Meet Quilt Artist Muna Elias

I was introduced to Muna during a Quilts on the Wall meeting. She was brought by several other members who 'car pool' from around the San Diego area. That first day Muna shared some of her wearable pieces. It was a wild day, Muna's energy and excitement for life show up in all her work, and I am certainly grateful for having met-- and being able to get to know Muna better all the time!

In her own words:
I LOVE to create!! I can remember somewhere around the age of 4 years old I would take my mom’s dish towels and cut them up and make new fashionable, out of the ordinary outfits for all my dolls. My mom realized after a few years that this was not a phase and started signing me up for every needle art class she could find. I loved it all. Knitting crocheting, weaving, hand embroidery, quilting, ribbon work…if you can think of it, I have tried it and enjoy it.

I am a process artist, meaning I most enjoy trying and creating different and unique techniques to achieve a specific end look in my art. I look at objects and scenery and visualize in my mind the necessary processes to capture that look. Wherever it is possible, I incorporate non traditional material and in non traditional ways. I enjoy working with fibers such as yarn and thread and I will use them as a surface embellishment or an edging to finish my quilts. Most of my work starts off as a whole cloth in either white or black and I layer color on top of color and even discharge color after I just dyed it on the fabric. The sole purpose of doing this is to get a specific look. Surface embellishments with metal, fibers, paint, paper, dyes, and most important to me is lots and lots of thread work; all come together to achieve the desired look I envision.

I try to create some kind of art work daily. I have realized that when I do so regularly, I really am a much happier Mom, wife, boss, friend, PERSON…. So I just do it!!

I have lots of little ones (seven to be exact) who help me in my daily creating of art. They are an inspiration to my art. Some of my art work is a direct result of conversation, sayings or phrases we have in our house. The children help me to see all the colors in our garden and the bugs crawling on the trees. Walking in our house and finding each of the children working on different mixed media art work is common. One may be beading a purse, one may be working on knitting a scarf, or one might be weaving on the loom. My success in creating art work is that we get to create all together.

(photo credit - Jason Lanier)

Birch Tree Art Quilt in Progress

Good morning all-
As the days move quickly towards the new year I am carving away minutes and hours to work on my last quilt art piece of the year. In my earlier post I showed the birch tree fabric being painted. Here I have taken a photo of the basic elements in place... and over the next two days I'll be embellishing the quilt. Delivery of the piece is to take place on New Year's Eve, so look for the final version very soon.

Hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season as much as I am. Family, friends, fun times and A QUILT to finish!

~Rose

Fabric Surface Design - Birch Needed

Well, in between shopping, wrapping, and holiday events I've been working on my final quilt of the year (I think it will be). It is a piece due for an invitational and I have been looking forward to working on it for a while. The 'Summer' piece is about a romp in the woods... Everything was progressing well but there was a need for a special fabric to represent the birch trees that are featured.

The following are photos of the surface design process I used to create my own birch tree fabric.

I started with white velveteen that I cut to fit and taped to a foam swimming noodle.

Then I mixed up fabric paints and brushed on some larger spots.

Donning gloves, I placed string into the paint and proceeded to using the string to apply the paint.

I then removed the fabric from the form and hung to dry.



Lastly, before using the fabric I heat set the paint. The fabric is working out well...





Back to holiday, fun for a bit!


~Rose