Quilts

Deconstruction of Ted and Maurice at Lorinc Pap Ter, an Art Quilt

August 2, 2014October 26, 2017 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

This post is a deconstruction of the techniques I used to create Ted and Maurice at Lorinc Pap Ter, a small (12″ square) art quilt for the Four-in-Art Quilt group. Our challenge this quarter was Contrast, under the overall yearly theme of Urban. Often an idea will come to me, but sometimes I start with the technique. I knew I wanted to drag out those bottles of Bubble Jet Set and Bubble Jet Rinse that I’d ordered some time ago, and find out if this whole process was difficult or easy. It was easy.

Bubble Jet Set is a type of mordant that binds to your fabric and allows the ink from your inkjet printer to adhere more easily. I’ve printed on fabric for years, but haven’t ever prepared the fabrics. I first started by reading a lot of blog posts, and I’ll post the links at the end. The one website that described the process best was Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry’s (Bryerpatch.com), and I followed her instructions.

I bought a shallow plastic container at Target, about 4 inches deep with a latch-type lid, as I wanted to store the prepared fabric in there afterwards. I cut my fabric about 9 inches by 12 inches, grabbed the container and the Bubble Jet Set (I only needed that one at this time) and went down to the kitchen sink. I put on dishwashing gloves, as suggested, then laid the first piece of fabric in the bottom of the container. I sparingly glopped some BubbleJet Set (BJS) onto the fabric, smoothing it out until it was thoroughly moistened. I placed a dry piece of fabric on top of that, again, smoothing until it looked like it had picked up most of the excess BJS, then glopped a little more. I’m being quite stingy with the BJS, actually, but do want to make sure that the fabric is sufficiently soaked. I repeated this until all four sheets were saturated.

I lay down some towels underneath my improvised clothesline in the garage (some say you can put containers to catch the extra drips, but I didn’t have that much excess) and hung up my sheets of fabric until dry. In our summer heat, it only took about an hour. Meanwhile, I washed and thoroughly dried my container, and when the fabric was dry, put them in the container until I could get to them. I read one blog where the crafter cautioned about letting too much time pass between treatment and printing. I had a space of about 4 days, and that was fine.

In yesterday’s post, I talked about how I created my art conceptually, but what I did technically was begin with a good photo of the square in Budapest. I overlaid the baseball backstop photo, sized it, then took it down to 20% transparency, and used the Eraser tool to start erasing a space to let the statuary shine through. I could have created a Path and selected it, but sometimes I think the Erase Tool does just fine. I did change out the size of brush I was using, from 1 pixel in some places to 75 pixels in other places. I did the same with Ted and Maurice, first flipping them around so they faced the other way, as that’s where I had some space to put them. I merged the layers, as I know from experience that when printing on fabric, it’s wise to pump up the Saturation of colors (enhancing the image without making it garish), and to Lighten/Brighten the entire image.

For the border pieces, I sized each combination of colors to four inches, then pasted them into one document so I could print all the colors at once, first flattening, then then increasing the Contrast/Saturation and then adjusting the darkness through the Lighten/Brighten menu.

When I was ready to print, I backed the prepared fabric in freezer paper, ironing it thoroughly but using NO steam at all — I wanted the freezer paper to really bond with the fabric. I trimmed it to exactly 8 1/2″ by 11″ inches, and used a High Quality photo setting to print.

It worked like a charm! I let it set for the recommended 30 minutes then peeled off the freezer paper. I let it set some more to let it thoroughly dry–a caution I read on many blogs.

I put four capfuls of Bubble Jet Set Rinse in my container, then added about a gallon of water (about 3 inches) and set the first printed sheet in the water. I kept it agitating the whole time of two minutes, as you see above. I held up the sheet to let it drain and in the other sink, I rinsed the sheet well and laid it out on towels that I had set on the counter. I did the same process with all the other prints, agitating them (apparently to keep the dye from the printing to re-settle back onto the fabric — they cautioned several times to keep it flat, and to not let it crease!).

