--- Design and complete a small work using your interpretation of the Lewis Carroll poem "Jabberwocky." The poem is included at the bottom of this email and is also posted in the Yahoo group site under Files section.

--- Texture can be achieved through many different ways: the use of color, contrasting prints, different fabric types and materials or surface embellishments and fibers, the use of quilting itself to add texture, the use of trapunto, pleating, scrunching and other fabric manipulation.

Betty Donahue
Wethersfield, CT

Grasshoppers Beware (The Jabberwocky was on the Prowl)
22 x 19-3/4”
Cotton and other glittery fabric

The jabberwock was made in 3D and appliqued onto the background.  The bird in the background and the grasshoppers were machine embroidered.  I was trying to convey the feeling of eeriness.

 

Cherie Brown
Del Mar, California

Jaws That Bite, Claws That Catch
9½”x11½”
Expanda paint for textured tree, painted with shiva paint sticks, metallic fabrics and threads, organza and gold net.

Cynthia Ann Morgan
Boulder, CO

Has Thou Slain Thy Jabberwock?
15" x 15"

Fused applique using a variety of fabrics and fabric manipulation for texture, including gold lame for swords, hand pleated batik for a tree trunk and hand-dyed velvet free motion stitched onto tyvek & melted for some of the grass.

 

Elizabeth A. Dawson
Albuquerque, NM

Jaws and Claws
15 x 12.5”
Fabric, Razzle Dazzle thread, decorative yarn, and sheer fabric overlay. Inspired by the line "jaws and claws" in the poem "Jabberwocky"

 

Jacque Davis
Freeburg, IL

Brillig and Mimsy 
16 x 18”

I used Shiva Paintstiks to add background texture, Angelina fiber to add sparkle. I thread painted heavily to add details and depth. Painted with acrylic paint to add details. I wanted to give the sense of a deep woods at night with slippery and sinister elements among beauty.

 

Katie Wilson
Norfolk, Nebraska

And hast thou sewn the Jabberwock?
11 1/2" x 9"
cotton prints, chenille yarn, silver lame fabric

The first thing I kept coming back to was triangles and zigzags for the shapes. It's not very abstract, as I found a piece of fabric that yelled JABBERWOCK to me. I fused it to a very swirly background, added some fabric with jagged lines, added a long silver sword, and then was stumped. When I read THE REWRITE, it all came together. The sword became a needle, and I added some fuzzy yarn as the thread, to add more texture.

 

Lisa A. Albanese
Seattle, WA

Snicker Snack
16" x 18"
upholstery fabric, quilting cottons, wood beads

Really the only thing that remotely made any sense to me after reading the poem was "snicker snack" - chocolate fabric, caramel pintucks, and peanut beads.

 

Linda Cline
San Leandro, CA

Under the Tumtum Tree
16 x 13”
Pieced cotton and silk, paint, rickrack

I have contrasted the Tumtum tree with the dark tulgey wood. I was going for a fairytale likeness when choosing my colors. I was going to depict the Jabberwock with curvy bits of a serpent like creature with prairie point scales partially visible through the trees, but this wasn't possible with a small scale.  I used the prairie points to allude to the Jabberwock, and decided rickrack would compliment them on a smaller scale. I painted a piece of textured silk with transparent paint to give it dimension, and pressed wrinkles into it. This made great looking bark

 

Marilyn Rose
Ridgeland, MS

Brillig in the Wabe
8.5x11"
Commercial fabrics, sundial photo on fabric

For the Jabberwocky challenge, I wanted to portray the feeling of 4 o'clock in the afternoon (brillig) and the soft natural lighting in the wabe (which I interpreted as being the back yard).

Marilyn Rose
Ridgeland, MS

Vacation 2006   
10x10.5"
commercial fabrics with felt batting and felt as a hanging mechanism

This was the odd-shaped challenge, and I chose to make it totally 3-dimensional. Commercial landscape prints, in an accordion fold, so that you get a different view from the right side than from the left. Based on a piece in the Creative Quilting book.


Nancy Balding  
Riverside, California

It's just my imagination
11 x 15”  
 
I used cotton batting, red "berries" from leftover Christmas Holly, freshwater pearls, feathers,  All fabric is cotton, except the curtains over the star lit window, which are made of Tulle. I made a mini green quilt and stuffed it using poly fluff, it needed something, so I stuck a lock of my hair to hang out the end of it.

This is how I thought I might react to reading the poem, while at home alone, in bed, on a cold and windy night.  I have a very vivid imagination, that's why I don't read Steven King books or other scary ones before or while in bed! 

 

Pat F
Winnipeg, Canada

Under the Tumtum Tree
18" by 22"

I had found some delightful fabrics that were already embellished and wanted to use them, so some of the tree trunk and some of the leaves are a shiny embellished fabric, the rest of both is cotton.  I used modified and painted cellophane for most of the Jabberwock, some painted bas relief wallpaper for his tail and teeth, and dyed fresh water pearls for his nails.

 

Penny Irwin
Reno, Nevada

Jibber Jabber
9" X 9"
cotton and a yarn called Fancy Fur.

This image is an abstraction of the jester's mask and refers to the playful use of
language in the poem.

 

Rhonda Blasingame
Jackson, MS

Modern Day Jabberwocky

When we were little "Jabberwocky" was sort of a code word for nonsense or something that nobody paid any attention to or that didn't make sense. It has become the same thing for my kids, and they have often commented on the "Jabberwocky" titles and contents of spam emails.

I used a printed commercial fabric for background, a printed Nigerian scam letter and a bunch of graphics from spam emails. Weight loss, money makers, credit card offers, and singles sites. All fused and free-motion stitched, including some words. A bunch of different kinds of letter beads to spell out "Jabberwocky", and lots of computer keys.  I intentionally used a thin fabric to print on so the words from the background would shadow through.

Roberta Ranney
Springfield, MO 

Jabberwocky and the Lost Green Pigs
9" X 12”

batiks, Angelina, yarn, beads

I came up with a mental picture of a vicious tree with waving clawlike  branches.
My tree was sliced in two places to show that it had been conquered by the
vorpal sword (that shiny angelina sliver) and was losing its lifeblood.  The beads
represent the lost green pigs that were mentioned in one of the translations
of the poem.

 

Sally K. Field
Hampden, Maine

Jubjub Bird in a TumTum Tree
19 3/4"w x 17 1/2"l
Made from cottons (some with touch of copper or gold. Quilted with copper thread, black & copper thread, and invisible thread. Two beads for the eye.

The poetry had its way with me and told me what to do. I love the sound of nonsensical verse. The piece seemed to just flow together. I wish the poetry could have helped me with the quilting---I thought I'd never finish. There must be a mile or more of thread.

 

Tobi K. Hoffman
Ashland, MA

Vorpality
23 1/2" x 20"
Cotton prints, polyester, Angelina fiber

I chose the phrase "vorpal sword", which was the weapon the hero used to slay the Jabberwock.  The sword is made from Angelina fiber, and when my husband asked what the colorful swirling of dots around the blade was, my answer was the "vorpality" of the sword, hence the name of this piece.

 

Valerie Paige Stiles
San Diego, CA

Who Shall Slay the King
18.5 inches x 21.5 inches
trapunto, fusing, machine applique, quilting and piecing, pillowcase-style finish

I chose purple and black as base colors because I think of the poem as dark and as Medieval which I equate to kings, castles, and royalty. The choice to depict a playing card comes partially from Alice in Wonderland and partially as a means to draw a king. I have made my king the Jabberwock himself. He carries a silver hatchet, (the blade is trapunto) to either slay or be slain. Texture is incorporated by the use of glitter paint, chenille rickrack and felt. Each section was glue-tacked to the black background and then machine appliqued using numerous decorative stitches. Even more stitches were added with green thread serving double duty as decor and quilting.

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