Off my design wall – another circle quilt – 2015.08.19

Posted on August 19, 2015 by TerryAske

Another week, another circle quilt!

Although it looks finished, this quilt can still be considered a WiP because it doesn’t yet have a label, a hanging sleeve – or a title.  (If you’re interested in titles for quilts – or other artwork, for that matter – come back on Friday for a blog post on that subject.  And if you have an idea for a title for this quilt, please let me know.)

TerryAske-circle quilt

 

This quilt started with a design I made with MS Paint, and some fabrics I thought would work well together.    I decided to offset the vertical seams in the circle, rather than have them line up with the seams in the negative space around the circle.   Because I tend to have smaller pieces of fabric in my collection, I was forced to rearrange the colors from my original design.  For example, I had wanted to use a lot more of the yellow fabric, but I just didn’t have enough of it.   But that’s part of the challenge – working with the fabric I have.  Sometimes I find that frustrating, but in this case, I’m happy with the final result.

Stripes    TerryAske_CirclewithMagenta

 

I quilted straight vertical lines mostly 1/2″ apart, using a variety of thread colors, matching them to the fabrics in the circle section.   I particularly like the effect of the pink thread on the chartreuse fabric.

TerryAske-circle quilt-detail

 

I finished it with a facing, using my usual technique to reduce bulk in the corners.  This time, I planned ahead and before quilting the last couple of inches on each side, I squared and trimmed the quilt, and cut out the corners of the batting.  Then I quilted the last few vertical lines.  This way the quilting went right to the edges and I didn’t have to worry about it when I applied the facings.

TerryAske-reducing bulk in corners

 

Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative projects to inspire you.

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced     Esther’s Blog   Sew Fresh Quilts

 

 

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A finished art quilt and updated tutorial – 2015.08.16

Posted on August 16, 2015 by TerryAske

When I showed the progress on ‘Circular Thinking’ a couple of weeks ago, it was quilted and just waiting to be faced.  I had quilted the right side with horizontal straight lines, and the left side with vertical lines.  I decided to add vertical quilting in the chartreuse portion of the circle, so that section now has a grid of quilting.  I’m really happy with the effect!

I’ve submitted to a show that I’ve never entered before, Quilts=Art=Quilts (QAQ), an international juried quilt exhibition at the Schweinfurth Art Center.

TerryAske_CircularThinking

 

When I was applying the facing to this quilt, I decided to change my technique for reducing bulk in the corners.  I cut a 1″ square out of the batting in each corner.  I’ve updated my facing technique tutorial with this information.

DSCN5043    DSCN5041

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many creative and inspirational projects.

   Creations by Nina-Marie   Confessions of a Fabric Addict

 

Posted in Art quilts, Friday finishes, Tutorial | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

View my Quilts at Shows – 2015.08.14

Posted on August 14, 2015 by TerryAske

Several of my quilts are currently on display, or will be in the next couple of months.

 

My circle quilt ‘Off-Center’ is on display at Quilt!Knit!Stitch! in Portland OR, in the Black to White exhibit.  The show will close tomorrow, August 15, 2015.

Aske.Terry-Off-Center-FULL

 

The Fibre Art Network’s exhibit Canadiana will be showing at the Langley Centennial Museum in Fort Langley from Aug. 17 to Nov. 10, 2015.  My art quilt ‘Air of Elegance‘ is part of this exhibit.

CanadianaPoster

 

Another Fibre Art Network exhibit, ‘Abstracted‘ will be on display at the Maple Ridge ACT Gallery in Maple Ridge BC from September 12 until sometime in October 2015.  This is a fabulous show – it explores the concepts of realistic and abstract art. Pairs of artists each selected a subject, and then one artist created a representative fibre art piece and the other created an abstract / non-representative fibre art piece.

I teamed up with my sister Anne for our entries titled ‘Solitude‘.  More information about our design process can be seen here.

Solitude_TerryAskeandAnnedeVerteuil

 

I was recently notified the following quilts have been juried into the 2015 Quilt & Fiber Arts Festival in La Conner WA.  The festival takes place October 2 to 4, 2015.

The collaborative art quilt I made with my sister Anne, titled ‘Fire: an Element’ will be in the Fiber Art – Created Textiles category.

AnnedeVerteuilandTerryAske_FireanElement

 

My art quilt ‘Songhees Arbutus’ will be in the Original Pictorial Wall Quilt category.

TerryAske_SongheesArbutus

 

And two of my quilts ‘Shades of Gray’ and ‘Exploding Wedges’ were accepted for the Modern Bed or Wall Quilt category.

TerryAske_ShadesofGray  TerryAske_ExplodingWedges

 

If you have an opportunity to attend any of these shows and see some of my quilts in person, I’d love to hear what you think.

