I started creating this baby quilt in April. I finished piecing it in early May and pinned it to my design wall. But then I set it aside to work on other projects.
This weekend, I finished it. I layered it with batting and soft gray fleece backing. I cut the batting to 1.5 inches wider than the top on each side, and I cut the fleece backing even larger, so there was about 4 inches extra on each side.
I quilted around the edge of the top, then quilted 30 degree straight lines parallel to the triangle sides, and about 5 to 6 inches apart.
Then I trimmed the fleece so it was 2″ wider than the batting on all sides, and folded it over to the front as binding. I used the mitering technique described in faux blanket binding by red flannel pantry. I straight-stitched about 1/4″ in from the raw edge of the binding, then zigzag stitched over the raw edges.
Here it is fresh out of the washer and dryer, all soft and cuddly.. The finished size is 40 x 44 inches.
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Here’s my donation for SAQA’s annual Benefit Auction. SAQA invites each of its members to create a 12 x 12 inch piece of art and donate it to the online auction. Last year there were over 500 submissions from SAQA members around the world.
Here’s my donation piece for this year – Basking in the Summer Sun.
Since 1911, the famous marble lions, dubbed Patience and Fortitude, have captured the imagination and affection of New Yorkers and visitors alike. They flank the main entrance to the downtown branch of the NYC library. Posing regally, they gaze down at the coming and going of the library patrons and visitors.
It was a bright summer day when I visited the library, so my photos of the lions show dramatic sunshine and shadows. This is Patience (on the south side of the library entrance) basking in the summer sun against a backdrop of leafy green trees.
I enjoyed the challenge of creating the NYC library lions in monochromatic colors for the Chromatopia exhibition. But when I took these photos while in New York, my intention was to depict the lions in realistic colors – shades of gray against a backdrop of leafy green trees. (I have since learned they are actually carved from pink marble, but when I saw them in 2019, they looked like they were carved from gray stone.)
There were a couple of advantages to using the same design again. The first is how I created the line drawing. I applied a pencil sketch filter to the photo of the orange lion and printed that as my line drawing – much quicker and easier than using the original photo at my starting point. I labelled each shape with a value code, then printed a full-size version, as well as a mirror copy to use for tracing the shapes on fusible web (Steam-a-Seam Lite).
The other advantage is the selection of fabrics with the correct values, which is the trickiest part of this technique. (See my post about the challenges I had with selecting values for the blue lion.)
Since I was very happy with the values I used for the orange lion, I only needed to find gray fabrics with the same values. I selected the fabrics, then used a black & white filter to ensure the grey fabric values were comparable to the orange fabric values. (I keep the value chart taped to the cupboard above my ironing station for reference while cutting out the shapes.)
As with the orange lion, I cut the base layer from the lightest fabric. I fused the base layer to parchment paper, then I gradually added the light, medium-light, medium, medium-dark and dark fabrics. I love the way the lion appears increasingly solid and 3-dimensional as fabrics are added, so I take a lot of photos during the process. Here are a few that show the progression. (Click to enlarge)
I think he’s a pretty regal-looking, handsome fellow!
Here’s the original photo I took in NYC in 2019.
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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.
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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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