This was the color of the rinse water after I did all four sheets. The Bubble Jet Set Rinse is a mild detergent formulated to remove excess dye. In my reading, many said that Synthrapol would work also, but I had this so I used it.

I blotted the sheets gently, pressing out the excess moisture. I did not wring or crumple the printed fabrics at all, working to keep them flat.

I hung them in the garage again to let them dry, again taking only a short time. I was pretty happy with the results. The colors were vibrant and the fabric was soft and I knew it was washable, although there are cautions about what type of detergent you use. I never wash my art quilts so it wasn’t a concern, but if you plan on doing so, here are some good websites with information on their experience with using BJS:

http://vickiwelsh.typepad.com/field_trips_in_fiber/2009/04/bubble-jet-rinse-whats-the-point.html

http://quiltbug.com/articles/bubble-jet-set.htm

http://www.bryerpatch.com/faq/bjs_q&a_page.htm

http://www.cjenkinscompany.com/Frequently_Asked_Questions_s/25.htm

The C J Jenkins Company manufactures the Bubble Jet Set, and I thought their page on printers was helpful, although I swear by my EPSON with their Archival Inks.

After this, the construction was pretty straight forward, although I had to do some cutting and stitching to get the dimensions correct around the central image.

I sashed the central image because I felt it might get lost in the tiny square borders.

I quilted it, using matching threads (mostly lots and lots of gray). Detail below. I didn’t want to “over-quilt” this, but did want to emphasize the various elements.

And that’s it! I’m pretty happy with how the BJS and BJR turned out, and glad that I had this little art quilt to nudge me into trying that preparing-fabric technique.

Next up? The third block in my Circles English Paper Piecing Sew-Along. I’ve remade this thing twice, so I’m ready to put it up and move on to the next block. See the above tab if you haven’t started yet.

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Quilts

Thursday’s Randoming

May 15, 2014 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Cindy says I need to have Random Things on my Random Post. Okay, here goes.

While this is a diagram of a student brain, a Teacher Brain could be similar except: where it says “take exam” it would be “write exam,” “study mode” would be “prep mode” and “think about studying” would be “avoid grading.”

But this is Teacher Brain During Summer.

It’s nice not to feel impacted all the time, as illustrated by this cartoon of Jef Mallett’s. I read Frazz every morning to get my day started. Yesterday I went up to school (I teach at a community college) and attended the Transfer Center’s luncheon honoring students who leave the confines of our 2-year college and head up to the Big U. Today I’ll be attending a retirement luncheon for a woman who has really helped my non-native English speakers throughout my time here. That’s how it rolls at the end of the semester.

I started working on this quilt and got myself involved in a Whole Lotta’ Drama. Follow-up story coming Monday.

I’ve been listening to Life After Life while I sew. This is one interesting book, where the main character keeps dying and come back to life in her same life. I can hardly wait to get upstairs to the sewing room, pick up a project and start listening.

Coming to the end of the school year means taking a breath and doing the little things that you couldn’t get to because you were hurtling from one grading session to the next. This morning my husband helped me hang all my little Art Quilts in a row over my sewing room window.

Outside my window the Carrotwood Tree is filled with flitting Western Tanagers, yellow with black wings and brilliant orange heads. They move quickly from branch to branch, eating the yellow berries from my tree. I’m not a bird photographer, so this photo is from *here.* They provide quite the show.

Detail of the woman over my sewing desk: Embracing the Journey. Today is the last day of class, and it’s been a nice journey but Now It’s Time to Go.

Linking up to Cindy’s Really Random Thursday at Live a Colorful Life!

Road to California 2014, part II

February 4, 2014February 5, 2014 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

There was a great exhibit of quilts from the book I was lucky enough to be in: Amish Quilts, The Adventure Continues. As always, seeing them in person, beats a flat picture or a digital photograph any day. (How has that changed what we esteem as “good” quilts? Just something to think about.) That’s why quilt shows are so valuable as they allow a viewer to fall in love with quilts again.

