Night Driving – 2021.05.10

Posted on May 10, 2021 by TerryAske

Last August, I started thinking about what I would submit to the Grand National 2021 exhibition ‘Crossroads’. I made two pieces specifically for this exhibition: Night Driving and A Study of Pattern and Perspective. I submitted my entries in December, but didn’t want to post about them until the exhibition opened on May 2. This post is about Night Driving – my inspiration and construction techniques.

As I often do when searching for inspiration, I did a Google image search for the theme title and similar words. As usual, one image search led to many others and eventually I was looking at a screen full of time-lapse photos of highway traffic at night. I was struck by the beauty of the streams of light, and I decided to see if I could replicate that effect in a fibre art format.

I started with a sketch of two highways, one passing over the other, with red taillights on the right and white headlights on the left. I cut the highway shapes from freezer paper to use as templates as my plan was to quilt the highways separately from the background.

How to depict streams of lights? I considered paint, but that’s not my style. I considered fusing very skinny strips of shiny fabric. It had to be bright enough to show up against the dark background. I decided to use embroidery floss couching it in place by zigzag stitching over it with shiny thread. I made a couple of samples and was very happy with the results.

I constructed each highway piece separately. I layered black fabric over black felt and stitched through both layers. For each one, I started by stitching 7 evenly spaced lines, over which I couched embroidery floss. This ensured my lines curved accurately with the curve of the highway. Then I filled in with a variety of colors and overlapped some of the curves. I frequently pinned the highways on the design wall to evaluate the effect.

  • light streams – starting
  • light streams – details added

I made the highway pieces a couple of inches longer than the templates to give me some ‘wriggle room’ when I did the final positioning and stitched them to the background. So on the design wall, during construction, the highways extended past the edge of the background. At some point I realized I really liked that effect and incorporated it into my final design.

Here is the finished piece – Night Driving. It is 28″ x 22″. This my artist statement:

Driving through the night, across the featureless landscape, headlights and taillights blur into glowing streams of light, crossing in the darkness. As I drive, I realize I am surrounded by strangers; all of us travelling in our own socially isolated bubbles. I wonder about the people in all the vehicles around me. I wonder about their destinations – are they heading home, across town to visit friends, or perhaps starting a long trip toward a new adventure? I wonder about their hopes and dreams.

On the weekend, at the virtual awards ceremony, I was thrilled when ‘Night Driving‘ was awarded First Place for Excellence in Thread Work. You can see all the pieces in the exhibition on the Grand National website. This page has a slideshow of the 48 pieces. This page shows thumbnails of all the entries, and you can click on any item to see a full size image with the details. And you can vote for your favourite for the Viewer’s Choice Award.

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

Posted in Art quilts, Inspiration, On my design wall, Quilt shows | 3 Comments

Grand National 2021 Exhibition ‘Crossroads’ – 2021.05.02

Posted on May 2, 2021 by TerryAske

Grand National is a Canadian fibre art exhibition that will travel to various venues across the country. The theme for the 2021 exhibition is Crossroads. The exhibit was scheduled to open today at the University of NB Art Centre with an online Awards ceremony. But New Brunswick recently announced a Covid shutdown. The quilts are hung and ready for judging, but the judges have not been able to enter the venue.  So the Awards ceremony has been delayed.

The exhibition can be viewed online on the Grand National website. This page has a slideshow of the 48 pieces. And this page shows thumbnails of all the entries, and you can click on any item to see a full size image with the details.

I submitted 3 entries to this exhibit and I’m thrilled to say that all of them were accepted!

One of my pieces Intersections, I made last year and posted about it a lot between May and October. It wasn’t intended for any specific exhibit, but it seemed appropriated for the Crossroads theme.

My other two pieces Night Driving and A Study of Pattern and Perspective were made specifically for the Crossroads exhibition. I worked on them between October and December, but never did post about them. I’m excited to be able to now show these two pieces. I will post more about my inspiration and construction techniques for these two pieces in the near future.

An online gallery and artist talks (including my talk about my 3 pieces) should be posted soon on the University of NB Art Centre website. I’m honoured they selected my piece Night Driving for their poster.

UPDATE May 4 – on the University of NB website, you can now watch the Exhibition Videos (several of the artists have recorded talks about their artworks – including me) and explore the Online Galleries.

Everyone is invited to attend the Grand National Virtual Opening and Awards Ceremony on Saturday May 8th at 4:00 pm Atlantic time. You can register at this link if you would like to attend. Hope to see you there!

. . . .

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

Posted in Art quilts, Quilt shows | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Triangle baby quilt – 2021.04.25

Posted on April 25, 2021 by TerryAske

There’s a new baby quilt evolving on my design wall, for my new great-niece Alice.

Alice has an older brother and sister who both have baby quilts from me. I thought it would be fun to use some of the fabrics from their quilts in this one.

This quilt will be mostly equilateral triangles, with a few diagonal bars. I came up with the idea for the bars because I have one fabric (the dark gray with white dots) that I really want to include in this quilt, but it isn’t wide enough for a triangle piece. I’m going to purposely offset the points of the triangles when I join the rows – for a more random look. My palette is low-volume neutrals, pinks and a few bright greens.

Here’s what I have so far on my design wall.

I cut a few triangles of each color and arranged them somewhat randomly on the design wall. I kept adding fabrics until I liked the composition. In addition to fabrics used in the above two quilts, I also included a pink fabric that my sister Anne (Alice’s grandma) and I dyed together when we were working on a collaborative project.

I haven’t decided on the overall size of the quilt. The top two rows are pieced, but I can always add more triangles to the ends if I decide to make it bigger. I’m just going to continue piecing rows until it looks big enough, or I run out of these fabrics.

. . . .

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

Posted in Modern quilts, On my design wall | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Cherry Blossom exhibit and live virtual opening – 2021.04.02

Posted on April 2, 2021 by TerryAske

For the last week or so, I’ve been busy getting quilts ready for upcoming exhibits – making hanging sleeves and labels. I shipped off a couple of quilts last week and I have more to go this week.

One piece that I shipped last week was ‘Shades of Pink‘. I made this art quilt last spring for the annual textile art exhibit Cherry Blossoms: A Textile Translation. As with so many other exhibits in 2020, it was cancelled due to the pandemic. But I’m thrilled to say it will on display this year, from April 8 to May 2, at the Silk Purse Arts Centre in West Vancouver.

Shades of Pink, by Terry Aske

Here’s some more information about the exhibit, including a very exciting concept. They will be broadcasting a live virtual opening! It will be on April 8th at 7pm Pacific time. It will include a video tour of the exhibition, and some of the 24 artists (including me) will discuss their inspirations, and the audience can ask them questions.

Here’s the link to the opening reception (and recordings of previous virtual openings) at the West Van Arts Council YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTDTpRLU70g The event will be recorded, so if you can’t make it to the live session, you can watch it later.

. . . .

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

Posted in Art quilts, Modern quilts, Quilt shows | 5 Comments

NYC Library Lions – finished – 2021.03.21

Posted on March 21, 2021 by TerryAske

I peeled both lions off their temporary backing of parchment paper, and fused them each to a 13 x 13 inch piece of background fabric. I basted each quilt top to a piece of batting 12.25 inches square, and straight-line quilted each one with a medium-light coordinating thread.

As required by the exhibit organizers, I mounted each piece onto a 12” x 12” x .5” gallery wrapped canvas. I used Susan Carlson’s technique to attach a continuous edging to the quilt top, as described in this blog post https://susancarlson.com/2017/08/26/hang-it-up/ which describes several methods of hanging and displaying quilts.  I used the same background fabric for the edging fabric.

  • NYC Library Lions – quilted and wrapped

I positioned the quilt over the wrapped canvas and ensured it was centred and fit snugly. I folded the edging to the back and taped it in place, then stapled it to the frame. In the past I have attached the edging beginning in the middle of each side, then working towards the corners. Sometimes there was some bulk at the corners. So this time, I decided to start with the corners; get them as snug and fitted as possible, then ease in any extra fabric along the sides. That worked very well.

  • edging fabric taped in place, then stapled, starting at corners

The last step was to finish the back. The exhibit organizers require the backs to be covered with black felt. I made a label and attached it to a square of black felt. I trimmed the felt to a bit smaller than the frame, and applied fusible strips to the edges. I fused the felt back in place, stretching it slightly so it doesn’t sag in the middle. This gives the back a very neat, finished look. I’ll use this technique again.

. . . .

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

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

NYC Library Lions – more progress – 2021.03.14

Posted on March 14, 2021 by TerryAske

I have good news and bad news about the blue lion. As I said in my last post, I was a lot more methodical with creating the pattern than I was with the orange lion – I marked all the values on the pattern before I started tracing the pattern pieces. That took about a day to finalize. Then another day to cut and position the pieces – see the progression below.

Blue lion version 1 – progression

The bad news is, when it was all done, I didn’t like the fabrics I had used. I didn’t have enough medium values. I have 3 or 4 light to medium-light fabrics, and my medium-dark fabric was too dark. By itself it looked okay, but next to the orange lion, it didn’t have enough dimension.

Blue lion version 1 and Orange lion

So I started over. I had to buy some more blue fabrics, and I made some minor improvements to the pattern. Version 2 went together even more quickly than the first one. As you can see in the progression photos below, I started at the top and worked my way down in sections. In each section, I started with the lightest fabrics, then layered the darker fabrics on top. That way the darker fabrics don’t show through the lighter ones. I use Steam-A-Seam Lite fusible web. It has a re-positional temporary stick, and is permanent when ironed.

