Curated Quilts magazine has a new call for entry for mini quilts – the theme is Triangles. The image below shows the color palette they would like entrants to use, all or in part.
I have made two entries – ‘Improv Triangles’ and ‘Triangles’. They are each 10.25 inches square.
You can see all the entries here. Early in April, they will announce which of the mini quilts will be included in the 4th issue of the magazine.
Tally Marks
I’m working on another challenge – the Canadian Quilters’ AssociationTrend-Tex Challenge. Here are the five fabrics that must be used. The theme is ‘Celebrate’ to recognize the 30 years that Trend-Tex has been providing fabrics for the challenge, which is a fund raising activity for the association.
I decided to base my design on the theme of 30 years. I wanted a design that looked modern and interesting, and decided on tally marks. I’m not fond of the bubblegum pink color in the front fabric, but some extreme fussy cutting minimized that color in my quilt.
At this point I have fused the tally marks to the background fabric, and started the quilting. It’s going to finish at about 16 x 20 inches.
All the submitted quilts will be displayed at Quilt Canada 2018 in Vancouver BC, from May 31 – June 2.
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.
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 exhibitions, publications, and education outreach activities.
This is my entry for this year – ‘Fallen Beauty’
My artist statement: Autumn is a magical time when the leaves explode into vibrant color, then float and drift to the ground. When walking, I watch for colorful leaves on the sidewalk and capture their beauty with my camera. Original photo, digitally enhanced and printed on fabric. Leaf and background are free-motion quilted. The edges are faced.
I used a very similar process as I did for ‘Beauty on the Sidewalk’ earlier this month. I started with the photo below, taken last fall. I digitally enhanced the photo, printed it on fabric, fused the fabric to felt, and free-motion quilted it. Here is the original photo, and a view of the quilting from the back before I covered it with the final backing fabric.
This is my sixth auction quilt! Below are the five previous ones. Click on each of the images to see more information about how I made each one.
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.
At any given time, the Fibre Art Network has several exhibitions traveling to various venues, and one or more in the planning stages. At the end of 2016, a new exhibit titled ‘Conversations‘ was announced.
‘Conversations’ will be an exhibition based on a conversation between two artists working together. The concept is that the two partners will engage in a conversation about their works. Each pair of artists must agree on their subject matter (the two pieces must relate or respond to each other as a unit) and on the size and orientation of the two pieces (they must both be the same).
I immediately contacted my fibre artist sister, Anne de Verteuil. We’ve worked on collaborative projects in the past; we enjoy collaborating and we work well together. We were partners for another Fibre Art Network exhibition ‘Abstracted‘ and on a piece we called ‘FIRE: an Element’. We have a work in progress titled ‘WATER: an Element’, but for a variety of reasons it has yet to be completed.
Anne agreed to partner with me for ‘Conversations‘, and we started thinking about what our topic should be. We had lots of time to decide, as the entry deadline wasn’t until early 2018.
* * * * * * * *
Then in January 2017, our Dad passed away. As we were cleaning out his belongings, it occurred to us that Dad should be the subject of our ‘Conversations‘ pieces. We would each make a fibre portrait of Dad commemorating his life. Anne would create “Young Jack” and I would create “Older Jack”.
“Young Jack” is based on a professional photo taken in the 1940’s just before Dad left Trinidad to come to Canada. A fairly recent photo provided the inspiration for “Older Jack”. Anne flipped the photo of Young Jack, so that the two finished portraits would be facing each other when hung together.
We used image editing software to create a guide for the fused fabric collage technique we used to make the portraits. Here are few of the many versions we created.
We felt it would be meaningful to construct our pieces from Dad’s clothing – ties and shirts, as well as his favorite sweater vest, which we both had mended several times.
Over the next 10 months, we collaborated in person, by phone, texting and email. We discussed various techniques. We talked about colour values, colour symbolism and Dad’s lifelong struggle with depression and anxiety. We sent each other photos of our progress. Our design and construction ideas evolved as we shared ideas.
We reminisced about conversations we had with Dad. He loved debating – politics, philosophy, world events, and the activities of his children. He loved writing – private thoughts in his journals, personal affirmations and inspirational quotes on the back of business cards, long letters to his family members. We used some of his writings in our pieces – and we printed them all on pieces cut from his white shirts.
Dad’s writings were often philosophical and introspective, which inspired our title: “Jack: Conversations with Myself“.
Here are the two finished pieces. They will hang next to each other in the FAN ‘Conversations‘ exhibit, which will premiere May 31 at Quilt Canada 2018 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
If you look closely, you can see that we used some of the same shirt and tie fabrics in both pieces.
For “Young Jack” Anne hand dyed some of the shirt fabric to get the colors and values she wanted for the face. In the background, she included a letter he sent to his parents in 1947 describing life in BC, and images of envelopes and stamps from that year. These are printed on shirt fabric.
For “Older Jack” I included Dad’s favorite, oft-mended sweater vest in the background. I printed some of the cards with his personal affirmations on shirt fabric and fused them to the sweater vest. I also included a poem referring to “jack-stars” that he had adapted and sent to me and my siblings a couple of years ago, and I hand-embroidered some “jack-stars”.
Working on these portraits of Dad was a very special way for us to process his passing and to celebrate his life. Dad was also a vocal fan of my blog. Whenever I published a post, he would call me to discuss the artistic merits of whatever I was working on. He didn’t hesitate to critique or praise my work, as he thought appropriate. I still think of him every time I publish a post.
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.
‘From a Tiny Seed’ is the newest Fibre Art Network exhibit. All the pieces will be the same size – 8.5 x 11 inches. This small format exhibit is intended to be loaned to quilt guilds and small venues such as libraries.
