2013 JQs - finished!

They turned out differently than imagined - but isn't that always the way?

At the start of the year I got a bagful of suitable fabrics together, and used those for Olive Interchange (Jan), Olives of all Nations (Feb), Urban Olives (Mar), and Olives in Their Happy Homes (Apr) - but when it came to Olives in the Sky with Diamonds (May), I was looking elsewhere for the "starry sky" background fabric.

For June, a fortuitous find of some monoprinted fabric with rain and puddles became "Olives in the Rain"; for July - the brownish background, in case you've lost track - another fortuitous find, of a bit of upholstery velvet, was used for Olives on Sticks, taking a little liberty with the colours. Ghost Olives (Aug) was the first of several I painted, after an intensive painting course. But first Olives Behind Bars (Sept) was fused and then stitched with variegated black/white thread - it looks more like a sheet of rain, and in fact the olives look more like easter eggs...

The final row, all painted with acrylic paints, then emphasised with machine stitching, consists of X-Ray Olives (Oct), Olives in Winter (Nov), and Olives on the Shelf (Dec). There was too much of bending the idea to the fabrics, rather than using the fabrics to express an idea -- mainly because olives wasn't a great idea for this. But it did stretch my imagination!

My favourites are the first one (using that hand-dyed fabric) and the "easter eggs".

Glad am I to be done with o.l.i.v.e.s....