Thank you, everyone for your marvellous Effervescent quilts. I loved them all!
Barbara is travelling so I am announcing this theme and she will do the next two.
We now have:
1. Favourite Book
2. Motion
3. Sashiko
And Mr Random has chosen -
The next reveal date is Saturday 1st November so I hope you all have a great quarter and I'm looking forward to seeing your Sashiko then.
In the meantime, Happy Travelling, Barbara and Happy Sewing everyone :)
Janine
For many decades, I have lived on the Gulf Coast of Texas, where summers are steamy, and the best thing to do is to stay inside and pray for October to get here! But when I was a kid, our family lived in Wisconsin, and summers were actually enjoyable.
We kids would stay out all day, coming in only to consume pitchers of Kool-aid. And every now and then, as a special treat, we got Fizzies!
Fizzies were little tablets that you dropped in a glass of ordinary water, and then watched it transform into a flavorful bubbly beverage, that was almost as good as real root beer or soda! It was not just a taste treat; it was entertainment!
The theme of Effervescent brought back those memories, so I have captured them here in vintage and reproduction fabric, trims, and buttons. One large button represents the fizzy tablet, and the resulting bubbles are shown with free-motion quilting and small buttons.
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| Fizzy Drinks |
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| Strawberries and Citrus |
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| Lemonade |
I looked up Fizzies, and it seems they were tablets of sodium citrate, with flavorings and saccharine to cover up the salty taste. Once saccharine was taken off the market, Fizzies sadly followed. They have been brought back a few times with different artificial sweeteners, but they have not been successful and are not currently being produced.
This piece could use more quilting in the background, and I would love to add some textile paint for shadows and highlights, and finish up with embroidery stitches and beads. But I really loved working on this theme. Working on this piece not only brought happy memories from childhood, but memories of where I got each piece of fabric and trim.
I had several ideas for this theme, and a few that I had in mind didn't look as good in fabric as they did in my mind. I made an attempt at making a face quilt showing a person with an effervescent personality. That was more difficult than I thought it might be. The face quilt may show up at another time, bits and pieces have been saved. So this little quilt is more of a study in effervescence than anything.
I think of this as a thumbnail sketch of effervescence in a glass. I started with a print fabric that made me think of a glass of bubbly champagne. I added an inset of ombre fabric, then had a little fun seeing if I could add my own efferfescent bubbles through vraious methods.
I started by printing some circles on the ombre fabric using a gray fabric marker. It worked better than I thought it would!
I doubt I was the only one who found Effervescent a tricky theme?
But after my Circus Horse, last time, several people mentioned the Cirque du Soleil. I hadn't heard of it before but, from my first glimpse on You Tube, I was enthralled and I eventually decided to take that as my inspiration for this sister quilt - The Effervescent Baths!
The bubbles were a challenge but, although they are not perfect, it was a fun quilt to sew and I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else has made this time :)
At first I was thinking of naming it Bubbles, then Maureen said something about Fizzies. That made me remember an "ancient" TV ad about Alka Seltzer - "Plop Plop Fizz Fizz, o what a relief it is." So I named this Fizz.
The bubbles are all hand sewn onto an umbre fabric that makes me think of liquid. So the bubbles rise to the top.
