The newest Quilting Arts magazine reader challenge is ‘Year of the Rooster’. I took this photo several years ago, and have been waiting for a reason to use it.
After I followed him around for awhile, this handsome fellow posed nicely for me.
I cropped and enhanced the photo, until it looked like this:
I traced my rooster onto paper-backed fusible web. Then I raided my scrap bins for bright, colorful fabrics. For the background, I created a rising sun. I quilted the sun first, then fused the rooster in place.
I free-motion quilted my rooster with black thread for a sketchy look. I called this little art quilt ‘Good Morning, Sunshine!’ It’s 9 x 9 inches.
Here’s a detail shot.
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 week I made four more blocks for Canada’s biggest Quilt Bee. These blocks are more wonky (and were more fun to make!) than the six blocks I made a couple of weeks ago.
Quilters across Canada (and in other countries, too!) are making blocks with the goal of making 1,000 quilts for kids at Ronald McDonald Houses across Canada. Some quilters are sending completed quilts, but many others are sending quilt tops and/or quilt blocks.
For 3 1/2 days in June 2017, at Quilt Canada in Toronto ON, the tops and blocks will be sewn into quilts by volunteer quilters. There will be sewing machines, long arms, mid arms and an army of volunteers to sew the blocks together and create the quilts. I’ve signed up for the Friday afternoon shift. It’s going to be a lot of fun!
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative projects to inspire you.
Updated April 14 – linking to this blog celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday:
Here’s a unique concept for an art exhibit. It’s called ‘Photo 2 Fibre‘ and it’s presented by the Gallery Vertigo in Vernon BC. The exhibit will open on April 6, and will run until April 29.
Participants were challenged to submit a fibre art piece based on, or inspired by, a photograph. The exhibit will include both the fibre art and the photographs.
When I saw this call for entry, I was excited by the concept and decided to enter. My challenge was selecting which 2 of my pieces to submit. My selections were partly determined by which of my inspiration photos were good enough quality to print and display.
I’m thrilled to say that both my submissions were accepted, and that one of them was featured on the exhibition poster!
My first submission was ‘Golden Reflections‘.
I took the photo one evening on the seawall near the Vancouver Convention Centre. The lights under the ramp to the nearby floating dock cast interesting reflections on the surface of the water below.
Using computer software, I cropped the photo and boosted the color and contrast. I printed my photo on fabric, and further enhanced some areas with watercolor pencils. I free-motion quilted the pattern of the reflections with variegated poly-sheen thread.
You can see more information about my process here.
My second entry was ‘Into the Wind‘.
While on vacation in the British Virgin Islands a few years ago, we were fascinated by the small Royal terns hanging out on the beach. They have distinctive black caps, and they usually all stand facing in the same direction – into the wind (except when we tried to take a picture of them, when some of them would invariably turn toward the camera!)
I drew a stylized version of one of the terns and made 3 of them, each a slightly different size and with some variation in fabrics, and positioned them all facing the same direction – into the wind.
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 week I’ve been working on blocks for a couple of group projects.
My guild, the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, has an ongoing project to make baby quilts to give to our members when they have babies. The current project is using square in square blocks in rainbow colors.
Earlier this month I made 4 blocks and took them to the guild meeting. We had a table covered with colorful blocks, but I neglected to take a photo of them. This week I made 6 more blocks. They’re quick and easy to make, and I love how they all look together.
The second group project I’m working on is Canada’s biggest Quilt Bee. To celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, the Canadian Quilting Association is inviting quilters make blocks, quilt tops and/or finished quilts. The goal is to make and donate 1,000 quilts for kids at Ronald McDonald Houses across Canada.
The blocks are 12.5″ slab blocks with at least some of the Canada sesquicentennial fabric in each one. On the weekend, I bought some of the Canada fabric, and today I made 6 blocks. They are quick and easy to make, and I’m using fabric out of my scrap collection.
This was my first opportunity to test my theory about how my new scrap strategy will work. I have several 11″ black fabric storage cubes labeled with color cards. Each cube holds 2 jumbo size zip-lock bags full of scraps.
I pulled out the bag of red scraps and then the one with black scraps. When I was finished sewing the 6 blocks, my cutting table looked like this.
I put all the scraps back in the appropriate bags, and plunked them back in their respective storage cubes. Five minutes later, my cutting table looked like this. It’s working for me!
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative projects to inspire you.
Updated April 14 – linking to this blog celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday:
That’s my piece ‘Ginkgo Reflections’ on the poster! Read about how I made this, and my second piece ‘Maple Reflections’ here.
‘Cherry Blossoms: A Textile Translation’ This is the 9th annual exhibition of textile art inspired by the cherry blossom. The show will be on display from March 21 to April 9, 2017 at the Silk Purse Art Centre in West Vancouver, BC. I will be at the opening reception tomorrow evening.
These are my two pieces, ‘Dotty Blossoms’ and ‘Drama Blossoms’, which I blogged about here.
Thanks for stopping by. I’m linking up with Nina Marie’s blog – click on the link below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
SAQA is inviting each of its members to create a small piece of art and donate it to the silent auction that will be held at the 2017 SAQA Conference. The 6” x 8” art quilts will be displayed in mats with a 4.5″ x 6.5” opening. These pieces will be sold through a silent auction at the Conference Banquet. All proceeds of the sales will benefit SAQA’s exhibition programs.
I love SAQA’s definition:
spot·lightnoun.
A strong beam of light that illuminates a small area, used especially to center attention on a fabulous art quilt
Here is my piece, which I have called ‘Heron Reflected’.