 

 

Posted in Art quilts, Quilt shows | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

On my design wall – Circles! – 2015.07.31

Posted on July 31, 2015 by TerryAske

The circle quilt I started working on earlier this month is almost finished.  I quilted the right side with horizontal straight lines, and the left side with vertical lines.  I debated for a while if I wanted to finish it with a narrow black binding, or with a facing.  I decided the facing would make it look more ‘arty’ and less ‘quilty’, so that’s what I’m going to do.  I think I will call it ‘Circular Thinking’.

TerryAske_CircularThinking-beforefacing

 

I already have an idea for my next circle quilt.  Here’s a design I made with MS Paint, and the fabrics I will most likely use.  I want this to be an art piece as well, so I pulled out some of my most ‘arty’ fabrics.

Stripes  fabric selection

 

And, if that’s not enough about circle quilts, I’ve made a couple of new sample blocks for my Circles Circles Circles workshop, where I teach the freezer paper pattern technique that I used/will use for the 2 quilts above.  I will be teaching a workshop in November, and another one in January – dates and locations are listed on my Workshops page.

DSCN5093  DSCN5092-002

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many creative and inspirational projects.

   Creations by Nina-Marie   Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Posted in Art quilts, On my design wall, workshops | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

On my design wall – 2015.07.15

Posted on July 15, 2015 by TerryAske

I started designing a new circle quilt a couple of days ago.  I created a basic design in MS Paint.  I picked some contrasting colors without really thinking about the fabric I had on hand.

 

I wanted to use a combination of woven or woven-looking fabrics and fabrics with circle designs.  Of course, the colors I picked in MS Paint were not in my stash, so I changed my color choices based on fabric that I have on hand.  To no one’s surprise, the only piece of woven fabric big enough for the circle was – chartreuse!  I had to subdivide some of the sections because I didn’t have enough fabric, but I like the changes I’ve made.  This was my first design pinned to the wall.

DSCN5020

 

I liked the general concept, but thought it needed some more accents of color.  I’m going to add a narrow strip of violet, a wider strip of the black batik with multi-colored circles, and black binding to outline the circle.  The fabrics are just pinned in place right now, and more changes may occur to me before I sew it all together.

DSCN5025

 

Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative projects to inspire you.

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced     Esther’s Blog   Sew Fresh Quilts

Posted in Art quilts, On my design wall, WiP Wednesday | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Water diamonds & workshops – 2015.07.10

Posted on July 10, 2015 by TerryAske

A couple of days ago, I started cutting diamond shapes to use in the ‘Water’ quilt.   Today, I sewed three rows together – to figure out if the size I had cut would look good when sewn together.  I also experimented with pressing the seams – press all seams to the same side, press to the side alternating the direction for each row, or press open.  I decided pressing all the seams open worked the best for me.  And, I liked the finished size after sewing.

Now I’ve cut a lot more diamonds in a variety of fabrics.  At this point, they’re arranged on the design wall in no particular order.   I’m happy with the mix of dark and light fabrics – giving the impression of sunlight reflecting off the waves.  I plan to add more fabrics before sewing the diamonds together.  (The lower rows are the ones that have been sewn together.)  I’m keeping the curves next to the diamonds on my design wall, to make sure they work together, even if I don’t use exactly all the same fabrics.

TerryAske_water diamonds  TerryAske_water curves & diamonds

 

In other news, I’ve finally created a page on my blog with the descriptions of all the workshops I offer.  This should make it easier and simpler for guilds inquiring about my workshops, and for me when describing what I offer.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many creative and inspirational projects.

   Creations by Nina-Marie   Confessions of a Fabric Addict

 

Posted in Art quilts, On my design wall, workshops | Tagged , | 3 Comments

On my design wall – 2015.07.08

Posted on July 8, 2015 by TerryAske

Now that all my immediate deadlines (to enter quilts in shows, and to send quilts to shows) have been dealt with, I can pick up where I left off on ‘Water’, the second in a series of collaborative quilts I’m making with my sister Anne.  (You can see ‘Fire’, the first of the series here.)

We’ve decidDSCN4803ed to make ‘Water’ the same size as ‘Fire’ (which is actually 22 by 57 inches, despite what my sketch says).  The color palette will be blue with bits of bright contrasting colors, and the design will be horizontal strips with curvy piecing, with a large contrasting vertical curve the length of the quilt.  We’re each going to work independently on the side sections, then when we get together again we’ll arrange them on the design wall and decide what to do with the center section.

I started with some curved piecing, mostly in various shades of blue but with some green and purple as well.  That piece is currently 13 x 31 inches.  I may add more to it, or start a separate piece with wider or skinnier curves.  Until we get together, I don’t know for sure which of my pieces will make it into the final design – I expect that some of them will get chopped up.

