The Burner Bag...Finished

Pretty crazy....

I was glad to get this done!
The fringe didn't work so I left it off. And to answer Judy S's question, yes, that is multicolored ribbon in the extreme upper right, just done with a herringbone stitch (and a giant needle).

I decided to create a follow-up tote that refines the shape of this one a little bit, as well as simplifies the block piecing. Fabrics and colors will be in the green and white range, embroidery more delicate. But I still want to experiment, so I am trying stenciling for the first time.

Oil pastels, stencil, and stencil brushes gave me....

...this! It will go where the "Burner Girl" went on the last one, front and center. I'll try quilting it before I piece it in, too--another experiment.

Thanks for your very kind (and diplomatic) comments re the Burner Bag.
It's good for me now to get my head back out of town, so to speak, and into the garden again!

Plants are getting floppy but still blooming...

The taller flowers dominate this time of summer....

...unless they grow down over the wall instead....

The Burner Bag...Embellishment Finished

Sewing on this has been VERY STRANGE as it is so outside what I normally do. But then, graffiti is outsider art so it helped push me into a different zone entirely...
I also think of graffiti as folk art, so that was the look I ended up going for...

Design wise it was a challenge and that ended up being the fun part. How to make this work? I ended up using a lot of repetition to try and structure the chaos a little bit.

All my seams were graphic and used large stitches...and this pleated ribbon here, held down with a row of chain stitches, travels around the bag a bit.

I felt better about this guy once he was framed like this. His smile was starting to get to me!

This is how I hold the cording in place before I couch it down. I used a lot of this too.

I call her "Burner Girl. I think she is holding the business end of a spray nozzle from an air compressor that her cat is monitoring, spraying the wall in front of her. I had to paint around her in white acrylic so that she would show up better.

I am going to spend today finishing this into a totebag. It is so weird. I MUST hang some fringe around the opening....

When it is done I think I will mosey on back to my flowers....at a dead run!

The Burner Bag

From the Graffiti Glossary:

BURNER

Originally a well-done wildstyle window-down whole car, a burner is a very good piece. Obviously, the reference to a window-down car is not applicable for pieces that are not on trains. A burner is any piece that has good bright colors, good style (often in wildstyle) and seems to "burn" off of the wall.

Well, my brother Ben collects "Burner" imagery, and I've always thought it was so darn cool. And isn't any imagery fair game for a crazy quilt?

I love flowers, and I will be going back to the flowers. But for a change of pace I thought I would try something different....

I love the colors in these, not to mention the sheer brilliance of the artistry. I thought they would make a unique focus for a totebag. I mean, why not?

So I decided on a basic shape....

And started constructing my tote front. I combined both piecing and applique, using a machine zig zag with a clear thread, as above. This is some kind of manic jester with the spray can, isn't he?

The suggestion of a fan shape here is my wave to my great grandmother's generation of crazy quilters. They would think I am totally nuts. Maybe you do, too!

I love having the option of being able to piece or applique, depending on what situation I find myself in. If I had drawn out a pattern before hand, it wouldn't be nearly as exciting...

Really, the sewing was a piece of cake.

This will be such fun to embellish, juxtaposing this wacko imagery with the stitching parameters we all know and love. I just thought CQ could use a little urban aesthetic...