Off to Dhaka

I had to look this up in Wikipedia. Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh, which is in southeast Aisa, east of India, and at the top of the Bay of Bengal. My quilt is going there, not me. It has been selected for the Art in Embassies program and will be picked up tomorrow and shipped off.  It's fairly small, 40" x 33" and is a whole cloth piece, painted. The background is made up of gelatin plate prints of hosta leaves. The three large leaves are also hosta plants, but I enlarged the images and drew the outlines with an airpen, stitched along the lines, and then brushed white paint lightly across the top to highlight the leaf shape.

Three Leaves ©2009

Three Leaves (detail)

This is a companion piece to Fading Glory, also gelatin plate prints of hosta leaves. This piece is larger, 57"x42", but is also a whole cloth, at least the background. As I made each print on this piece and then removed the fabric, there was still paint on the gelatin plate. I used this remaining paint to do the images on Three Leaves. The appliqued yellow flower is an image of a dying coneflower, greatly enlarged. The lines were drawn with an airpen, then quilted. The back of this piece is pretty cool because I rubbed paint over where the coneflower quilting is, which almost makes this a two-sided quilt. 

Fading Glory ©2009

Fading Glory (detail)

This piece is also away at a show being held at the Muse Gallery in Longmont, Colorado. 

And the show at the Torpedo Factory opens this week. This is the show that I had to quickly substitute another piece because I forgot I sold the one that was supposed to be in the show. Happy New Year!