‘Zesty, Bright and Spicy’ – 2024.02.17

Posted on February 17, 2024 by TerryAske

The next Fibre Art Network exhibit is called Narrow Works!

There are more than 40 pieces in the exhibit. Each artwork is 9½” wide x 19½” long, mounted on a 10” x 20” black canvas. There is no specific theme – Artists are encouraged to create “a smaller signature piece, one which highlights WHO you are as an artist, which takes you to your happy creative place . . . using your favourite techniques, colours, designs, and textures!”

Here is my artwork – ‘Zesty, Bright and Spicy‘

I created a design of vaguely circular shapes. The background is a small piece of linen fabric I had been hoarding for a long time, which was the perfect size for this exhibit. I used several of my favourite brightly coloured fabrics for the shapes. I fused them to black acrylic felt, then quilted loose, sketchy lines with black thread, and trimmed the felt closely to leave a narrow black outline. I attached my quilt to the black canvas with carpet tape. (I find it less messy than glue or matte medium.)

Here is a detail shot.

I am very pleased with my piece. I think I have successfully made a “signature piece, using my favourite techniques, colours, designs, and textures!”

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Thanks for reading. I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday.

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‘Moonlit Reflections’ accepted for Grand National: Delights – 2024.02.16

Posted on February 16, 2024 by TerryAske

In December, I submitted several entries to the Grand National Fibre Exhibition: Delights. The results were announced in January, and I’m happy to say that my diptych ‘Moonlit Reflections‘ was one of the 37 pieces selected by the curatorial team. The exhibit will tour to several venues across Canada during 2024 and 2025.

Each piece is 12 x 24 inches. You can read about my inspiration and design process in these posts – part 1, part 2, and part 3.

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Thanks for reading. I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday.

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January in Costa Rica – 2024.02.15

Posted on February 15, 2024 by TerryAske

The last time I posted here was January 2 – one and a half months ago! I haven’t abandoned my blog, but I was travelling for almost 3 weeks in January, and when I got home I had several quilting deadlines to meet.

When time is at a premium, it’s so much quicker and easier to post on Instagram and Facebook than writing a blog post. If you follow me on IG or FB, you may have already seen this information, and more. For those of you who only read my blog, here’s a recap of what I’ve been up to.

Early in January, I left the cold weather in the Vancouver BC with 4 friends, and flew to warm and sunny Costa Rica. While there, we stayed at several different places, all wonderful in their own ways.

We spent 8 happy days at Bosque del Cabo Rainforest Lodge – eating, drinking, relaxing, talking and laughing. We spent our days exploring the hiking trails through the rainforest, capturing the flora and fauna with our cameras. Evenings included happy hours snacks and drinks, delicious dinners and good conversations.

Then we drove up the Pacific coast to Pacific Edge Eco Lodge for a couple of days.

Then on to the city of San Jose for 3 days. Highlights included a visit to Peace Lodge and Waterfall Gardens nature park and wildlife sanctuary. We saw birds, butterflies, monkeys, sloths, sleepy cats, and paths to magnificent waterfalls.

We spent one day on a walking tour in San Jose called Central Market Bites and Sights. We toured many fruit and vegetable vendors, some of which have operated in the same location since the early 1900’s. And saw many local landmarks and interesting architecture.

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When I returned to Vancouver, I had a lot of deadlines, thus no blog posts until now. In the next couple of days, I intend to get caught up with posts about my recent quilting activities.

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‘Geometric Expressions’ SAQA virtual gallery – 2024.01.02

Posted on January 2, 2024 by TerryAske

SAQA’s newest virtual gallery ‘Geometric Expressions‘ is now available for viewing on the SAQA website. It’s a pretty amazing collection of artworks, curated by Pat Forster. She selected 43 artworks from 267 submissions.

The Geometric Expressions online gallery (thumbnails below) can be seen here on the SAQA website. You can click on any square image to launch the slideshow. Be sure to click See Details under each image to find out more about each piece, including additional images and artist statements. There is also a Virtual Tour in a gallery setting.

