Later this month, I’ll be heading to Naniamo BC for the annual conference of the Fibre Art Network. As usual we will have an art exchange. All participants are invited to create a journal size quilt (8.5 by 11 inches) inspired by this year’s conference theme, ‘Coastal Networks’.
These prompts were provided for inspiration for the exchange: • The ocean reflecting the sunset? • Life under the sea? • A network of friends?
The second phrase “life under the sea” reminded me of my art quilt “Synchronized Swimming” that I made last year.
Synchronized Swimming by Terry Aske
I thought it would be fun to use the same fabrics and shapes on a smaller scale for my journal piece.
As with the original, I pieced and quilted the background before adding the fish. Then I used paper shapes to audition various positions for the fish.
I fused the fish in place and then quilted around each one.
Synchronized Swimming 2 by Terry Aske
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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.
This year there are over 440 pieces that 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 Sepember 13th. Or just enjoy browsing through hundreds of mini works of art!
This is my entry for this year – ‘A Slice of Lime’
This is my seventh auction quilt! Below are the six previous ones. As you can see, I like to mix it up and use a variety of techniques.
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As often happens, my subconscious influences my design choices. I’d been thinking about black & white quilts for the Curated Quilts mini challenge, and I noticed a fruit bowl in a friend’s kitchen. The shape of the fruit bowl intrigued me, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. So when I visited her the next day, I asked if I could take a photo.
Inspiration
I selected a white fabric with silver lines that reminds me of Arborite kitchen countertops of my youth. I built the fruit bowl with black bias tape.
Starting construction of bowl
My original intention was to submit the black fruit bowl on a white countertop as a completed mini quilt. But I couldn’t resist adding some stylized fruit.
Still Life by Terry Aske
I’m not sure if it meets the criteria of mostly black & white with a sense of motion – but isn’t that lemon trying to escape from the bowl? I have submitted it anyway, and even if it isn’t selected, I love it!
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My last post was more than a month ago, when I posted my finished ‘Succulents’ quilt. After that, I started working on a couple of mini quilts but didn’t post about them. At the end of July, I left for a 2-week trip to NYC and England with my sister Anne. We traveled with Craftours from NYC to Birmingham for 2 days at the Festival of Quilts. Then we toured through English towns and countryside, to London for 2 days, then back to NYC.
It was a wonderful trip! Here are a few of my favorite photos from our travels.
You can see LOTS more photos (including many many quilts from the Festival) on my Instagram feed and Anne’s Facebook feed. Look for posts between July 31 and August 11.
When we returned from our trip, I picked up where I left off, with an entry for the next Curated Quilts issue. The theme is Black & White.
This is my first time using the interweave (interleave?) process. I was inspired by these blog posts at threadlines, Quilt Inspiration and This Thing. I selected 4 different black & white fabrics, created 2 blocks and then sliced each block into 1 inch strips. I arranged the strips alternating from each block, then sewed them together.
In retrospect, I believe this technique would work better with more colors. With the limited palette I used, the diagonal line and the circle sort of got lost in the jumble of prints. I quilted diagonal lines with black thread on the bottom left and white thread on the top right to see if that would make the diagonal line more obvious. It did, but now the circle has almost disappeared. I’ll try this technique again in the future with colors.
‘Disappearing Circle’ by Terry Aske
I have a LOT of black & white fabrics, so I keep thinking of various ways I could use them in mini quilts. Here are 2 others I’ve made and submitted., ‘Curves’ and ‘Angular Heart’.
I have at least one more idea I’m planning to submit before the August 31st deadline. Check out all the other entries on the Curated Quilts website. There are already a lot of great submissions, and I’m sure there will be many more added in the next few days.
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The Succulents quilt is finished and I’m quite happy with it. I’ve entered it in the Alden Lane Nursery Quilting in the Garden quilt show.
The finished size is 38 x 42 inches, and each succulent plant is about 26 inches high.
See my previous 2 posts for information about how I constructed it, including stage 1 of the quilting where I quilted around the succulents before I added the backing fabric. Then I spray-basted the backing fabric to the felt, and quilted vertical straight lines through all three layers. You can see that the backing fabric is the chartreuse and white print that I was considering for the front. I finished the edges with a wide chartreuse binding.
