Tulips Popping

Hi, Sharon here, bidding you a cheery spring day.

In tune with the spring season, tulips are popping up all over, 

both inside my house and out.

These colorful beauties are made, not with my trusty sewing machine, 

but with the aid of my often neglected serger.

In the creamy yellow background, I've added flatlock serging stitches to add movement.

The leaves are finished with the overlock stitch and 

the tulips are enhanced with a rolled edge of variegated pink and purple thread.

I hope your day is filled with joy and beauty.

Re-cycling into Art

"You've Been Wallpapered"

Sharon V. Rotz

As quilters and as artists, we are always looking for ways that we can re-use things from our world. I am currently in an exhibit called "Re-Art". The theme, of course, is art using re-cycled materials.

I had fun working on "You've Been Wallpapered" which started with a piece of wall-paper. A friend was redecorating and busy stripping the old wallpaper from her hallway. We brainstormed about "clever"ways (and some pretty silly ways) to re-use this discarded material. It ends which a creative challenge.

Mary's wallpaper became the background for this piece. I also used an old silk shirt, a worn leather jacket, a shoelace (why did I have only one?) and a gold foil candy wrapper (the enclosed chocolate eaten solely for the purpose of creating art).

What have you re-cycled into art?

Nadia: A Finish

Something to celebrate: a finish. (Rare for me as most pieces take months, sometimes years.)

This particular piece started as a sketch with permanent marker on white cotton fabric from a shirt, to which I added scraps of fabric as a background.

Then there was the machine stitching and hand stitching.

                                                   

A "frame" was added, but it looked empty, so I appliquéd and machine quilted it.

We will overlook the fact that I managed to finish it because it is small (7 1/2" x 11 1/2").

Wishing everyone in this forum lots of finishes!

Goddess of the Last Minute - Chris Daly
January 2013

I am forever chasing a deadline.  Many of my challenges for the Art Quilts Around the World group have been finished at 11:30 pm the day the challenges are due. 

Our challenge last time was to create a self portrait.  I have always loved that Hindu Gods and Goddesses are depicted with extra arms and hands.  Wouldn't it be helpful to have an extra hand or two?

This quilt was made using Inktense colored pencils on cotton fabric, machine quilted and beaded.  I hope you like it!

P.S. Notice the pile of hand dyed fabric I am sitting on? It still needs to be ironed ;) Stop by my blog to see the true goddess of the last minute

March's Work

Hi all, hope you're having a lovely April so far and that your Holi/Pesach/Easter/holiday hang out was wonderful!

I thought I'd do my monthly check in with you all and show you what I completed in March.

First, up - three more birds in the series:

Silver Eared Mesia (c) 2013 Kit Lang

This is the most recently completed bird - and it was with this one that I truly realized the benefits of working in a series.  Yes, I had seen with each bird how each individual bird got better, and then I noticed that I was improving their immediate surroundings, and then the branches themselves, until I got to this one and realized that it was so far and away from the first bird in the series that I am literally ashamed of it!

Fairy Wren (c) 2013 Kit Lang

As you can see, I experimented with ways to produce the look of lilac without having to produce a million tiny cut-out flowers.  French knots were the answer, it turned out!

Golden Headed Blackbird (c) 2013 Kit Lang

It's funny - that even something I made as recently as three weeks ago, I see much room for improvement in! That said, I do really like this one too.

Hare Raising (c) 2013 Kit Lang

And then, my nephew and his wife had a baby - adding a new (and second) great niece to the family. So I thought I'd make a little something for her room. :)

And that was March's work!

Hope to see what you're up to. 

Kit

Happy #nqdsi!

 

It's international sewing day, I have the day off and the quilt show has opened up most of its shows to all for free! There is a sew in on twitter #nqdsi to share in all the quilty fun you may be having today and quilting Jenny is having a giveaway so I'm chiming in with a copy of my "welcome my little chickadee pattern" to a random commenter. Tell me what you are doing quilt - wise today - and yes fabric shopping and quilt show watching counts ;-)

I just watched episode 111 with Ann Fahl on the quilt show. If you are a cat lover you MUST watch it. Go to the quilt show here to sign up for the free week end.

 

Even Summer (the sweet) is mesmerized by Alex and Ricky

 

I'll be working on quilting this. Yesterday my machine was fighting me all the way but last night I don't know what happened (the quilt demons must have left the building) but now she's purring right along.

Quilt on!