Suzanne Keeney Lucy’s Ocean Waves

Two views of Michelle Webber’s It’s Hip to Be Square

Two views (one to show the quilting) of Reflection of the Times, made by Angela Yosten and quilted by Natalia Bonner

Likewise there were some quilts from QuiltCon.

I took a shot of this one because I love Carolyn Friedlander’s fabrics, but it is true that this quilt is lacking some contrast. It’s not just the photography. The title of this one is The Local Quilt.

Deconstructed Nine Patch by Jacquie Gering

Honey in Space, by Elizabeth Hartman

Log Pyramids, by Liz Harvatine

You Rule, by Brigitte Heitland

and lastly, A Very Long Conversation, by Rossie Hutchinson. I was pretty sure I had a photo from Christa Watson’s String of Pearls (using Lizzy House’s fabric–a great design) but it’s too blurry to post, so go *here* to see that fun quilt. . . and her (more on that later). There were a couple of quilts I was sure I had a photo of, but when I looked at them, I must have been taking them on a fast run past. Maybe it was because I had too many bags around my shoulders?

At this point, don’t you think we need a little retail therapy? This is the little quilt in the charm booth–a way to display those little pins we all love. This group had figured out how to make earrings out of them, so they had a lot of people crowded around.

Fabricworm’s first time at Road. Judging from the crowd at their booth, I think they’ll be back.

Loved the chair AND the floor mat. The floor “rug” looked like just patches with some sort of matte finish brushed over it.

And LUNCH! From left, Leisa, Lisa, Lisa’s sister-in-law Betty (who came from another state just for Road), me and Simone. Get your scrolling fingers ready, here come more quilts!

Janet Dorsey Hirth used lots of different piecing styles in her sampler quilt, titled Loose Leaf Earl Grey.

Random snapshot of free-motion quilting

This is a terrible picture of a fabulous quilt, by Ann Feitelson, titled Music of the Spheres. Google it and you should find a better photo. It’s really amazing.

Here’s another Ann Feitelson. I think she never sleeps. This one is titled Basket Weave II: See Saw. There was a lot of math that went into this quilt, judging from her description. She writes “The titled also refers to seeing and have seen, the way vision shifts in every blink.”

Kim Bruny’s Blast from the Past is so named because all the bright designs and paisley prints remind her of her childhood. Well, now we know how old she is! (Kidding, Kim. It was a terrific quilt.) I have several photos, showing details.

She used the “tiling” method of creating her top: appliquéing her patches to a single piece of fabric, keeping the pieces an even distance away, so it looks like tiles have been laid down.

And in the borders–broderie perse, a technique of using specific cuts of the printed fabric to create the design.

I liked this quilting because it wasn’t so dense. Lately quilters have been quilting their quilts so densely, they could stand up as a room screen by themselves. This is a nice change.

Sandi Delman’s Kartwheels was started in 2009, and took several raids of her fabric stash to make the rings, arcs, borders and stars. Kerry Marksbury quilted it.

Eva Birch’s Tequila Sunrise was a more modern quilt with lots of interesting quilting in the negatives spaces. Even though the photo above looks washed out, the background fabric was deep-toned. Two more detail shots:

I spent the better part of Friday afternoon tearing back and forth between the Superior Thread Booth and the booth where my quilter Cathy Kreter was working, talking about threads, designs, colors, etc. I was successful in choosing a thread, and on the way back, I stopped by Nancy Rink’s booth to show her my quilt (she designed this quilt). She obliged me with a photo. Yes, I carried that king-sized quilt top around all afternoon (which may account for some of the blurry photos).

After a long day (as both Leisa and I woke up too early that morning and couldn’t go back to sleep) my little gang, The Good Heart Quilters, took ourselves to the local El Torito, where ten of us gathered round the table, including Cindy of Live A Colorful Life and Deborah of Simply Miss Luella. (They’ve adopted us Good Heart Quilters.)

A few went back home to our town, and those of us who were staying the night gathered together in mine and Leisa’s room, did Show and Tell and talked shop. I’m not letting those others go home next year, and think we ought to order in some chocolate cake and ice cream for fun.

