I'm Working on a Project: Salamander #5

Friday, January 4, 2013

Salamander #5

Mike and I have arrived home after a lovely holiday week at my family's place in New Mexico. It was, as usual, fairly chaotic; between me, my sister, and my parents we had nine dogs and a baby, so there was lots of hullabaloo. Fortunately, I did get to spend some good quality time with all of my family.

In common with most everybody else, I'm now trying to get back in the swing of things. I have a bunch of thoughts and plans for the new year which I'll probably share next week but I wanted to share a bit of quilty goodness from the break. Hopefully soon I'll have some more of my work to show, but I have a few quilts of my mom's I'd like to share first.

A long time ago, maybe two or three years now, my mom experimented with creating designs using a bleach pen on black fabric. She made this awesome rooster; basically you take black fabric and draw on it using the bleach pen (there may be a stop step but I'm not sure) and then over dye it with fabric reactive dyes. I think he's so cool, and the chicken wire quilting in the background really fits so well!

Cock-A-Doodle Doo, Detail, Vicki Conley 2009. Photo c. Doug Conley

Cock-A-Doodle Doo,Vicki Conley 2009. Photo c. Doug Conley

Around that time, my mom helped my sister do a lizard panel in the same way. My brother-in-law really likes lizards, and my sister had been collecting lizard fabrics for a long time. She pieced some blocks using these fabrics and put them around the panel. Sadly, after that the quilt top sat around for a long time (until about two months ago) when my mom offered to quilt it for Becky since she doesn't have much time lately.

My mom quilted bricks in the background using metallic thread so it looks like the lizard is on a wall. She also quilted some black-on-black lizards in the background. It's called Salamander No. 5 which was, I believe, a nickname of my brother-in-law's. He loved it, and I think it turned out super fun. So cool to have it finally finished!