I don't have a way to hang the piece in my low-ceiling studio, so these photos are taken using my cell phone with it unrolled on the cutting table. Karl took a photo of the official Green Swamp sign--complete with shotgun holes-- near his home so I could label the hanging properly. His blue "cracker house" is on the right.
Almost all the fabrics in this hanging are repurposed tablecloths or clothing, mostly indigo dyed. The background fabric is dyed and painted silk canvas, which takes color beautifully. The periwinkle blue waterway in the upper center is a fancy polyester blouse I bought at a thrift shop for $5.
If this were meant for competitions I'd have to get better photographs, obviously. But as it will go straight to Karl sometime in August; this documentation is just for my records. I will hang it in a local storefront for our Midsummer Night's Festival next Friday evening and try for some better images.
Here is a much clearer image of Karl's house with the overhanging trees. He had a very specific idea of what he wanted built and worked carefully with the contractor to make it happen. Because the Green Swamp is an ecologically protected area, there were a lot of regulations to follow.
There's a two-story wood-paneled great room with a stone fireplace, and next to the stairway a large space where the wall hanging will live. Gee Gee and I will have to make a trip to Florida to see it some time in the next year.
This is the top of the hanging (couldn't show it in the first photo).
Above the house (in the top third of the piece) there are more pines and the painted and stitched sky--sunrise or sunset, take your pick. The trunks and branches of these trees are appliqued felt with variegated stitching for texture. Now that Pinehaven is completed my conscience is clearer. A couple of ideas for new projects brewing--another Oil Patch for sure, and work on my submissions for HERstory.
I will have only one piece at the Houston International Quilt Festival this year, Neil & Ivonette & Lucy will be in the Fly Me to the Moon special exhibit. My Thread Songs colleagues will be well-represented, however--Hope Wilmarth has pieces in Tactile Architecture and A World of Beauty, while Suzan Engler's work will appear in Dinner at Eight and World of Beauty. So we all have reason to celebrate.