You’ll hear us Southern Californians complain about our drought (those mountains ought to have WHITE tops, not brown), but you can’t beat waking up to this on a January morning. We’re in for a doozy this summer in terms of water rationing. Expect me to come and see you for a shower this summer. Okay, last batch of quilts. Here we go.

Pat Adair’s Joyful Giddiness used a few of Kim McClean’s patterns to create the appliqué in this quilt.

A lovely quilt, as evidenced by the use of color, piecing and quilting (and that blue ribbon!).

Almost Symmetry, by Nicki Allen (quilted by Kathy Gray).

This was made for the EZ Dresden Quilt Challenge, an online challenge sponsored by the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild.

Marilyn Belford used all varieties of fabrics and techniques to create this masterpiece titled Perseus Saving Andromeda.

That rough water is raw-edge appliquéd, as is most of the quilt.

Fractured Star was made by Linda Bergmann and quilted by Debbie Lopez, and is a Karen Stone design.

So is Susan Bianchi’s Graffiti Heart a quilt? Since she created her design out of beads and buttons on whole cloth? I remember that controversy came up with Hollis Chatelein first debuted at Houston, with her whole-cloth painted quilts. (She earned a blue ribbon that year.) Whatever, this was one of two of these button/bead quilts in the show, fascinating collages utilizing hard surface design.

And now it’s time for the Ugly Quilt Award. Every year I try to pick the ugliest quilt. It could miss on overall composition, surface design treatment, overreaching in the skill department (think: Peter Principle), or by the fact that somehow, it was just plain. And ugly. A very subjective category, but in walking around with some of my quilter friends, a number of them pointed out candidates for this award, so I know it wasn’t just me. All of these are nameless, maker-less. And in full-disclosure, any one of us could in any given year qualify, so no hubris intended.

From the plastic doll, to the overly busy background to the tassels, andthat 3D hair, this is a sure qualifier.

Another angel candidate, with her strangely proportioned torso to that gift-wrapped bow on the corner. Hmmm.

Meant to evoke a haunting response from the viewer, of the souls of lost native Americans now inhabiting the abandoned-dwellings-now-a-National-Park (I suppose) instead this just came off as creepy-looking, kind of like a cartoonish dead baby head filling a sacred space.

Update: While I originally noted the fine quality of the quilting and the good design and composition of space, I panned this quilt for the drawings, as they looked extremely juvenile. My sister, the historian, called me tonight to tell me that she thinks they were based on well-known (to historians) primitive drawings done by Native Americans at some of the critical battles. She’ll let me know the source, and then I’ll add it here.

If it is true that this quilt was based on those historical drawings, it obviously needs to be moved from this category. (However, I still stand on the unfortunate quilted swirls on the men’s faces.)

Okay, Ugly Quilt Contest over. Later on I’ll show you my favorite quilt, and I’ll tell you why. (The ones I love usually never win at this show. But I was happy to see this week that one of my favorites from last year went on to Win Big at other national contests.) Okay, back to the quilts.

Modern Alphabet, made and quilted by Gerrie Thompson.

Yep, I’m pretty much fixated on DSM quilting this year. My apologies.

Patricia Wolfe titled her innovation of a traditional Bear Paw block KABOOM! Bear Paws Gone Wild. She also quilted it herself.

Titled Mishief Maker, Sue Wilson both made and quilted this octopus quilt, hand-painting the design on linen. I walked around with my friend Simone and she gave me a lesson on borders, and why are quilters so attached to their borders? As a trained graphic artist, she showed me several quilts that would have benefitted from “breaking the borders,” as the traditional use of that space enclosing a design cramped the artistry of the quilt. This was a successful breaking of the border, she noted. We both loved it.

LUNCH! (Day Two) with Cindy, Deborah, me, Leisa and Christa of ChristaQuilts. It was a great conversation about quilting, the industry, design, breaking news and old news, one of the advantages of getting together at a quilt show.

Okay, last gasp of quilts, then my favorite.

One of a trio of quilts, Linzi Upton’s quilts were tucked away at the back of the hall. Another quilt, Silver Madonna won big last year, and these look like they follow in the same trend of using metallic fabric, then painting it, then quilting it to achieve the texture.