Blue lion version 2 – progression
Blue lion version 2 with Orange lion

I’m much happier with version 2 of the blue lion. Now I have to fuse both lions to the backgrounds (they are just pinned in the photos above), then quilt them and mount them on 12 x 12 inch wrapped canvases.

. . . .

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

Posted in Art quilts, Inspiration, On my design wall, Portrait quilts, WiP Wednesday | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

NYC lions – photo-editing and preparing the pattern – 2021.02.28

Posted on February 28, 2021 by TerryAske

In my last post, I said “I used a variety of photo-editing apps to simplify my photos. Then I drew lines on the photo to separate the values. Then I traced the shapes on fusible web (Steam-a-Seam Lite) and cut out my fabrics” I actually skipped a couple of steps that would have streamlined the process of cutting out the fabric shapes. So I’m going to do it properly for the blue lion, and I’m documenting the steps for future reference.

First let’s go back to the photo-editing apps, as there was a question about that in the comments on my last post. I did all the photo-editing last November and as it happens, I documented that part quite well. As you can see in the images below, I use several different programs and apps.

My favourite photo-editing program is Picasa. I find it much easier to use than programs like PhotoShop. (Picasa is an old program which is no longer supported. It still exists, but there are no updates and no support.  I believe it’s only available for Windows, not Macs.  It can be downloaded here.  https://picasa.en.uptodown.com/windows  Here’s some general info https://sites.google.com/site/picasaresources/Home/Picasa-FAQ/picasa/general-information/quick-start-guide.)

I usually start with Picasa, then often use several editing apps, depending on the photo.  I take photos with my iPhone, so I often use it to straighten or square up the photo before downloading to my PC.  (Picasa can straighten, but not square up (adjust perspective).  Then I will either use iPad apps to further edit, or I may start again with the original image.

Here are a few of the edited photos for the first lion.

I used several of these as reference, but the ones I actually used to trace my fabric shapes were edited using Prisma, the Gothic style. You can see the 2 photos below. I liked the hard, angular straight lines. I probably wouldn’t use this for a person portrait, but for a lion carved from marble, it’s perfect.

photos edited in Picasa and Prisma – Gothic style

The other step I skipped with the orange lion was to label each shape as light, medium-light, medium, medium-dark or dark – before I started tracing, fusing and cutting. Although it was easy to identify the lightest and darkest shapes, the in-between values can be confusing. I spent (wasted?) a lot of extra time debating between light and medium-light, or medium and medium-light.

For the blue lion, I decided to take the time to do this step up front. I printed a lightened version of my image on letter size paper and drew all the lines between values with a fine point permanent marker. Referring to several of my edited images, I labelled each shape with L, M-L, M, M-D or D.

letter-size line drawing with value labels

I printed it at full size (12 x 12 inches) on legal-size paper and taped the sheets together. I also printed a mirror copy to use to trace the shapes on fusible web.

full size (12 x 12 inches) line-drawing with value labels, and mirror copy

The right-side-up version, I will lie on top of a light-box to position all the little fused pieces.

light blue fabric fused to parchment paper, on top of pattern, on lightbox

Above you can see I have cut a base layer of very light blue fabric in the shape of the lion. I fused it to a piece of parchment paper with Mistyfuse. I stapled the parchment paper to the line-drawing to keep it in place. Now I’m ready to start tracing, fusing and cutting out all those tiny little pieces and positioning them on the blue base.

. . . .

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

Posted in Art quilts, Inspiration, On my design wall, Portrait quilts, Tutorial, WiP Wednesday | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Monochromatic library lions – 2021.02.26

Posted on February 26, 2021 by TerryAske

The next exhibition by the Fibre Art Network is titled “Chromatopia”. The exhibition will include 50 monochromatic artworks, each 12″ x 12″. They will be displayed so that they progress through the color spectrum.

Each artist has been assigned two colour hues, to create two monochromatic artworks, one in each assigned colour. Each artist will determine their own theme for their two pieces.

Here are the 2 colour cards I received.

My colour swatches – red-orange and blue

Fortunately, I have a fairly large collection of fabrics, and found all of these fabrics in my stash.

My next decision was the subject matter for my pieces. Thinking about monochromatic with a variety of values inspired me to find an architectural or sculptural subject. While reviewing my photo collection, I came across 2 photos I look in 2019 of the NYC Library lions. They certainly fit the concept of sculptural. It was a bright summer day in NYC, so my photos have lots of dramatic sunshine and shadows.

I used a variety of photo editing apps to simplify my photos. Then I drew lines on the photo to separate the values. Then I traced the shapes on fusible web (Steam-a-Seam Lite) and cut out my fabrics. I cut the base layer of the lion from the lightest fabric. Then I gradually added the medium-light, medium, medium-dark and dark fabrics.

