Fiber Arts at the Fredericksburg Museum

Remember to click on each picture to see a close up!

Last Friday I accompanied my fiber artist friends Barbara Posey and Stephanie Woolsey to the Fredericksburg Museum , in Fredericksburg VA, to drop off our work to be included in the First Fiber Arts Exhibit ever held at this venue!  The piece that you see above is a brand new piece titled Autumn Daisy.  I created this art quilt using all of my own hand dyed and sun printed fabrics.  The title references the glorious yellow daisy type flowers that bloom all over the place here in Virginia, starting at the end of August.  The wild small bushes bloom like crazy and are butterfly magnets.  We often see many Monarch butterflies swarming these bushes as they store up food to make their long migrations south.

I have been invited to join 6 other local fiber artists in this exhibit.  The exhibit at the museum will coincide with a large invitational exhibit, Contemporary Work in Fiber, that will be taking place at the University of Mary Washington just up the street.  You can check out that exhibit and all the particulars about it here.

Autumn Daisy hanging at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg along with Piece of the Rainbow, a mosaic work by Cathy Ambrose-Smith.

Every stitch on this piece was done by hand.

You can see a faint yellowing in the center of each daisy flower.  That yellow stain is left behind by the pollen from each blossom,  when the flowers are applied to the wet fabric and pressed into place the pollen comes in firm contact with the fabric and leaves it's mark.  I love that about these flowers.  the shape of their leaves is wonderful for sun printing as well, with the serrated edge to give extra interest.  It is almost time for the flowers to start blooming in the ditches and along the road sides again!! I will be doing many more sun prints and offering them for sale in my Etsy Shop!

My second submission is titled New Again.  This piece began as a needle felted piece combining wool roving with silk fibers and fabrics.  Then I added all sorts of vintage laces, trims and beads.  I crafted a puffed heart covered with a silk brocade from a vintage scarf and beaded the heart. I added many vintage mother of pearl buttons , some crystals, fresh water pearls and many tiny seed beads in all sorts of shades of pearl and white.  In other words the old became New Again as part of a New whole.

Here you can see some of the wonderful edging lace and vintage tatting that I stitched on and then embellished further with beads.  I made the frame myself using foam core collaged with brown paper, then painted and varnished the entire piece. 

If you click on this photo you can see a close up of the puffed heart and the surrounding area.

My last submission absolutely had to be my underwater tapestry titled Coral Cacophony.  If you would like to read the specifics of the creation of this piece you can click here.

The exhibit opens in early September, so check back to see pictures of my co-exhibitors work as well as the opening event!  you are in for a real treat!!! You can be sure that I will be sharing it here!!