudy as some stained glass can be. I love that you can see the surrounding scenery through the windows.








Here is an article on Frank. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright




The window I chose to use as my inspiration comes from the Willits House built in 1901 in Highland Park, Illinois. You can see it in this photo. My fabric was a blue gray so I went with dark blue for the colored glass pieces instead of brown.










I did this as a challenge for Art with Fabric blog hop hosted by Alida.   http://tweloquilting.blogspot.com/



This is the 4th time I have participated in the challenge. Thanks to Alida for doing this again. Here are the others...

May 2016, October 2016, and May 2017.








Also thanks for reading my blog today. I know it has been a long time since I posted anything. I took a vacation from sewing for a while! I am still figuring out my new sewing machine and at times miss my old one. I guess no machine is perfect. They need to consult me when they design a machine. I am sure we all feel this way. There were things I liked better on my old machine and things I like better on my new one. I guess no surprise there.

These are all the other artists for today and tomorrow so make sure you check them out. Also if you go to Alida's blog you can see the list of artists for the entire week.

Wednesday, October 11th, 2017 

15 comments:

  1. Gosh I've missed you and your wonderful quilts. And this one plays on my heart strings as I am a long-time fan of Frank Lloyd Wright designs. And you have done with his window exactly what I always felt should be done when rendering these in fabric - show the greenery outside the window! I don't know if I'll ever make one of these, even though I've had Jackie Robinson's Quilts in the Tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright since it came out in 1995, and even set aside some pale green fabric for the panes, intending to quilt in bushes that one might view out such a window. Not sure I have to after seeing your rendition. That pale tree in the background is so perfect for this. I'm sure Wright would approve (well, maybe - he WAS rather cranky). Glad you are back. :-)

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  2. I've been away too so didn't realize you'd not posted in a while...I hope soon you'll find your new machine less challenging! As for the piece...it's truly beautiful...and there are echoes of the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in that window. Lovely!

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  3. You are very talented and creative. My hopes are to find inspiration much like others do in their works of art. I have a love of nature and always wish to incorporated it into an art form.

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  4. Beautiful! Your work is always so interesting and original. I wish I had your imagination!

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  5. I love the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, and your piece inspired by his work is stunning!

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  6. Who doesn't love Frank Lloyd Wright? I know I do and I like how you have interpreted the stained glass window.
    Did your old sewing machine break? Why not keep using it? I must admit I have a new Brother that I do the majority of my quilting on but have a couple of vintage machines to do other stitches.

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  7. I love how the quilting adds to the illusion of glass in front of your tree. I have enjoyed your stop on the blog tour very much, thanks!

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  8. So beautiful! I loved Falling Water also but that make me think of looking out the window on the Midwestern prairie on a foggy morning.

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  9. Beautiful combination of the structure of FLW and the organic branching of the tree! And great choice of color, too!

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  10. This is stunning! What an ideal way to use your tree - you have done a beautiful job.

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  11. Your window is beautiful! I know what you mean about consulting you on machine design. I have a $2700 machine that you have to out your hand right in front of the needle sight line to do a reverse, aggravating! You would think they would have noticed that in the design stage!

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  12. Absolute fantastic piece! The tree fabric is just perfect for this piece, and I love the clean lines, great geometry and interesting texture added by the quilting! Thanks for sharing your talent in the blog hop for another edition of this event!!

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  13. Beautiful!!! The tree print you started with fits right in with the theme. I didn't notice any off kilter lines. We, as artists, are hardest on ourselves. Maybe that's why a lot of paintings were painted over.

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  14. What a wonderful piece. It seems so different from your ecology pieces. Wonderful use of your special fabric. I’m assuming you took the tree pic? Nice blending of FLW and nature. Hope you begin to feel more comfortable with your machine soon.

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