I actually started working on the orange lion a few months ago, then set it aside while I worked on more pressing projects. I recently picked it up again where I left off.

Here are some progress photos. I think the orange makes it look a bit more like a tiger than a lion. I hope that when it is displayed together with the blue one, they will read as lions.

I still have to select a background fabric and do some quilting and finishing. But first I’m going to start constructing the blue lion. I have about a month to complete them both, as photos and artist statements for both of them are due on March 31.

. . . .

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

Posted in Art quilts, Inspiration, On my design wall, WiP Wednesday | Tagged , | 3 Comments

‘Touchy-Feely’ a mini artwork – 2021.02.14

Posted on February 14, 2021 by TerryAske

Here is my initial fabric pull for a small piece for SAQA Western Canada regional trunk show titled Touch. Each piece in the trunk show will be 8″ x 10″ and will be mounted to an 8 ½” x 11″ black backing board but will be uncovered for display and viewing. The mounting will help protect the pieces from excessive handling and soiling but viewers will be able to see and visually touch the art without a screen of plastic film.

Given that viewers will be able to touch the artwork, I wanted to make a piece that would invite touching, with physical as well as visual texture.

I started with some shot cotton fabrics, which have beautiful fringy selvedges.  The saffron and berry shades of the shot cottons set the tone for my color palette, to which I added shades of orange. 

My design concept was to create a grid of colourful texture on a black background, with a partial frame of selvedges.

I used a variety of textured fabrics –  felt, open weave, netting, shiny-glittery fabrics – layered into little squares and arranged in a grid.  Some of the fabrics were fraying and leaving fluff and threads on the black background, so I fused Mistyfuse to the back to control the fraying. Each square has 2 or 3 fabric layers and is topped with a button to add even more texture.

I spent a couple of hours arranging – and rearranging – the fabrics in a grid. Once I had finalized the arrangement, I carefully removed all but the base layers. I fused each base layer in place with a bit of fusible web in the center, leaving the edges un-fused. For each square, I added the other fabrics and the button, then tied them in place by threading embroidery floss through the button, the layers of fabric, and tying the floss to the back.

top layers set aside

Here is the finished artwork. Its title is ‘Touchy-Feely’ – suggested by my husband.

. . . .

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

Posted in Art quilts, Mini quilts, Quilt shows | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

X’s and O’s – part 3 – 2021.02.01

Posted on February 1, 2021 by TerryAske

In my previous post, I had removed all the freezer paper templates, and was ready to cover the raw edges with bias tape (or maybe couching or zigzag stitching). My original plan was to use pre-fused 1/4″ black bias tape. Then I thought that gray would look better against the black background. I auditioned some gray macrame cord – I liked the color but not the thickness. Then, I actually tried making my own gray bias tape (I’ve owned that little bias tape maker for years, but this was the first time I’ve actually used it!). Again, I liked the color, but didn’t like the way my stitching looked – click on the image below to see a larger image).

In the end, I used the pre-fused black bias tape. The fusible gives me more control over the placement of the tape, and my stitching with black thread is almost invisible. (Even though it is fused in place, I always stitch both edges of the bias tape.) Sometimes I stitch the tape before layering with batting, and sometimes after layering. In this case I layered the quilt first then stitched the bias tape in place.

Edited to add: Usually I spray baste my quilts. This time I used Mistyfuse to layer the top to the batting. The first step was to pre-fuse one side of my batting with Mistyfuse, covering it with parchment paper to protect my iron. Then I smoothed the quilt top over the batting and fused them together. I really liked how smoothly the top adhered to the batting. I did use spray to baste the backing fabric to the batting.

My next decision was the overall quilting. I had been thinking about straight line quilting in an X shape. I was a little concerned about keeping the lines straight, and the challenge of quilting over the bumps created where several bias tapes overlapped.

But then it occurred to me that I could quilt from the back, following the lines of the design on the backing fabric. I had selected this fabric because the colors coordinated well with the front, and because I had a piece the right size. So it was a happy accident that I could use the design as my quilting pattern.

I quilted along every other vertical and horizontal curved line, with dark gray thread in my bobbin, which is what shows on the front of the quilt. I love the end result! I’ve quilted from the back on a couple of other quilts, using a striped fabric as my guide. I will definitely look for more backing fabrics that I can use this way.

And here is a full view of the finished quilt, which is 21 x 28 inches. I couldn’t think of a creative title for it, so it called ‘X’s and O’s’.

‘X’s and O’s’ by Terry Aske

. . . .

Thanks for stopping by.  I will be linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
~ Love Laugh Quilt Monday Making
~ Quilt Fabrication Midweek Makers
~ WIP Wednesday @ The Needle & Thread Network

Posted in Art quilts, Modern quilts | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments