Here is my entry for this year’s annual textile art exhibit Cherry Blossoms: A Textile Translation which will be on display in April at the Silk Purse Arts Centre in West Vancouver.
I reviewed my collection of photos of cherry blossoms, and found this close-up of a blossom and buds with a nicely blurred background. I enhanced the image with a computer program to boost the colors and add an interesting artistic effect with squares. The image on the right is the result.
I printed the enhanced image on prepared fabric at about 13″ x 13″. I layered it on felt and added outline quilting with black thread. It’s mounted on a black 12″ x 12″ wrapped canvas. I titled it ‘Blossoms Squared‘.
The exhibit will be on display Wednesday, April 09 through Sunday, May 04, 2025 at the Silk Purse Arts Centre, 1570 Argyle Ave., West Vancouver.
The Opening Reception will be on Thursday, Apr. 10, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
I put this aside while I was working on other projects. I returned to it in December, and quilted the planet and the rings to the felt, then attached them to the background with zigzag stitching. I quilted the starry space background with a very dark purple thread. The finished size is 18″ x 41″.
‘Saturn’ by Terry Aske‘Saturn’ (detail) by Terry Aske
My plan is to create more art quilts based on planets of the Solar System. The next one will be Neptune, featuring a multitude of blue fabrics and a similar batik fabric for the background.
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Thanks for stopping by.
I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
My local fibre art group, FYBR 2RT, is organizing an exhibit for early 2025 titled ‘What About Red?’ All pieces will be 16″ x 16″ and must include some amount of the color red.
Here is my submission for this exhibit, titled ‘Vivid‘. It is mounted on a black wrapped canvas. I love the way it appears to glow, especially when viewed as a thumbnail image.
When this exhibit was announced, I knew I wanted to use a multitude of red and red-adjacent colors. My brainstorming notes say ‘red, fuchsia, orange, bit of yellow, bit of black’. Below is my original fabric and thread selections. Other than adding red-violet, I stayed fairly close to my original selections.
The background is 4 quadrants of reddish fabrics, each section straight-line quilted with variegated threads. For the wonky squares, I moved further around the color wheel and included colors from yellow-orange to red-violet. The squares are fused and quilted to black felt which is trimmed 1/8″ from the edges. There is a sliver of black canvas showing around the outside edges.
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Thanks for stopping by.
I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
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Here is a new fibre art piece I made for the Arts New West Winter Solstice exhibition.
It’s based on a photo I took a few years ago of one of my favourite local landmarks – the Pattullo Bridge. This bridge is a beautiful structure, with its graceful arched shape, intricate angled beams, and distinctive colors. Unfortunately, it is old and beyond repair, so it will be replaced with a new bridge in the next year or so. The Pattullo was designed by supervising engineer Major W.G. Swan, and it opened in 1937. You can read more about the history of the bridge here and here.
My original photo was taken on a cloudy day and the colors were not good (photo on the left below).
A couple of years ago, I experimented with a variety of computer programs and iPad apps to digitally enhance the photo, with some wonderful results. (Unfortunately, I seem to have lost my notes about what programs I used).
I have previously used two of these enhanced photos to create fibre art pieces – ‘Pattullo Bridge with Yellow Sky‘ and ‘Jade Sky at Night‘. I had forgotten about this one. While scrolling through my photo library looking for inspiration for the Winter Solstice exhibition, I rediscovered this version of my photo. It seemed perfect for this theme with the dark cloudy sky. I printed it on fabric, and outlined some of the main bridge components with stitching. It is 10 x 10 inches, and mounted on a black canvas frame.
The Gallery at Queen’s Park will be hosting the Winter Solstice Exhibition December 4 – December 22, 2024. “The exhibition will feature work from over 50 local artists and looks to embrace this magical season. The short days and long nights of Winter are imbued with moody ambience and spiritual significance. It is a time for contemplation, but also for celebration. Visit the gallery and celebrate the season through art.”
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Thanks for stopping by.
I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
There is something new on my design wall – the planet Saturn.
My goal is to create several art quilts based on planets of the Solar System. My first choice was Saturn – with its distinctive bands and amazing ring system, it is the most visually interesting planet in the Solar System.
My internet research tells me that Saturn’s colors are quite subtle. The planet has weather bands of pale colors – yellows, browns, greys, and the rings are shades of grey and light brown. (See additional information here about the true colors of the planets.)
However, I had already been captivated by many colour-enhanced images such as this one from NASA. So I choose to depict Saturn with brighter colors. My version of the planet is orange, yellow and pink bands, and the rings are various shades of purple/violet.
I started my design by determining what portion of the planet and rings I wanted to show, andfrom what angle. I cut the shapes of the planet and rings from felt and positioned them on this lovely batik that looks like a starry sky..
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Then I cut and positioned the fabrics for the planet. I was happy with the colors, but realized the bands were not curved enough. My planet looked more like a slightly curved disc than a sphere.
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So I found a few guides to drawing a realistic-looking sphere. I drew contour lines on a piece of Duralar (a transparent film that can be drawn on) which I pinned over the planet so I could see what changes I needed to make.
Here is the improved version. At this point, the fabrics are backed with fusible web but they are not yet fused together.
Next were the colors for the rings (excuse the bad photo – this was taken at night)
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I have now fused all the fabrics to the felt pieces. Here they are on my design wall, pinned to the background fabric. The background is 20″ x 44″. The finished size will be 18″ wide, and the height will be between 36″ and 42″.
There are several reasons that I fuse and quilt the fabrics to felt before attaching them to the background:
It will give some dimension to the planet and rings.
I can quilt the fabrics and felt without having to bury all the thread ends.
If I make a mistake while quilting, it’s easier to correct than if the items were already attached to the background.
The next steps are to machine quilt the planet and the rings to the felt, then attach them to the background.
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Thanks for stopping by.
I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
SAQA’s 2024 Benefit Auction starts this Friday. It will take place online from September 13 through October 6.
Each year, SAQA invites each of its members to create a small 12 x 12 inch piece of art and donate it to the annual SAQA Benefit Auction. The auction has a dual purpose – to increase the recognition of quilts as art and quilters as artists, and to raise funds to support SAQA’s exhibition programs and education outreach activities.
With 440+ pieces of beautiful artwork available for bidding, there is something for everyone to enjoy! These artworks have been donated by SAQA artists from around the world. You can see them all on the SAQA website here. Think about which you might want to bid on when the auction opens on September 13th. Or just enjoy browsing through hundreds of mini works of art!
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This is my entry for this year – ‘My Signature Colors’. Read about how I made it here.
This is my twelfth SAQA auction quilt! As you can see, I like to mix it up and use a variety of techniques.
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Thanks for stopping by.
I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
In September, I’ll be heading to Edmonton AB for the annual conference of the Fibre Art Network. As usual, we will have an artwork exchange. The theme this year is ‘River City’.
The conference organizers described the theme: “This year, the Art Exchange will be ‘river city’ inspired. We hope you will interpret some aspect of the North Saskatchewan River Valley, Edmonton itself as a River City or any river theme. Whether fun or serious, your artwork will be a valued keepsake for another FAN member attending the 2024 conference. It is so much fun to share!”
I was in Edmonton in June for the Quilt Canada conference, and had lots of opportunities to view the North Saskatchewan River and stroll along the River Valley walkways enjoying the beautiful city and scenery. I took lots of photos that could have been inspiration for an art quilt. But what struck me the most about the river was its shape when viewed from above (as on a map) – its graceful curves as it meanders through the city.
I collected a few maps of the city and created my pattern, simplifying at a bit.
Colours – For the river, I selected an intense blue color. A green print for the the park lands and trail areas in the river valley. And a mottled green fabric for the surrounding land (totally ignoring the city streets and highways of Edmonton). It needed a splash of another color, so I used red-violet for the base fabric. I trimmed each fabric piece slightly inside the lines so there would be gaps between the pieces, where a sliver of the red-violet base fabric would show as ‘grout lines’.
For quilting, I edge stitched each fabric. I considered a few options for overall quilting – echo quilting the shape of the river, a grid and (my recent favorite overall quilting design) a tilted grid. The tilted grid appealed to me more than the other options. I positioned 1-inch tape and stitched on either side of it.