In May 2015, while walking along the Fraser River, I spotted a Great Blue Heron perched on a pile of debris (actually a log with roots attached, which had floated down the river and gotten stuck in the riverbed). I snapped a photo, and posted it on Instragram.
I was struck by the almost perfect reflection of the heron in the very still water, and thought it would make a great subject for a quilt. But I was not thrilled with the lack of color in my photo. So I used a photo-editing app called Sketch Guru to add some color. I printed my altered photo onto fabric, backed it with white felt and added machine quilting. I zigzag stitched around the edges.
Here is the back of my quilt – I still need to add a label.
And this is what it will look like when matted.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative projects to inspire you.
I’m participating in an Instagram challenge #organizedsewingspace2017 conceived and facilitated by Stephanie Jacobson. The challenge will run from January through June with two challenges/tasks per month and an approximate two-week window per task – a 12-step plan! I didn’t actively participate in January due to other commitments, but now I’ve joined in.
The first assignment for February was Fabric Storage and Organization. I’m happy with my basic fabric system, but it had gotten totally out of control! My fabric should all be in the 12 wire baskets, but as I’ve been working on projects, the fabric has migrated to the counter-top, and to boxes and bags on the floor. In order to get to the fabric, I first had to clean off the table. Then I moved it and the design wall out of the way. The photo below was taken just before I started re-organizing my fabric storage.
Over the next several days, I sorted and organized my fabric and pulled a lot out to give away – fabric that I bought years ago and my tastes have changed. Most of my fabric is fat quarter size or smaller – I only have one wire drawer with larger pieces, mainly used for quilt backs. The boxes on the right hold some of my scraps. The boxes and bins on the counter are intended to hold scraps, notions etc. as I continue to get organized.
The second assignment in February is Scrap Organization. I love keeping scraps, but I find it very hard to keep them organized. I’ve been through several phases of how I store my scraps. A few years ago, I decided to store my scraps in zip-lock bags, sorted by color. I liked this solution because I could easily see what I had in each color family. But then I had to find a place for the bags. I stored them in boxes on the shelf behind the design wall. In theory, the scraps would be out of the way, but still accessible when I needed them.
However, I didn’t find it easy to sort new scraps into color families, so I ended up with a few bags (and boxes) of unsorted scraps. Here you can see 3 boxes filled with scraps sorted by color, two boxes of unsorted scraps and a bag of solid scraps. Time for a new strategy.
So here’s my new scrap strategy. I bought several 11″ black fabric storage cubes and labeled them with color cards from the paint store. Each cube holds 2 of the jumbo size zip-lock bags. I LOVE ❤️ the way it looks! And it works for me – after I got these set up, I sorted all the mixed scraps into their color bins, and it seemed really easy.
While I was at it, I discarded a LOT of too-small scraps. Below you can see my 18″ tall garbage container full of scraps that I never should have saved in the first place.
I’m really liking this 12-step plan, and I can’t wait to see what the assignments are for March.
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 my last post, I showed 2 photos that I digitally altered and enhanced using a variety of apps on my iPad. I picked my favorite from each group to make two small art quilts. I printed each enhanced photo onto an 8.5 x 11 inch prepared fabric sheet, then I layered the printed photo on eco-felt and machine quilted it. I trimmed the photo portion to 8 x 8 inches, and zigzag stitched around the edge. Then I fused that onto a 10.5 x 10.5 inch background made from two layers of eco-felt fused together.
This is ‘Dotty Blossoms’. You can see the process from original photo to finished art quilt below.
And this is ‘Drama Blossoms’.
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.
I’m not actually working on any quilts right at the moment, but I do have two projects on the go.
I enrolled in Susie Monday’s online course Art on the iPad. Susie has introduced us to many iPad apps, and shown us how to use them artistically. I’m really enjoying the course. I’m learning so much about photo editing in general, and about specific iPad apps.
Here are two examples of the type of editing I have learned about in the first 3 weeks. I used various effects in several apps. I totally lost track of what apps, and what effects – I’m just having fun!
In the first group, you can see in the upper left a photo I took a couple of years ago of cherry blossoms, and all the variations using a number of iPad apps.
In the second group, my starting point is a 12 x 12 inch mini quilt I made a few years ago, and variations.
The other project I’m working on is an Instagram challenge #organizedsewingspace2017 organized by Stephanie Jacobson. The challenge will run from January through June with two challenges/tasks per month and an approximate two-week window per task. I didn’t actively participate in January due to other commitments, but I plan to join in. And by posting my intent here, I will feel even more motivated!
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative projects to inspire you.
Two of my quilts – ‘Circular Thinking’ and ‘Eclipse’ – were accepted to the Road to California quilt show, which started on January 19th and ends today. I was notified that my quilt ‘Eclipse’ was awarded “Honorable Mention: Modern Piecing” by the judges.
I was thrilled when Carol of Twin Creek Quilts posted a photo of my two quilts (and the ribbon!) on Instagram. You can see all of the award winning quilts here.
On January 27th, the Fibre Art Network exhibit ‘Botanical Reflections’ will open at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver BC. Unfortunately, I will be out of town for the artists reception on Saturday, January 28th, but the show will be there through to March 15, so I will see it later.
I was thrilled when I saw that the poster in the VanDusen newsletter to its members featured one of my quilts!
And while I’m boasting about my work, I recently received two quilts back that I had sent to magazines.
The Machine Quilting Unlimited 10th anniversary reader challenge ’10 x 10′ is published in their January/February 2017 issue. You can read more about my quilt here.
And the Quilting Arts Magazine reader challenge ‘Who Do You Love?’ is published in their February/March 2017 issue. You can read about how I made my entry ‘U R my Sunshine’ here.
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.