I’m very happy that my piece ‘Dramatically Diagonal’ was selected for inclusion in this exhibit.

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DUET 2 – 2023.12.30

Posted on December 30, 2023 by TerryAske

In 2022, I created an art quilt I called DUET. Read about it here.

DUET by Terry Aske

My friends Kate and Rick fell in love with DUET and said they wanted to purchase it. They intended to display it with two stringed instruments they have collected in their travels. However, it soon became obvious to all of us that the colors I used for Duet (chartreuse and violet – above) did not fit their colour preferences at all. So I offered to make a version just for them.

We looked at some of their favourite treasures and created a whole new palette. Kate and I spent a lot of time shopping for fabrics, and came up with this palette of royal blue, moss green and terracotta. We looked at in black & white to ensure the values would work.

As the project developed, we also decided their art quilt should be 24 x 32 inches (rather than 24 x 24) and should be mounted on a canvas frame.

While we were debating various fabric options, Kate and I had a ‘what if?’ moment when we decided the sound hole of one of the ukuleles should be a diamond shape to reflect the shape of one of their instruments.

Of course, then I felt it necessary to ensure the circle and the diamond shapes each had the same area. I found a tutorial in WikiHow. In fact, I ignored the complicated formulas, and just printed out the diagram below, and traced the two shapes. We are very pleased with this design decision.

Here is the finished piece – DUET 2. Mounted on a 24 x 32 inch stretched canvas.

DUET 2, by Terry Aske

Here it is in Kate and Rick’s home with their treasured musical instruments. I think it looks fantastic!

DUET 2, by Terry Aske

Here is another view.

Posted in Art quilts, On my design wall | Tagged | 5 Comments

A new mini art quilt – 2023.10.28

Posted on October 28, 2023 by TerryAske

Here is a 12 x 12 inch mini quilt I made recently. It was intended for a Quilting Arts magazine invitational challenge, but it wasn’t selected. But I’m sure it will find a place in an exhibit at some point.

I wanted to use bright colors with black lines on a chartreuse background. I experimented with circles and curves and squares, but the overlapping squarish shapes appealed the most.

Terry Aske – My Signature Colors

While composing my artist statement, I searched my blog for some good wording about my love of chartreuse, and rediscovered this post from September 2012 (the third post on my blog!).

It describes my entry to the Quilting Arts “What’s your Signature Color?” reader challenge.  My answer was “My absolute favorite color is chartreuse; you’ll find at least a bit of it in almost every one of my quilts.  It’s a bold and complex color that adds punch to almost any color palette.”

It’s eleven years later, and I still love chartreuse, especially when combined with bright vibrant colors and a touch of black.  I named this piece My Signature Colors.

I used some of my favourite techniques – freezer paper templates and raw edge seams covered with bias tape. I sewed the center pieces together, then inserted them into the background.

The seams are covered with skinny black bias tape. I machine quilted an overall tilted grid with chartreuse thread, and the edges are faced.

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I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday.

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Tertiary complementary colours – 2023.10.09

Posted on October 9, 2023 by TerryAske

During the month of September, I continued working on the trio of art quilts that I posted about on July 31. Each piece consists of complementary tertiary color pairs (yellow/orange with blue/violet, yellow/green with red/violet, and red/orange with blue/green). The diameters of the nested circles are based on the proportions of the Fibonacci sequence – 1,2,3,5,8,13,21.  The vertical sections use the Fibonacci proportions – 1,2,3,5. 

I finished these at the beginning of October. Here are my 3 pieces as they will be hung in the FYBR 2RT exhibit. Each one is 20 x 20 inches. They are mounted on wrapped canvases.

Initially, I thought I would create 3 different designs – one for each piece. But I liked this design so much, I decided to use it for all of them, and let the colours and values be the differentiating features.

I didn’t realize until I saw them all together how different they each are. You can see from the black & white version below that the placement of the dark and light values makes each piece unique.

