Happy New Year! As the year ends, I’ve been looking back at 2018, reviewing my quilting-related activities and accomplishments.
Making art – I created more than 25 art quilts and other fiber art with a variety of themes and techniques. Many of them are shown below.
Exhibiting my art – I submitted my work to 12 juried shows and challenges, and had work accepted into most of them. I also submitted art to auctions to support CQA and SAQA.
I was thrilled to have my work accepted in my first international SAQA exhibition – Dusk to Dawn. Both of my entries were accepted, and then both were sold when the exhibition debuted at the Quilt Festival in Houston!
It’s always fun to be able to see my work on display. A few of the shows I entered were local, so I was able to see my work on display. A few of my favorites were:
June – Quilt Canada was in Vancouver BC this year at the Vancouver Convention Centre
Overall, 2018 was a busy and fulfilling year for me. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing what I’ve been up to in the past 12 months. I’ll be back in a couple of days with information about my goals plans for 2019.
The theme for Curated Quilts magazine’s issue 7 is Curves. As usual they are having a mini quilt challenge, and some of the mini quilts will be published in the magazine. You can see all of the entries here. More will be added in the next few days, until the deadline of January 2nd.
The image below shows the color palette they would like entrants to use, all or in part, with Curves as the overall inspiration. The colors are: “ White, spring green, moss green, burgundy, fuchsia and teal –– descriptors not actual color names, and prints are always welcome.”
I have made 2 mini quilts for this challenge. Both are made with freezer paper templates.
Here’s the first one, using 3 of the 6 colors and my favorite design element – the circle. It’s 12.25 x 12.25 inches, and I’m calling it ‘Curves 1’.
Here’s my second entry ‘Twisted Ribbons’. It has all 6 colors and is 13.5 x 13.5 inches. Stitching the bias tape took a bit longer than I anticipated – perhaps if I had thought that part through, I would have made the curves less tight. I applied the bias tape before layering the quilt, then after layering I quilted the white background with matchstick quilting. That took a long time, but I’m planning to do matchstick quilting on a larger art quilt, and wanted to see how long it would take – and if it would drive me crazy! I really like how it looks, and I think it’s well worth the extra time.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
‘One White Petal‘ was made specifically for the American Patchwork & Quilting Two-Color Quilt Challenge, one of the categories in the QuiltCon juried quilt show featuring modern quilts by members of the Modern Quilt Guild.
In August, I started noticing posts on Instagram with the hashtags #twocolorchallenge and #twocolorquiltchallenge I loved the idea, and checked my fabric stash for likely color combinations. Most of my stash is small pieces – fat quarters and smaller. I didn’t have enough of any two colors to make an entire quilt, and I didn’t want to buy more fabric. But I do have a LOT of black & white prints, and thought a combination of geometric and floral patterns would be interesting to work with.
The entry deadline was November 30, but I was already working on another quilt with the same deadline, so I didn’t actually start working on this one until November 20. I wasn’t sure I would make the deadline, but decided to go for it. I actually finished it and submitted my entry on the final day!
I started by pulling a few of my favorite black & white prints, and pinning them on my design wall. I even cut a circle from on of the fabrics. Then I decided to go in a different direction, and I didn’t use any of these prints in the final piece. (But I have lots of ideas for future black & white quilts!)
Of course I considered a pattern with circles. The Orange Peel quilt pattern came to mind – up-sized to show off the various prints. I used some of my favorite techniques – freezer paper templates, overlapped seams, trimmed and covered with bias tape (as described in this blog post). These techniques are quick and easy for me, and I thought using black bias tape to outline each piece would look very cool.
I have a supply of 15 inch square pieces of freezer paper, so that determined the size of the circles. I cut out the freezer paper pattern pieces, ironed them to back of the fabrics and arranged them on my design wall.
I sewed the pieces together from the back, with seam allowances overlapped, stitching between the pattern pieces. I squared up the quilt using Pellon 1-inch grid. I was pleased that my circles were circular, and the overall pattern was square.
Then I trimmed the top seam allowances and covered the seams with black bias tape. And then I started having problems – even though I was careful not to stretch the bias tape as I applied it, it shrunk up a little and the quilt top was puckered in places. Then as I was pressing it into submission with steam and a press cloth, I somehow got a bit of a stain on it. I managed to remove the stain, but that involved washing the quilt top – which I seldom do, so that was stressful.
By then it was 2 days to the deadline. I quilted it with white thread – horizontal straight lines about 1″ apart, as well as echo quilting around each petal shape (inspired by SewJess‘s quilting of her Orange Peel table runner).
I got it faced and photographed on the last day, and submitted it a few hours before the deadline. The finished size of ‘One White Petal’ is 29 x 29 inches.
