Art C Girlz Ice dye challenge revealed!

 Back in October, Mary Lee gave each of us a piece of her fabulous ice dyed fabric- about a fat quarter- to play with.  She just wanted to see what we would all be inspired to do with it.









Something in the colors reminded me of this picture I took at badlands National Park in 2010.   I had printed this picture to use in one of the exercises in Jean Wells" book Intuitive Color and Design. This gave me the opportunity to do that exercise.  (which by the way was on the "just for me" list!)

 Using the colors in what I felt was the correct proportions, I created this strip set.  I had thought to do a bargello style piece.  But there just wasn't enough of it to make it interesting.
Now what?

I discovered that flipping some of the pieces made a HUGE difference!  Much better! 
With the quilting lines, I tried to add the visual texture you see in the badlands.









In Jean's book, she shows a finishing technique she calls a portrait finish; where you mount one small quilt onto a second one, like a picture frame. 
 So I created this second quilt to try that technique- adding small inserts from the dyed fabric for continuity. I had been wanting to practice close together quilting for a while, too!

This is the finished piece, which I am greatly pleased with!

So I am very grateful to Mary for challenging us and to Jean Wells for continuing to inspire quilters!





You can see what some of the other "ArtC Girlz" did here!