 

From Nadia: Nothing finished

Across blogland and the internet discussions arise about how to describe a "successful artist". First one would have to define "successful" and "artist" separately and then begin the discussion. Opinions vary with each individual. Lately, I've just been thinking about Simon (Sam) Rodia.

Who? He was an Italian immigrant construction worker who built the amazing Watts Towers in Los Angeles in his spare time, with minimal tools, and from mostly recuperated materials. The project took him 34 years.  When he retired and moved, he deeded the land to a neighbor and never received a penny for his efforts (see here for more info). He created something magistral, majestic and magical. He's my hero. In my opinion, he represents a "successful artist."

Sam Rodia gives me courage to keep going when faced with a huge undertaking (although not as big as his), in this case, my Pomegranate Tree Quilt. After executing 12 sketches on fabric of pomegranate branches over a year ago, I started a countdown on my working blog (MulticoloredSnippets) to finish the machine stitching/thread painting. The countdown kept me focused and motivated. The last segment of the twelve:

The Pomegranate Tree Quilt is part of a Garden series, which celebrates the bounty of my garden 

that includes a small pomegranate orchard.

I tested out a layout (on the floor) with a brown background.

Then yesterday, I put up my "design wall" (a sheet pinned over a wall-hanging in the living room) and adjusted the pieces.

This is feeling more balanced. Now I will slowly add the brown background pieces at strategic points. I dreamed about roots last night...this will obviously take more time.

Joy

I wanted to share this quilt that I finished last week. I made it for a call to artists with the interpretation of

"Joy, dare to dance" as the theme. My ultimate joy (or at least one of them) is standing on the beach, any beach and watching the birds dance.

The fabric is all purchased batiks - isn't that sky to die for?

The girl (named Joy of course) has yarn for hair and a gauzy type of fabric hand sewn and manipulated to make her dress so it's 3-D.

I added more yarn for seaweed and a few shells and beads. The sand is quilted using Leah Days filler called Desert sand.

I like how it came out but here in Vermont the weather hasn't been good for photo taking so these are not good enough for the call to artists that I sent in. It's for a book and these photos are far from book quality.

But that's ok - I now have this quilt of Joy ;-)

 

Just an update on the Italian Quilt. I've been stitching in designs and free motion quilting. I just posted a tutorial using Glad Stretch'n Seal on my blog... Crooked Gulley Art Quilts . I wish I could just do beautiful swirly designs on my own, but not yet. I need a cheat sheet, which Stretch'n Seal allows.

Here's the most current picture of the quilt.

If you look closely you can see the Stretch'n Seal on the left side. I'm ready to stitch over the lines and then rip it off.

Thanks for your comments and ideas.

Hugs from Mary

Tribute

Just completed - Hand dyed fabrics and commercial fabrics, free-form quilted and embellished with embroidery.

January's work`

Hi all, I know I'm late again, but I had to publish the last piece on my blog before I published it here and it was queued up for last Friday, so here I am, tardy to the party!

I only got two things done in January - another bird and a large piece (42 x 33) that I've been working on since December and finally finished on the 31st - screeching into the finish line of January!  So, here they are:

"Hiraeth" - this one has a long story to go with it, so if you're interested please check it out on my blog where the story and more detail pics reside; and

"Cardinal In Winter" - the 5th  piece in my "Taking Flight" series. 

Currently, I'm working on a hand-made Valentine's Day card, another bird and another big piece - so I may not have much to show you for February next month!

What have YOU been up to? 

My First Post

Hello all, Mary here... I'm new to this blog and find it to be the support group I may have been searching for. I recently posted a question on my blog... Crooked Gulley Art Quilts , regarding what type of design I should free motion in the center medallion of a bed quilt I am making. We recently took a wonderful trip to Italy and I was quite taken with everything, but especially the marble floors in the beautiful duomos. So, here is my project...

Since taking this picture I have added the batting and backing, and using a walking foot secured the whole thing by "stitching in the ditch". Now, I need a plan for the center medallion. It really looks fine with just the seams quilted..... But do I want to free motion and if so .... well, I think I need some help with design ideas. I visualize something circular with scroll work.  I also think this is a classic KISS... Keep it simple, stupid! ;-)

There it is... my first post on this blog that is so wonderful to wander through.
Thanks for reading this.
Hugs from Mary

Nadia: Thinking about Crossovers

A blog provides the possibility of distancing yourself from your work/play and seeing it as a whole. I have tried to limit the number of activities that I undertake to concentrate on what I feel is important. And lately thoughts about influence from one medium to another have me reflecting.