This is my artist statement:

One design; three very different looks. Each of my pieces use the same layout of asymmetric nested circles based on the Fibonacci sequence. What makes each piece unique is the variety of colours and the interplay and juxtaposition of dark and light values.  

After writing the statement, I decided on the title – Interplay and Juxtaposition.

Here are the 3 pieces.

Interplay and Juxtaposition 1
Interplay and Juxtaposition 2
Interplay and Juxtaposition 3

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I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday.

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SAQA annual benefit auction starts soon – 2023.09.09

Posted on September 9, 2023 by TerryAske

SAQA’s 2023 Benefit Auction will take place online from September 14 through October 8. 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 380+ 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 14th. Or just enjoy browsing through hundreds of mini works of art!

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My entry this year is ‘Aqua Flow‘. I made this last December for a Curated Quilts mini challenge. It wasn’t accepted, but I am happy to donate it for the auction. You can read about my design and construction techniques in this post.

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This is my eleventh SAQA auction quilt! As you can see, I like to mix it up and use a variety of techniques.

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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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Variations on a theme – 2023.08.26

Posted on August 26, 2023 by TerryAske

I have been working on a trio of art quilts in complementary tertiary color pairs (yellow/orange with blue/violet, yellow/green with red/violet, and red/orange with blue/green). I love tertiary colors, but I always want to to use ALL the tertiary colors, not just a pair of them.

Later this month, I’ll be heading to Penticton BC for the annual conference of the Fibre Art Network.  As usual, we will have an artwork exchange.  The theme is ‘Anything Goes’ and the only criteria is the outside perimeter or circumference cannot exceed 40 inches.

I decided to use the same pattern I created for the trio of quilts, reduced to 10 x 10 inches, and include all the tertiary colors on a background of black felt. As I love a scrappy look, I divided the pattern in half, so I could include 2 fabrics of each color.

I started in the center with yellow/green, then following the color wheel counter-clockwise, I added yellow/orange, red/orange, red/violet, blue/violet, blue/green and finally green/yellow. I know that last one is really the same as yellow/green, but there are only 6 tertiary colors and my design has 7 sections. So I used my favorite color twice – in the center and on the outer circle.

This came together quickly, as I already had a lot of tertiary fabrics out for the other project.

Here are a couple of progress shots. I cut most of the fabrics on the bias so the straight edges would be less likely to fray.

building from the center out
trim slightly inside the marker lines

It is important to remember not to set the iron on high, so as not to melt the felt! I set it at medium, use a press cloth and keep the iron moving. This seems to be hot enough to set the fusible without shrinking or melting the felt.

Here is ‘All the Tertiary Colours’, just under 10 x 10 inches. I’m not sure which way should be up, so I positioned the label diagonally. I will include a couple of my hanging clips rather than sewing on a sleeve.

I really like this, and I think I will make one for myself.

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I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday.

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Circles workshop in Victoria – 2023.08.24

Posted on August 24, 2023 by TerryAske

Last week I travelled to Victoria BC to do a presentation and workshop for the Victoria Quilter’s Guild. The presentation was mostly a PowerPoint slide show, plus I brought some of my smaller quilts to show.

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The Circles workshop was the first I have taught since Covid, and it just as fun for me and the participants as I remembered. Here are just a few of the circle blocks made by participants during the workshop.

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Victoria is one of my favorite cities to visit, partly because it beautiful, yet quirky, and partly because I have family there. Here a few of my favorite photos from my visit last week.

  • From the bounty of my sister Anne’s garden – applesauce-fig concoctions with coconut cream, garnished with figs, white and red raspberries and currents.
  • Garden trolls.
  • Lovely little library.
  • Ubiquitous deer in a parking lot.

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  • Anne’s garden of hobbits, gnomes, dragons and other mythical creatures.
  • A music fest at a small neighbourhood park.
  • Wandering the Inner Harbour area in the evening.
  • BC Parliament Buildings lit up at night.

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It was a wonderful week, and I plan to visit again soon.

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I’m linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday.

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