The theme made me think of trees, which turned my thoughts to autumn leaves, and all the photos I took in October of leaves on the ground. I used to collect autumn leaves but I was always disappointed when the colors faded as they dried. This past fall, I took photos of leaves as I found them – mostly lying on the sidewalk. Here’s a collage of several leaves I photographed the last weekend of October. And I have a lot more from earlier in October.
For my entry to ‘From a Tiny Seed’ I used the photo below, taken earlier in October. I digitally enhanced the photo, printed it on fabric, fused it to felt, and quilted it. I decided to try free-motion quilting pebbles on the sidewalk background. I’m very happy with the result.
Here is the finished piece, which I am calling ‘Beauty on the Sidewalk’.
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.
My art quilt ‘Exuberant Trees’ will be on display this month at Gallery Vertigo in Vernon BC. The theme of the 5th Annual Fibre Art Exhibit is “Wild Life“. The show will run from March 6th to 31st. The opening reception is the evening of March 10th.
Here’s my piece ‘Exuberant Trees’. If you’d like to know how I made this art quilt, click here.
Here’s the poster for the exhibition. You can see my trees peaking out from behind the raven.
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.
Exciting news – in January, I posted about two art quilts I made for a new SAQA exhibit ‘Dusk to Dawn’ – Moonrise and Aurora.
I felt I had a very slim chance of either being selected – typically, hundreds of SAQA members submit entries for these exhibits, and only 25 – 35 artworks are selected.
I was astonished and thrilled when I was notified that both pieces were accepted for the exhibition! And, Aurora is one of five art quilts featured in the banner on the SAQA page about the Dusk to Dawn exhibition!
The exhibition will debut at Quilt Festival Houston in November – I may have to attend this year.
Another mini cityscape – Last week, I posted about my entry to the SAQA Spotlight Auction, a mini cityscape of Vancouver BC at Dusk. I used the same design, but very different fabrics, for another mini quilt for the Cloth Paper Scissors reader challenge – A Stitched Collage: Cityscape. I’ll know on March 9th if mine is selected as a finalist for publication.
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.
This is my entry to the SAQA Spotlight Auction. All pieces must be 6” x 8” (portrait or landscape orientation).
This mini art quilt is inspired by my city, Vancouver BC, which is located in a spectacular scenic location between the mountains and the ocean. As the sun sets, the sky and mountains take on a dusky purple hue. The rays of the setting sun reflect off the windows of the city buildings, giving them a golden glow.
My starting point was an art quilt I made in 2010 (wow, time flies!). I used the image to make a line drawing. As with the original, I used actual, realistic lines for the North Shore Mountains, but I simplified the buildings and reflections. I included the distinctive shape of the Harbour Centre Lookout tower.
I fused the fabrics to a piece of felt cut to the finished size of 6″ x 8″. I quilted it,using shiny rayon threads for the water.
Then I folded the edges to the back of the felt, and fused on a backing.
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 Friday, I finished my cherry blossom modern/art quilt with a black binding, gave it a title and submitted it for consideration for the textile art exhibit Cherry Blossoms: A Textile Translation.
I was having a hard time coming up with a title and had asked for suggestions in previous blog posts and on Instagram. There were lots of great suggestions (thank you!), but what inspired me the most was a wonderful Haiku poem written by Karen Cooper @karensc0sm0s:
Black sky before dawn – Rain drops falling glitter gold – Sakura blossoms
Karen’s Haiku poem inspired my title ‘Midnight Sakura‘. Here is a full view of the front and the back of ‘Midnight Sakura’. (Yes, I still need to add a sleeve and label.)
And a detail shot:
This weekend, I made a block for the VMQG Vancouver Improv Sampler project. Every month, an image of a familiar sight or landmark from the Vancouver area is posted for inspiration. The concept is that after 12 months, each participant will have enough blocks to create a quilt of Vancouver-themed blocks.
The subject for December was construction cranes decorated with holiday lights. The subject for January was the East Van Cross. Here are my blocks. My December block is improv-pieced, but for the January block I drew a pattern on freezer paper.
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.
My cherry blossom modern/art quilt is quilted, and just needs a black binding before I can submit it to the textile art exhibit Cherry Blossoms: A Textile Translation.
I quilted the black and gold background hexagons with gold rayon thread, using my walking foot. I free-motion quilted the cherry blossoms with black thread for a sketchy look. I’m very happy with how it looks. Here’s a partial view of the front and the back.
I’ll have to decide on a name for it by Friday, which is the deadline to enter. I’m thinking of something with the word ‘Glitz’ or ‘Glitzy’.
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.
My cherry blossoms modern/art quilt is all pieced. It’s about 16 x 22 inches. I don’t think I’ll add a border, just black binding. I’m stumped for a name and would welcome suggestions.
I made a total of 3 blossoms. I stopped at 3 because I wanted it to be a small piece, and also because I have a very limited amount of the black fabric with gold dots – only 2 fat-eighths of each. They were left over from the MQG Michael Miller Glitz fabric challenge, and I won a package of fat-eighths as a door prize a couple of years ago.
Next, I had to decide how to piece the blossoms with the background pieces. Here are a couple of sketches I made. I used the layout on the left.
Each blossom is made from 6 triangle-shaped pieces to form a hexagon. I pieced each blossom into 2 half-hexagon sections, each made of 3 triangles, as my plan was to join the pieces in columns. However, I didn’t want a seam down the center of the large dot pieces, so I cut them as complete hexagons. That made the piecing a bit tricky. I sewed the pieces into columns as much as possible, then dealt with the Y-seams. I won’t lie – there was some un-stitching and re-stitching involved in sewing some of those seams!
Here it is all sewn together, and ready to be layered and quilted.
Come back in a few days to see how I quilt it. And, as I said at the beginning of this post, I’d love some suggestions for a title for this one.
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.