The pomegranate tree quilt, although advancing very slowly, remains a priority.

This is one of eleven branches that began as a sketch-on-fabric project that quickly got out of control. It was a good year for pomegranates. I machine stitch on it every day for about an hour, then my machine needs a rest (the small motor heats up). 

Mosaic plant containers serve as meditation for me, like doing a big puzzle except I have a beautiful and useful object at the end.

 

These surfaces will soon be grouted. With each one I play with simple designs, in this case, stacked squares on the left and medallions on the right. My basic rule is to make each design different.

I really wasn’t seeing the crossover until I decided to do a page in my textile sketchbook/journal to simply play with all those beautiful threads from the warm end of the spectrum.

An abstracted pomegranate. Then I filled up the background in a tile style.

Now I can see the crossover.

Make It a Village

Crimson Ridge Drive

20" x 26"

©2013 Sharon V. Rotz

Hello Everyone, Sharon here.

 I've just completed a 2013 quilt. Hurray!

 I had so much fun working on this quilt with these cheerful Moda fabrics. The challenge for me was using the 2.5" squares of the fabric packs to their best advantage. I thrive on challenges so my mind was busy thinking of new ways to use small squares.

I did add small amounts of three other fabrics to the mix, a hand-dyed wool, a homespun and a polished cotton. You can find more of the details on my blog.

My design inspiration was rolling hills dotted with subdivision houses, little communities full of life and activity.

Challenge yourself and continue your fiber journey in 2013.

Meet Max the joyful yellow lab mix

 

 

 

I finally finished Max today. He's a happy boy :-)

 

Here is Max in his non quilty life.

 

He started out like this

 

Then became this.

 

Now he has a body

And a field to play in

 

Now he's happy to be quilted and looking for his "forever home"

 

My Introduction to Art Quilts

My Introduction to Art Quilts

By Don Mettler

Amish Scrap Quilt 

It was in the late 1950’s when Penny McMorris had a quilt show on PBS.  The first series was only 13 weeks long but she packed a lot of information in those first 13 half hour shows.  This is where I first learned about Amish quilts.  The Amish quilts had become recognized in the art world because of their graphic design and limited color range, that seemed to be very appealing.  A short time later the art world discovered the Afro-American quilts and they too had great graphics but were not limited to a set color scheme. 

I grew up in an area where the Amish were familiar to me but I paid little attention to their religious views.  I did learn later the colors they chose to use were often dictated by their bishops who led their group.  Black was their primary color which in turn made the other colors become very bright.  In most cases blue, violet, red and yellow were used or variations of those limited colors such as pink and turquoise.

In his catalog named “Who’d a Thought It” Afro-American quilts were described by Eli Leon (he was the curator for San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum) as syncopated rhythms, as in jazz music.  I have always liked that term to describe the change of color and movement in Afro-American quilts.  It was a few years later I learned about the Gees Bend quilts. 

Grandmothers Flower Garden Quilt

The next quilt style I learned of was the quilts of the 1930 – 1940 that often used white as their base color.  In that time period it was depression and dust bowl times when women had to make every piece of fabric count.  The cotton fabrics often used were what was known as Feed Sack fabrics.  My father was in a business that sold chicken feed and I remember my mother collecting feed sacks.  Ladies church groups would bring their washed and ironed feed sacks to ladies aid groups and trade to match sacks they had to others.  If you ended up with only one it would make an apron, two or three would make a dress.  The scraps were then combined with plain white sacks to make their quilts.

My wife's great grandmother's quilt

Many of these early quilts have not survived because people thought of them as Working Quilts.  When the quilts got a worn spot they would sew a patch over the spot. When they became too bad, the quilts were used as pads between the springs and mattress of a bed.  In those days there was what was known as Master Quilts or Working Quilts.  The master quilt was placed on a guest’s bed to show the quilter’s skills and the working quilts were used by the families.  The early Afro-American quilt was made by slaves using the mistress’s fabric scraps.  That explains why many consisted of many odd shapes.

Seminole Piecing

Seminole Indian Skirt

Another quilt style that had its run in the early days was Seminole piecing done by the Seminole Indians in Florida.  It was a very finely detailed type of piecing using strips of fabric.  After the first strips were sewn they were then cut on different angles and placed back together, creating intricate designs.  Seldom do you see much about Seminole patchwork. I visited Seminole Indians many years ago just west of Miami, Florida.  Most of the piecing was done to be used to make their clothing.  They often separated one strip of patterned piecing to another patterned strip with a plain strip.  The plain strip sometimes had rows of rick rack, adding more patterns to the overall design.  The men had very colorful jackets or shirts using these motifs and the women wore long skirts of their work.  It was such a joy to see all the pattern and color.