My artist statement is: Are petal shapes creating the effect of interlocking circles, or are overlapping circles creating a secondary design of petals? Whichever way you look at it, the traditional Orange Peel quilt pattern is a fascinating design. I selected a variety of black & white prints from my stash, combining geometric and floral prints with wild abandon. I used my favorite techniques of freezer paper templates, and machine stitched overlapped seams covered with bias tape.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
‘Synchronized Swimming‘ was made for a SAQA regional exhibition “Shifting Tides: Convergence in Cloth“. I posted the finished quilt on November 30, but didn’t have time to include any details about my inspiration and construction process.
I’ve had an idea for a long time (since 2013 when I researched about fish shapes and schools of fish for this quilt) to make an art quilt featuring schools of fish, swimming in graceful synchronized patterns.
I started by constructing the background. I cut 6″ square pieces from a variety of ocean-colored fabrics, and arranged them from dark to light. I cut curves between the horizontal joins and inserted a few narrower pieces. When I sewed the columns together, I offset the curves from one column to the next, to give it an abstract look.
The next step was to layer and quilt the background, but first I wanted to confirm my color choices for the fish, and experiment with fish sizes. So I cut a few fish from fabric, and a lot more from paper. I pinned them all in place on the background.
For the two schools of smaller fish, I used two different fabrics – both very light blue fabrics with black text – they were the perfect shade of blue – almost white, sort of ‘watery’ looking. And the text adds a modern/abstract element.
For the larger fish, I used a stripey ombre fabric that ranges from yellow-orange to red-orange.
I was happy with the fabric colors and the fish sizes and shapes, so after taking a lot of photos, I removed the fish and quilted the background.
I spray basted the quilt on the design wall. This is the first time I have done this, and it worked really well. You can see the steps I followed in the photos below.
Pin backing to design wall, smoothing in place, then spray backing with 505 spray (no photo of this step). Carefully pin batting over backing and smooth in place. (I rolled the batting up, and pinned the top in place, then gradually unrolled it over the sprayed backing.)
Fold quilt top and pin it to the left side of the batting (just to keep it out of the way while spraying). Spray the right half of the batting.
Unfold the top and smooth the right side onto the sprayed batting. Then fold back the left side of the top.
Spray the left side of the batting, and smooth the top in place, repositioning as necessary to smooth out all wrinkles.
I unpinned the quilt, and pressed it to heat-set the basting spray, and iron out any remaining wrinkles. Then I machine basted each edge of the quilt, to prevent the corners or sides from coming loose while I was wrestling the quilt through my sewing machine.
I quilted wavy lines across the background with poly-rayon thread. I started about a quarter of the way down and worked up to the top. Then I switched to a darker thread, and worked down to the bottom.
When the quilting was finished, it was time to add the fish. Referring to my earlier photos, I positioned the first school of fish, starting with paper fish, then replacing them with fused fabric fish. Once I was satisfied with the positioning, I fused them in place (right on my design wall, using my cordless iron!). Then I removed the quilt from the design wall, pressed the fish again to ensure they were firmly fused in place, and free-motion quilted the outline of each fish.
I repeated these steps for the second school. For the third school – the largest orange fishes – I fused batting to the back of each one before fusing to the background, to give them some dimension.
‘Synchronized Swimming‘ is 36 x 36 inches. It was started in September and finished in late November, just before the deadline to enter. I’ll find out in January if it’s accepted for the exhibit.
My artist statement is: Sunlight filters down through the aquamarine depths of the Pacific Ocean, illuminating schools of fish dancing and frolicking in graceful synchronized patterns.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
Just a quick post to say I’ve finished two quilts for shows with November 30 entry deadlines. I’ve been very focused on completing these two quilts, which is why I haven’t been posting recently. And then I had to take the photos and complete the entry information, which always takes longer than I think it will.
I’ll write more detailed posts in a few days about how I made these two quilts.
My artist statement is: Sunlight filters down through the aquamarine depths of the Pacific Ocean, illuminating schools of fish dancing and frolicking in graceful synchronized patterns.
The second quilt is ‘One White Petal‘ for QuiltCon, specifically for the American Patchwork & Quilting Two-Color Quilt Challenge.
My artist statement is: Are petal shapes creating the effect of interlocking circles, or are overlapping circles creating a secondary design of petals? Whichever way you look at it, the traditional Orange Peel quilt pattern is a fascinating design. I selected a variety of black & white prints from my stash, combining geometric and floral prints with wild abandon. I used my favorite techniques of freezer paper templates, and machine stitched overlapped seams covered with bias tape.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
In October, I revealed one of the 3 artworks I submitted to the International Artists Day (IAD) Anonymous Festival, at 100 Braid St Studios in New Westminster BC.
At that point my other 2 pieces hadn’t sold, so I couldn’t reveal them until they sold or the show was over. Well, they didn’t sell. And the show been over for almost a month, but I’m just now getting around to posting these.
All 3 of my pieces are based on photos I took of local (New Westminster BC) landmarks or points of interest. I digitally enhanced each photo, printed it on fabric, fused the fabric to felt and added machine-quilting. Then I wrapped it on a stretched canvas.
Here are the original photos. You can see they were taken on cloudy days, and the colors weren’t all that good.
And here’s what they looked like after I enhanced them with desktop and iPad apps, and printed, quilted and wrapped them on the stretched canvas.
Here you can see the fairly minimal quilting on the back of the paddle wheel piece, and how I finished the back.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
Alida has lined up a number of quilter-artists, and has asked each of us to create a quilt or fabric project inspired by:
“any “conventional/fine art” piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, music, book). Anything from ancient Egyptian art, to Leonardo, from Picasso to Michelangelo, from Boccioni to Pythokritos.”
“** THEME for this SIXTH edition of the hop** –> My favorite color is… Come and celebrate the love for one color, it can be your favorite color of all time, or just the color that you have been loving this month.”
The Fall 2018 blog hop runs from November 5th to 9th, with 3 or 4 artists blogging each day about their artwork and inspiration. Check Alida’s Art with Fabric blog hop page for the complete schedule and links to all the participants’ blogs. Alida also has links to all the art-inspired quilted pieces from previous blog hops.
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My art quilt is inspired by the work of Piet Mondrian.
Piet Mondrian (1872 – 1944) was a Dutch artist who is most famous for his contribution to abstract art through works in which he used only the straight lines, the three primary colors (red, blue and yellow), and the neutrals of black, white and gray. He coined the term neoplasticism for this style.
Here is a typical example of his work, from WikiArt.org. The composition is asymmetrical, as in all of his mature paintings, with one large dominant block of color, here red, balanced by distribution of the smaller blocks of yellow, blue gray, and white around it.
I love the graphic look of Mondrian’s black grid lines, and the dramatic contrast of white, black and a limited palette of bright colors.
However, I have realized that primary colors are not my favorites. I’m more drawn to tertiary colors. My favorite color seems to change depending on what I’m working on – any bright color can make me happy. But if I had to pick one, it would be chartreuse.
So for my piece, I’ve used Mondrian’s typical horizontal and vertical black lines – although I couldn’t resist adding some circular lines! I have lots of white spaces, and a limited palette of tertiary colors, including several shades of chartreuse.
I used the same techniques (freezer paper templates, overlapped seams, trimmed and covered with bias tape) as described in this blog post.
Here it is pinned to my design wall. It’s quilted (with chartreuse thread), but not yet bound. I considered binding it with black, but I may add a thin white border instead – more Mondrian-like.
Last but not least, make sure you visit the blogs of today’s (November 6th) other artists to see what artwork they’ve been inspired by, and what their favorite colors are:
I’m happy to say that one of my pieces sold at the Opening Gala on Thursday night, so I can now show it here.
‘WOW Westminster with Dots’ is a photo of a local New Westminster public art installation – WOW Westminster – that I digitally enhanced, printed on fabric, fused to felt and machine-quilted. Then I wrapped it on a stretched canvas.
If this looks familiar, it’s because this is one of my favorite landmarks in New Westminster, and it has been featured in several of my artworks, including one the pieces I submitted in last year’s IAD Anonymous show. I started with the same photo, but used very different digital editing tools.
On Friday night, I went to see the show. The art was hung so the name of the artists are hidden. When an artwork is purchased, the art is removed from the display wall and the artist’s name revealed.
The show is on display today until 5pm. Next week, if my pieces haven’t been sold, they will be returned to me. So I’ll post more next week about how I made them.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
Over 100 well known and emerging artists create 12″ x 12″ art on canvas or wood panels-they are signed only on the back of the piece. The anonymous nature of the show ensures that all the art is treated equally, however the excitement of the unknown adds a special anticipation and excitement to the event. You’ll have to wait to find out who the artist is until you purchase but once you purchase you will be able to have your piece wrapped and take it home that night.
My pieces are finished, but because the art in the festival is anonymous until it is sold, I can’t show them in full, but here are some glimpses.
Here are a couple of photos from last year’s show. There will be even more art at this year’s show.
The art will be on display from October 25 to 28, 2018, starting with a Gala Opening the evening of Thursday, October 25th. Click here for more information.
After the festival is over, I’ll do a blog post about my 3 pieces.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
Last night, I attended the opening reception for three exhibitions at Places des Arts in Coquitlam BC.
In the Atrium Gallery, Botanical Reflections, a traveling exhibit of mixed media fibre art by members of the Fibre Art Network. There are more than 60 pieces on display.
Here are a few photos I took last night. Those are my two pieces in the lower right photo.
In the Leonore Peyton Salon, the 25th Anniversary Exhibition: Beautiful Moments, photography by the KOVAN Photo Club. Below you can see one wall of the gallery – there are lots more beautiful photos on display.
In the Mezzanine Gallery, watercolour series Up There! by Edna Bardell. The photo below shows only a few of her paintings on display.
If you live in the area, I do recommend this trio of exhibitions. They will be on display at Place des Arts through to November 10, 2018. Believe me, all three exhibitions are even more impressive in person.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