I wanted some other shapes that looked like water but weren’t curves.  I remembered seeing some quilts which used diamonds for water, to great effect.  One artist who does this is Jan P. Krentz.  I’ve seen a couple of other very impressive diamond art quilts on the web, but can’t figure out who the artists are – found on Flickr and Pinterest.  (If you know who made these quilts, please pass their names along so I can give them credit.)

My diamonds are about 2 inches high, so the finished size after sewing them together will be  about 1.5 inches.  I’m going to use more fabrics than what’s on my design wall right now, but I wanted to see the effect (which I like a lot), and I should probably sew some of them together to make sure I like the finished size before I cut too many more.  This going to be more time consuming than the curves, but I think having the same fabrics with the two different techniques will look great.

TerryAske_Water_WIP

 

Anne tells me she has a huge pile of blue fabrics in her studio and has been thinking about surface design ideas that will work with our theme.  She said when she has something to show, she’ll send me photos so I can post them on my blog.

 

Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative projects to inspire you.

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced     Esther’s Blog   Sew Fresh Quilts

Posted in Art quilts, Inspiration, On my design wall, WiP Wednesday | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Some news – 2015.07.06

Posted on July 6, 2015 by TerryAske

I’m afraid there’s nothing on my design wall right now (although there are plenty of quilts being designed in my head!), so I have nothing new to show, but I do have some news.

I’m very happy to say that my quilt Off-Center was accepted for inclusion in Black to White 2015 at Quilt! Knit! Stitch! in Portland in August.  So it’s heading out in the mail.

logo

Aske.Terry-Off-Center-FULL

 

Another one of my quilts, Swoop has been travelling for almost a year – first for photography for the sixth annual issue of the International Quilt Festival: Quilt Scene magazine, then on to International Quilt Festival/Houston for the special exhibit Tactile Architecture 2014,  which also showed at IQF/Chicago in the spring.  I love it when I get a quilt back that’s been traveling, and it looks as good as, or even better than, I remembered it!  It’s great to have it home again!

 

        DSCN4127  DSCN4128

TerryAske_Swoop

 

And, I updated my About the Artist page to include a widget showing my most recent Instagram posts.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many creative and inspirational projects.

   Creations by Nina-Marie

Posted in Art quilts, Modern quilts, Publications, Quilt shows | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

WIP Wednesday – 2015.06.24

Posted on June 24, 2015 by TerryAske

This week I made a border for the June assignment of the Vancouver MQG Round Robin project. There are 11 of us participating.  We each brought our own starting block to the February meeting, and we each left with someone else’s project.  Each month, we receive instructions for the next step – adding one to four borders, with a specific theme.  We take the project back to the next meeting, and pick up another person’s project for that month.  At the January 2016 meeting, our quilt tops will have been added to by each participant, and we will get our own quilt top back.  Until then, the projects are stored in plain paper bags, so that the progress on each quilt top will be a big surprise at the end.

In order to maintain the secrecy, I generally can’t show photos of the border I am working on, because I often include some of the original fabrics, or the color palette is very specific, and a photo would spoil the secret.

The theme this month is Stars, and our assignment is to add one border.  As it happens, this month I’m using all fabrics from my stash and the colors are not specific to the project, so I don’t think anyone will be able to guess whose project this belongs to.  I used a paper-pieced pattern for a wonky star that I designed several years ago.

DSCN4998

 

Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative projects to inspire you.

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced     Esther’s Blog   Sew Fresh Quilts

Posted in Modern quilts, On my design wall, WiP Wednesday | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Finishes – 2015.06.21

Posted on June 21, 2015 by TerryAske

This week I have two completed quilts to show you.

I finished my entry for the Black to White (BTW) challenge and submitted it for jurying.  I used the freezer paper pattern technique I taught my Circles Circles Circles workshop and finished it with my facing technique.  I’m really happy with how this looks.  It’s 37 x 37 inches, and is titled ‘Off-Center’.

Aske.Terry-Off-Center-FULL

 

The second is the fiber art piece made by my sister Anne and me.  Together, we experimented with a variety of surface design techniques and constructed blocks of fabrics.  We used some interesting materials for embellishment, including old coins, nylon net and a piece of gridded non-slip rug pad.  FireanElement_detail_TA

It’s been almost finished for some time, but this weekend I finally got the binding sewn on.  We’re going to enter it in the La Conner 2015 Quilt & Fiber Arts Festival in the Fiber Art – Created Textiles category.   The size is 22 x 57 inches, and it’s titled ‘Fire: an Element’.   Anne and I will be making more pieces together for an Elements series.

FireanElement_front_TA

I’m also going to submit several of my own quilts to the La Conner show, but haven’t decided yet which ones.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many creative and inspirational projects.

   Creations by Nina-Marie   Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Posted in Art quilts, Modern quilts, Quilt shows | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments