"Garden at Dawn"

"Garden at Dawn"
(Copyright Susan Brubaker Knapp 2024)
15.5" square

I started this piece years ago, for a demonstration on Quilting Arts TV on how to use acrylic textile paints to achieve a watercolor effect. I’ve been going through some pieces that were set aside over the years, as I was busy helping my dad and my children, and then moving and re-settling in Chapel Hill, and decided to finish this one. 

Cotton duck, acrylic textile paint, perle cotton, cotton batting, cotton batting. Painted, free-motion machine quilted, hand embroidered.

 

Dragonfly Meetup

 

“Dragonfly Meetup”
(Copyright Susan Brubaker Knapp 2024) 15.5” square

 

I’m teaching a class later this week where students create a thread-sketched dragonfly, and decided to finish up a piece I started while demonstrating in previous classes. Cotton fabric, cotton thread, cotton batting, interfacing. Fusible appliqué, free-motion thread sketching, free-motion quilting.

Festa Della Terra 2024

For the past four years, our friend (and the wonderful realtor who helped us find our current home), Natalie Marrone, has been holding Festa Della Terra. It’s an “artful food drive” held around Earth Day that benefits PORCH, a local organization with programs that distribute fresh and non-perishable food to families, pantries and schools. This year we set our goal to feed over 600 families in our community for a full month! It was held this past Saturday in Natalie’s backyard, featured artists, musicians and refreshments. People were invited to come and to bring bags of food or a cash contribution. 

It was lovely to see all the art hanging and displayed amidst the trees in their fresh green spring leaves. 

Looking to buy or sell a home in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro/Hillsborough/Durham NC area? I highly recommend Natalie as a realtor! You can find her here: https://www.nataliemarronehomes.com/

 

Anatolii Tarasiuk

Deenie & Flip

David Hinkle

R. Scott Horner

Natalie Marrone

Will Ridenour

My display

Talking to visitors

My work hanging amid the trees

My work on the treehouse

The Consortium

 

“The Consortium”
Copyright Susan Brubaker Knapp 2024
15x22"

Cotton fabric, acrylic textile paint, cotton thread, cotton batting, glass beads. Stamped, splattered, free-motion quilted.

Collectively, crabs can be known as a cast or a consortium.

“Supple”

“Supple”
Copyright 2024 Susan Brubaker Knapp
10.75 x 14.25"

 

Indigo-dyed cotton, surface-designed cotton fabric, silk, cotton thread, cotton batting. Machine pieced, hand appliquéd, free-motion quilted. 

“Scintillating”

 

“Scintillating”
Copyright 2024 Susan Brubaker Knapp
12-13" x18.5"

 

“Scintillating” is another piece in a series of experimental small works that I’m creating to try out some new ideas, and just play. I find that this often leads me in different directions in my work, and is a healthy way to work – without expectations or confines – between larger pieces. 

Note that the piece is purposely not square. The top edge is about an inch shorter than the bottom edge. 

Hand-dyed, surface-designed, and batik cotton fabrics, cotton thread, cotton batting, holographic sequins. Raw-edge applique, free-motion machine quilted. 

 

 

 

Euphoria

Euphoria
Copyright 2024 Susan Brubaker Knapp
12 x 12"

 

I created this small piece using some special fabrics I made by painting, drawing and stenciling. 

Cotton, dupioni silk, linen, paint, ink, cotton batting, cotton backing, interfacing. Free-motion quilted.

Lichens and Moss
(Copyright 2024 Susan Brubaker Knapp)
11 x 13"

On my morning walks, I pass a neighbor’s mailbox that was encased, years ago, with wooden strips. Now, it is covered with fabulous lichens and moss in beautiful aqua and green colors. I based this piece on a photo I took a few weeks ago, after a good rain. 

I started with a base of fabric, and added several extra layers of batting under the wood fabric strips, to make them more dimensional. I constructed the lichens from painted and heat distressed Tyvek and Lutradur. I free-motion machine stitched the moss with cotton thread, on water soluble stabilizer. (This is a technique I’ll demonstrate on Quilting Arts TV 3100, which we shoot this summer.) The piece also has some hand embroidery.

Lichens have always fascinated me. They consist of fungal filaments (hyphae) that surround green algae cells and/or blue-green cyanobacteria. (The understanding that bacteria may also be part of lichens is relatively recent.)

Lichens provide food, shelter and nesting material, and are an important indicator of air quality.

And in case you were wondering: The dark spots are the fruiting bodies of the lichen. “Most lichenised fungi are ascomycetes, and these produce their spores in sac-like asci held vertically in a ‘fruiting body’. These fruiting bodes may be disc-shaped (apothecia) with a margin of the same or a different colour.” – The British Lichen Society.