All the quilting was done with a walking foot. I quilted with vertical straight lines about 1/2 inch apart. I was concerned about keeping the lines straight, and the challenge of quilting over the bumps created where several bias tapes overlapped. So I quilted from the back, following the vertical fabric design as a guide. (I first used this technique with my map quilt (described here) but I didn’t post about how I quilted it. You can read about that on the Quilts at the Creek blog here.)
I wanted the binding at least 1/2 inch wide (to be as wide or wider than the bias tape outlining the plants) so I cut the binding strips 2.75 inch wide. I stitched the binding to the back, folded it to the front and stitched again through all layers. This is the first time I’ve used clips to hold the binding in place – much better than pins!
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In my last post, I talked about how I’m constructing my new Succulents quilt. I had selected a background fabric and was about to start the quilting.
I’m doing the quilting in 2 stages.
Here’s how I did the first stage. I spray-basted the background fabric to a layer of acrylic felt. Then I positioned the succulents and quilted along the edges of the bias strips around each leaf. Then I quilted the centers of each plant.
bias tape stitched around leaves
center stitched in place
back of quilting on felt layer
I gave the centers the same outline look as the leaves by fusing the fabrics to felt (which perfectly matches the bias tape!)
The second stage of the quilting will be to spray-baste the backing fabric to the felt, then quilt straight lines through all three layers. I hope to have that completed this weekend.
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I’ve been working on a new quilt featuring huge succulent plants. When I was in San Francisco a few months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Ann DuMont. Ann has a beautiful garden full of succulents. She photographs her plants and uses the photos to create uniquely designed fabrics from which she creates wearable accessories and decor items. Check out her website and Instagram feed for examples of her fabulous photos and uniquely designed fabrics.
Ann offered me some of her fabric scraps. So of course, I had to make a quilt with them! This quilt is inspired by Ann’s garden photos and the leaves of the succulent plants are made with her fabrics.
I made line drawings of stylized succulents then enlarged them so each was about 26 inches high. I traced each leaf shape onto freezer paper, cut out the fabric and fused bias tape around the edges. As I created the leaves I pinned them in place on the design wall on top of the full size drawings.
When I was finished with each plant, I removed it from the design wall and fused the leaves to a sheer interfacing. Now each plant is a unit I can pin and unpin from the design wall.
paper pattern on ironing pad, covered with fusible interfacing
positioning leaves on interfacing
leaves fused to interfacing
left: paper pattern right: back of fused succulent plant
Then it was time to audition fabrics for the background – and this is where my indecision arose. My first selection was a chartreuse and white print. Then I tried several chartreuse prints. Normally, chartreuse is my go-to color, but these backgrounds seemed to be overwhelming the succulents. So I tried some neutral prints. I really like the large scale white and gray floral print – but I only have a fat quarter of that fabric.
A trip to the local fabric store yielded this white and taupe floral print. It’s a bit smaller scale than I wanted, but it’s time to make a decision and move on. I think I’ll bind the quilt with chartreuse.
Next – on to the quilting. I want to finish this quilt within a week, so I can enter it in the Alden Lane Nursery quilt show.
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Since I last posted, I attended Quilt Canada and completed a couple of mini quilts for the newest Curated Quilts mini challenge. The theme for this one was “Stars”. I made 2 entries – ‘Twinkle Stars’ and ‘Starburst’.
I love mini challenges because it’s a great opportunity to experiment without a huge time commitment. For ‘Twinkle Stars’ I played with puffy polyester batting, walking foot matchstick quilting and some hand-quilting outlining the stars. This mini was selected to be included in the Stars issue of Curated Quilts magazine.
‘Twinkle Stars’
detail of hand-quilting
‘Starburst’ was made using a freezer paper pattern. I sewed the fabrics together with overlapped seams, which I then covered with light gray bias tape. The seam around the center star was covered with zigzag stitching. I wanted to do more quilting, but didn’t have time as I was leaving for Quilt Canada the next day. So I submitted it as you see in the photo below.
Starburst freezer paper pattern
‘Starburst’ as submitted to challenge
When I returned from Quilt Canada, I decided it needed more quilting. I had already sewn on the facings, but I hadn’t fused them to the back (they were just pinned in place for the challenge photo). I’m much happier with the way it looks now.
