jennie kohl austin

At this point I was able to take everything home and work on it on my couch, because assembling the whole thing had to be done by hand. I sat on the couch and sewed and watched episodes of Hoarders. My pictures also aren’t as good at this point because the lighting isn’t nearly as good as it in in my studio.

First I closed up the opening by hand. Then I “couched” some fuzzy black fiber to the rim of the opening to the inside. Couching is basically just stitching a fiber to the outside of a piece of fabric. This turned out good. It was the same fiber that was on the top of the birds head, for symmetry. You can see how the inside of the birdhouse is pretty clean in this picture too.

Next, I hand stitched on the legs. They are so cute! Here she is with no head!

I added the head and feather sections, and added a small hanging loop behind her head.

At this point she was almost done! One last thing I had promised is that she would have three eggs inside her. I went back to the studio and had a really hard time figuring out how to make a fabric egg.

This wasn’t an egg! It was a football!! That wasn’t what I wanted at all. I tried a whole bunch of minor adjustments before I finally came back to my original pattern and figure out I just wasn’t stuffing it full enough. Oops!

And that’s pretty much it! I’ll post some pictures of it “on location” soon!

When I finally got into the studio to really get started on the birdhouse (read: clock was ticking…get started or give up!) I had to spend half a day just cleaning things up enough to be able to sew! I’ll get some new studio pictures up soon, but for now let’s continue with the birdhouse progress.

I started by cutting these long, skinny football-ish shaped pieces out of a fused sandwich consisting of the outside fabric, along with an ultra-firm Pellex stabilizer and a lining fabric.

I then picked which piece I wanted to be the front, and cut out a hole for the entrance to the birdhouse. It turned out ever-so-pleasingly round!

I put all the pieces together inside out, and turned the whole thing and pinned it. Again, pleasingly round!!

Next I had to figure out the head. After a couple of completely failed mockup, I came up with a general shape that I was happy with.

I made up a head, and played with ideas for the face. I think I deleted photos for the early face ideas, which is too bad because they were pretty silly!

Next I played with the ideas for the feathers. I knew I needed some kind of a ruffle for under the head, because the head would not sit directly on the top where all the footballs intersected. I made that piece first, then a tail, then realized those two pieces would have to be all-in-one in order to work! Also, I’d made it with raw edges and they were already a bit more unravelly than I’d like.

So I ran off to the store and purchased some quilting applique stabilizer spray. There was a moment of panic when I sprayed it all down and the color shifted a LOT, but I just prayed it would dry the original colors! Especially since I didn’t have enough of the matching fabrics to redo the ruffle and tail feathers again!

In the meantime, I got out my wire and beading supplies and whipped up some beaded wirey bird legs. I loved how those turned out. After my feathers finally got dry, stacked the feathers and head onto the body (not yet attached here) and you can see the unattached legs too.

Here’s the back, you can see the pinned together seam to the left of the feathers.

In November of 2010 I applied to create a birdhouse for the Pioneer Park Nature Center’s 2011 Artistic Birdhouse Project. This is a fundraising project for our local Nature Center here in Lincoln, where 30 artists were invited to create their artistic interpretation of a birdhouse. Since I am a fiber artist, and the birdhouse did not have to be functional, I created Fiber Art Bird Mama!

Here is my submission sketch and an what I showed as an example of the type of materials I use:

After I got the assignment, I immediately got to work procrastinating the actual production of the birdhouse for a couple months. While I had drawn a lovely sketch to start with, I wasn’t 100% sure how I was actually going to create the structure that would make a fabric bird retain it’s round shape while still being light enough to be hangable. When I could procrastinate no further, I sat down and did a design sketch:

And picked out some fabrics:

Then I proceeded to procrastinate just a little more!

(This is a test post from my Android phone WordPress app.)

Here’s a couple pictures from the art I put up in my office recently!

The newest member of our family, Rocky, is the beneficiary of my most recent sewing project!

I made this handbag during the Star Art Project to carry to the opening.

Fiber Art Flashback!

Here’s a pretty little ATC-sized piece I did a couple of years ago:

This piece was done for a public art project, wherein our only direction was “a star”. 

Sponsored by Goldenrod Printing, Inc. (sold – Private Collection)

Inspirational Statement:

In “String Theory: The Strength of Our Woven Community”, the stars represent the City of Lincoln, surrounded and supported by a diverse mix of women as artists, all a little rough around the edges but continuously growing. The colorful threads symbolize the links between humanity regardless of race or culture, and the use of the heritage craft of piecework quilting emphasizes the importance of the role of women in this historic community.

This piece was part of the Star City Art Project – 2006. For more info, visit http://www.ywcalincoln.org/START2006.html.

Here are some additional pics of the process:

Here’s another piece I did last year, I call SunDream.  There’s a little story to go with it…

“SunDream”, is representative of a unique experience I had a few years ago. I had minor surgery, and if you’ve ever been fully anesthetized you know that it leaves you feeling as though you have walked the line between life and death. When I woke up at home, I was still in a great deal of pain but was driven, inexplicably, to get up and paint this huge sun on the wall in my kitchen. I sent a photo of it to my Mom, and when she received it she immediately called me. Apparently, the sun I painted was eerily similar to the sun medallion that was buried with my Grandmother’s ashes – a medallion I had never seen and didn’t know existed.

The purpose of this quilt is to honor and remember my Grandmother as she was a great artistic inspiration. She was an Art Education professor at the University of Nebraska and a working artist, even into her retirement. She created the most amazing paintings and everything around her was beautiful and colorful. Her spirit has had a profound influence on me as an artist.

The sun in my quilt represents my inspiration and it’s glow is what nurtures my creative growth. My garden grows with the creative inspiration of my family and those I love, shining down and allowing me to clearly see which direction to go.

“SunDream” was entirely handmade, using 100% cotton fabrics, accented with glass beads and wooden letters. The sun is made of a gold-spattered batik fabric which is appliqued to the surface of a pieced background with a top-stitching technique. The quilting on the top is reminiscent of rays of sunlight, and each “ray” is accented with delicate beads. There are tiny wooden letters, each hand-painted purple and over-sprayed with gold to coordinate with the sun fabric. The letters spell out the following:

WHEN SHE WOKE UP FROM HER DREAM

SHE HAD A VISION OF THE GOLDEN SUN

The back is quilted with hand-stitched sun rays, some of which are also accented with beads. The piece contains two layers of cotton batting quilted together and finished with binding in the same fabric as the sun. It’s finished size is approximately 13″ x 13″.

Here’s the original sketch and some process pics:

And the back…the fabric is shiney so the pic looks a little weird:

I call these Squiggles, completed in 2006, followed by a few shots of the process and materials.