I tried something new for the facing. I left the ends of top facing open, so it could be used as a sleeve for a thin dowel (made from a 30″ bamboo campfire skewer)
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Here is the finished piece, titled ‘Meandering Through the City‘. It is 18 x 9.5 inches.
I started working on this art quilt in November 2023. I posted this photo on Instagram and said ‘Starting a new project. Not sure exactly where this is going but I like it a lot. Do you say ‘tick box’ or ‘check box’?’ Then I didn’t post anything more because I intended it for an exhibit that prefers entries to be not posted.
The focus of this art quilt was how lists with tick boxes make me ridiculously happy. And if my lists include bright colours, I’m even happier. It wasn’t accepted into the show I originally intended it for, but it was accepted into National Juried Show (NJS) at Quilt Canada 2024. And it won an award!
This is my artist statement: Lists with tick boxes make me ridiculously happy, and marking a task as completed gives me a very satisfied feeling. By using tick boxes, I can see the status of each item at a glance – completed (ticked), deferred (arrow), deleted (x) or still to be done (blank).
Here is some information about how I made it. I spent a lot of time arranging and rearranging the boxes on my design wall, perfecting the placement of the shapes and the choice of fabrics. The tilted boxes enhance the happy, playful look. I used check marks in several different shapes and sizes, and of course I used brightly colored fabrics.
My to-do lists are typically hand-written with hand-drawn boxes next to each item. I wanted the squares to look hand-drawn, so I was careful to make the black outlines slightly asymmetrical.
I constructed this piece in several layers.
Background – I pieced the 4 panels of color. The overall size is approximately 27 x 30 inches.
Small squares – each is 4.5 inches square, fused to the background and outlined with thin black bias tape.
Large squares – I drew some boxes and enlarged them to 6.5 inches square. I cut out black fabric strips and fused them to the edges of the colored squares. To prevent the seams in the background from showing through, I backed each square with Thermore ultra-thin batting, then fused the black edges to the background.
Quilting – I machine quilted an overall tilted grid with mint green thread.
Tick marks and other symbols – I fused each tick mark/symbol to black felt, then positioned the symbols on top of the squares and stitched around the thin black felt outline through all the layers.
Earlier this month, I spent 4 fun-filled days in Edmonton attending Quilt Canada 2024 at the Edmonton Convention Centre. Quilt Canada is an annual conference which includes hundreds of quilts (the National Juried Show and numerous additional Concurrent Quilt Shows), a large Merchant Mall, lectures, quilt show tours and workshops. It is attended by thousands of people.
On Wednesday morning, I helped to set up Resist, an exhibit of the Fibre Art Network. This is only a small part of the exhibit. There are 46 artworks in this exhibit, all of which can be seen here. It was a very popular exhibit with the people attending the conference.
On Wednesday evening, I attended the Awards Ceremony, and was happy to cheer as many of my friends won awards. All of the National Juried Show award winning quilts can be seen here. I was thrilled to receive the 3rd place award in the Modern category for my piece Ticking All the Boxes. (Read about the making of this art quilt in my next post.)
I had another entry in the show – here it is next to my friend Judy’s piece.
‘Twisting Tulips’ by Judy Cruickshank and ‘DUET’ by Terry Aske
On the remaining days, I visited the quilts on display (several times) and spent a lot of time at the Resist exhibit. Here is a partial view of the NJS exhibit, courtesy of the Canadian Quilters Association.
I also enjoyed several walks with friends along the Edmonton River Valley walkways enjoying the beautiful city and scenery.
The last time I posted here was in April – two months ago! I was travelling most of May, and then was very busy in June, so I’m just getting caught up now.
I did post about my Mediterranean travels on Instagram and Facebook, but here’s a recap.
I travelled to Barcelona with my friend Denise. We spent 3 days exploring Barcelona, then we boarded a cruise ship for a 21-day, 15-port cruise. This is the itinerary (it’s not exactly where we went, as Santorini was replaced with Crete). It was a wonderful trip!
Here are a few of my favorite photos from the ports we visited – in no particular order.
I expect my extensive collection of photos will provide inspiration for several art quilts in the future.