Starburst additional quilting – back
‘Starburst’ final version
Quilt Canada was held in Ottawa this year. As always, it was a lot of fun, and an opportunity to connect with friends, be inspired by lectures, do some shopping and of course see the quilts! I didn’t have any work in the National Juried Show this year (I missed the deadline to enter!) but I really enjoyed viewing all the quilts. You can see all the pieces that were on display here. And the award winners are posted here.
I’ve started working on a larger quilt (approximately 40 x 40 inches) that I plan to finish soon. But it’s not at the stage yet for photos. Check back next week and I will have something to show.
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I made this quilt almost a year ago. But it was a secret project, so I haven’t posted any photos until now.
In October 2017, Kim Caskey of Edmonton AB asked if I would like to participate in a project called World Wide Whispers.
‘World Wide‘ because there are teams from 5 different countries – Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands, USA and Canada. Each team had 12 members (except Canada, with 13 members, a representative from each province and territory).
‘Whispers‘ because it’s a bit like the child’s birthday party game where the leader starts by whispering a sentence in the ear of the next participant and then continues around the room, evolving and changing from the original sentence. For Team Canada, Kim started the process at the beginning of 2018 by making an art quilt inspired by a photo. She sent a photo of her quilt to the next person, who had one month to create a 18″ by 24″ quilt inspired by that photograph. Each team member only saw the photo of the quilt before theirs. We had to keep our quilts confidential (even from the other team members) until the big reveal in early 2019.
In May 2018, I received an email from Karen Henry of Nova Scotia with an image of her quilt “Anchor & Drift”. When I first saw Karen’s quilt, I was immediately struck by the three boats in primary colours of blue, red and yellow. I pixelated her image, to focus on the shapes and colors.
“Anchor & Drift” by Karen Henry
“Anchor & Drift” pixelated
My piece is an abstracted interpretation of Karen’s quilt. I simplified the boat shapes to three pod shapes, floating on a neutral background. I added some zing to the conservative primary colours by bracketing each one with brighter, bolder related colours.
“Floating” by Terry Aske
Here are some progress photos of my construction techniques – my initial sketch and freezer paper pattern (mirror image), auditioning fabrics, checking values, all the thread colours I used.
my initial sketch and freezer paper pattern (mirror image), auditioning fabrics, checking values, all the threads I used
Here’s a photo of the Team Canada starting photo and the 13 quilts (from a presentation that Kim made). They have also been published in the summer issue of Canadian Quilter magazine, although I haven’t received my issue yet.
World Wide Whispers Team Canada starting photo and the 13 quilts
The entire project took all of 2018 to complete. Each of the 5 countries assembled their team of 12 participants (13 for Canada), who each took one month to receive, create and send on to the next person. There are a total of 61 quilts from the 5 countries. What a thrill to be part of this international project!
The quilts will be exhibited around the world at various quilt festivals and shows throughout 2019 and 2020, including the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK in August 2019 and Quilt Canada in Edmonton in June 2020. I’m looking forward to seeing them in real life.
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When I saw the call for entry for the Sacred Threads Eye Contact special installation, I knew I had to enter! The required size of the pieces is 23″ wide by 5″ high – very long and narrow, and required big eyes!
Violet Eyes
Here’s my first entry, which is based on the same photo I have used for many of my self-portrait quilts.
Terry Aske – Violet Eyes
I started with the same line drawing I used for Minimalist Me, and made it larger. I wanted a bright, dramatic background, and found I still had the fabric I used for Self Portrait with Chrysanthemums in my stash.
I pieced the background to create a line for the nose and for the edge of the face. I used various shades of violet for the eyes – fused them in place and outline stitched with black.
Green Eyes
I wanted to make a second entry, but with different techniques. I was mulling over various design concepts, when the idea of a line-drawing occurred to me – and I realized I could use thin black bias tape to “draw” the eyes.
Terry Aske – Green Eyes
I cut a 5″ x 23″ piece of white felt. I stitched low-volume fabric strips cut approximately 2″ x 6″ to the felt. The center of each eye is fussy cut from a floral fabric and fused to a darker green fabric. I fused the eyes in place and zigzag stitched around both circles. Then I tried a couple of different eye shapes with bias tape. I liked the more dramatic version.
I fused the bias tape in place, then stitched through it and the white felt layer. Then I folded the front fabric to the back, and fused on a backing fabric.
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