My Sample of Seminole Piecing

Nancy Crow started the Quilt National at the Dairy Barn Art Center, in Athens, Ohio and she brought Art Quilting to the forefront for all of us.  She made many early quilt artists known and I feel she made people accept quilts as an art form.  There had been a long fight between Artists and Craftsmen where the line was between Art and Craft.  The Art Quilt was a first to break that divide. 

Greetings from Alice!

I have just learned about this blog and am so excited to be a part of it!  My name is Alice Baird.  I don't have a website, but I have two personal blogs and am the webmaster of a group blog.  You can find my blogs on my profile page.

I've been quilting since the early 1990s, but actually I didn't REALLY get seriously involved in quilting until I retired from teaching in 1998.  At that time I plunged right in and made my two daughters wedding quilts; one married in '99 and the other in 2000.  These were machine pieced and hand quilted.

Then the grandchildren came, and wow, in just a few years we had four.  Each of them got a crib quilt and then a big boy or big girl quilt, when they graduated from the cribs.  I have probably made very close to 100 traditional quilts that vary from table runners to king-sized quilts, most of which were given away as gifts to beloved family members or friends.

During the early 2000s I chiefly made traditional quilts, but I became more and more interested in art quilting, once I started subscribing to QUILTING ARTS.  Too, I started attending the spring workshops in New Braunfels, TX, called Quilting Adventures.  Each spring I took classes from well-known art quilt teachers, and I was hooked!  I made my first true art quilt in 2008, as well as I can remember.

Still, though, I was too dependent on a class or a teacher, was a bit afraid of striking out on my own with designing and constructing art quilts.  Then a friend sent me in 2011 for my May birthday the book TWELVE BY TWELVE.  I thought it looked great and determined to read one chapter at a time.  Ho!  As soon as I started reading, I got so excited that I read it in one sitting, from cover to cover.

I passed the book along to one quilting buddy and then sent another a copy for her birthday.  Then three of us from our local guild got together and formed an art quilting group, styled much like the TWELVES.  Now we are a national internet group of fourteen, with members from Texas, Massachusetts, California, and Alaska.  Our group is called The Material Mavens.

In turn, our members choose a theme on which we base our quilts.  Then the 12" x12" quilt is due in two months, on the 15th of the month.  We post photos of our quilts on the 15th of Jan., Mar., May, July, Sept., and Nov.  As of this date, we are about to post our 9th quilts.  Our themes have ranged from the literal to the abstract, from words such as Mystery to Surprise.  Being a member of this group has forced me to be more independent, and I have tried to use different techniques and new materials in almost all of them.

I am webmaster of that group blog, called The Material Mavens, and I have two personal blogs.  On Alice's Looking Glass Blog, I post miscellaneous news and pictures of my traditional quilts.  On Art Quilter Aspirant, I post photos and descriptions of any art quilts I have done.

I will post here some photos of the art quilts I have made over the past six years, since I first dipped my toes into the art quilting waters!

Here are a few of my art quilts.  The first four were the first ones I made, as a result of the workshops with Esterita Austin, Katie Pasquini-Masopust, Carla Gulati, and Marcia Stein.  Inspiring teachers, all! The others are some of the little 12"x12" art quilts for The Material Mavens.

The Stone Arch Bell Gate (made during a class with
Esterita Austin)

Abstract in Aqua (made during a class with Katie PM)

Serendipity (made during a class with Carla Gulati)

Lake Michigan Beach Boys (made during a class with
Marcia Stein)

Harmony

Surprise

Vincent's Chair (for the South challenge)(based on the famous
painting by Vincent Van Gogh of the same name)

Tears of the Giraffe (for the Mystery challenge--the title of an Alexander
McCall Smith mystery novel)

Spiral theme

Travel theme (Hanseatic Wharf area in Bergen, Norway)

Finally, this is my latest quilt.  Is it an art quilt?  You be the judge!  It is non-traditional in that all of the hand quilting is done with Perle cotton embroidery thread, using a variety of embroidery stitches.  The center panel (like my Mystery quilt above) is a purchased batik panel designed by the batik artist Krishna.

Haathi (elephant in Hindi)