Music Challenge

Our challenge due in January was provided by Donna Olson.  She asked that we make 12" x 12" quilts inspired by the theme of music.

A LITTLE DITTY

by Cathy Jeffery

Cathy's piece features some of the decorative stitches from her sewing machine.  She said "music totally inspires me....It's one of the most important things in my life."

NOTATIONS

by Diana Callahan

Diana found this challenge to be a good way to use the wonderful fabric with the musical score and script that she has had for several years.

NOTES

by Diane Steffen

SONG SUNG BLUE

by Donna Olson

Donna printed a photo of her grandson,  Burke, on fabric and added a border and quilting to create a lovely fabric portrait.  It is a picture of him singing at his mother's 50th birthday celebration.

THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

by Lily Kerns

The title comes from an old hymn,  "This is My Father's World". The piece itself was inspired by photographs from the Hubble spacecraft.  It is hand beaded on microwave dyed silk.

BLUE NOTE

by Lucy Silliman

My piece was a technical challenge of producing a piece with holes in it. The notes seemed to interlock effortlessly as notes do in a great piece of music. "Blue Notes" was a fun experiment that almost designed itself.

IN MY MIND

by Maureen Ashlock

I chose Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber because I like the music and have seen the play and the 2004 movie. I digitized the embroidery and listed the major songs. The name is "In MY Mind" as I have been humming the music as I sew patches on the silk quilt I am restoring right now.

THE RICHEST CHORD

by Roberta Ranney

 This is my attempt to make a picture from a sound.  There is a chord in the last movement of the Moonlight Sonata that seems to contain all the wonders of music and this is my depiction of it.

STAGE DOOR

by Sheryl Schleicher

Sheryl's work shows the less glamorous side of musical performance.  Out front everything is bright and colorful but all of that is absent behind the stage.

A NIGHTINGALE SINGS

by Emmie Seaman

This is from the title of "A Nightingale Sings in Barkley Square".  She is beaded and her blue wings are metallic.

STRING RHYTHMS

by Carol Bormann

The fragmentation of shapes and colors represent the staccato sound of plucked strings. I digitized my graphic image and converted it to "stitch language" to create this rayon machine embroidery on black cotton. Both my daughter and I played the violin in school; our son played the string bass and currently plays the guitar in a band called "Rock Show". It seemed fitting to dedicate the piece to stringed instruments.

ROCK AND ROLL

by Lettie Blackburn

Lettie says that she enjoys "all kinds of music, from opera to zydeco, but I was a teenager in the 60's, so rock and roll clearly defines music to me!

EAR WORMS

by Merrilee Tieche

Merrilee's piece says "do you ever get a song in your head and it won't go away?"

She says "while I am not very inspired by music, I often do get a song stuck in my head and sing it (badly) all day!