The title of the three together is Odin’s Triology, and Upton made and quilted them all.

Another strong black and white quilt, ChrisTaylor’s I have felt lonely in a crowded room brought in architectural features of doors, windows and line to portray that feeling of being “alone” yet feeling “comforted by memories.”

Inspired by the Holyoke Range and the Connecticut rivers near her home, Timna Tarr created Valley Snapshots, a rich mix of shape and color. This was almost my most favorite.

Timna Tarr was busy this year, getting two quilts into Road. This one, titled Request and Dedication, started out as a Wheel of Fortune block, but “after ten years of marriage [to a musician], he finally rubbed off on me and I unintentionally made a record quilt.”

I had to show you close-ups of the quilting.

Spilling Over was made and quilted by Sharon Schlotzhauer, her inspiration coming from the loss of a treasured quilt, and from the “faith. . . [and] loving thoughts and prayers from friends and the quilting community.”

Citrus Slices by Marie O’Kelley was dear to my heart, as we live near the Citrus Experimental Station of the University of California–Riverside. She writes “This quilt commemorates my brother’s career at UCR hybridizing new citrus varieties. Included are the names of his hybrids and those of more common citrus types.” By the way, if you like the little easy-to-peel Cutie (brand) tangerines, you have the scientists at UCR to thank.

Autumn Whirlpool, by Bobbie Moon.

Banderitas, by Victoria Murphy

Daisy Dance, by Susan Meyers, from a pattern by Kathy Munkelwitz

And now my favorite quilt of the show. It’s not flashy, overly huge, stylized with 300 pounds of crystals and bling, but it’s a perfectly executed gem of a quilt. Titled, Did You Wash Your Beak, it comes from a nature photograph of Eastern Bluebirds by Steve Byland.

The quilting appeared to be in a heavier weight variegated thread, which shows every flaw. I couldn’t find any. Taylor had put more leaves in the background of his quilting, surrounding those with small stippling stitches. The branch had more texture added by the quilting.

The white-gloved lady held it up to show me the back. Exquisite. Taylor writes “I believe this is my most accomplished quilt to date. The technique I have been trying to master for the past 12 years. . . was to create an appliquéd quilt that appears to be a photograph or painting at first glance.” I’d say he succeeded.

All of these feathers, the claw, all pieces really, are needle-turned appliqué, with the quilting enhancing the shading and structure. A masterpiece of a quilt. While some might aspire to be the big old blue ribbon winner at the front of the hall, by the CD-selling harpist, I aspire to create quiet quilts of detail and story like this one. I loved it!

And that’s all folks–see you next year!!

200 Quilts · Four-in-Art · Quilts

Congruence, Deconstructed

August 2, 2013October 26, 2017 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Our reveal for the fourth challenge quilt in our art group, Four-in-Art Quilters, was yesterday and today I’ll tell you how it came together.

I first started by looking a what seemed like billions of photos of owls. I did a lot of this through Flickr, where I found this photo:

I wrote to Matt Smith, the person who posted it, and asked permission to use this photo and he gave it to me. And then I sat on it for a couple of months, not knowing how to approach this. Did I want to paper-piece it? Not really. Embroider it? Pixelate it into little squares? None seemed satisfying. And then it was in the background reading that it came to me that I would fracture it, play with it a little and see where that went.

I digitally chopped the owl picture into fourths and then chopped into fourths again, making sixteen parts. And then I began to play with filters, one of the least used, but really fun parts of Photoshop. I applied at least one, and sometimes multiple filters to each segment, approximating the sizes so I could get this bird back together again in the end. You can see the mock-up on the lower right. That was me, trying to reassure myself.

Then I printed it off on paper, cut it apart, and still tried to reassure myself. I grabbed a previous art quilt off the wall (I knew it was 12″ square) to use as a template. It seemed okay. But how to get it to fabric? I usually iron freezer paper to the back of a piece of fabric, tape that to a piece of paper like I did in English Elizabeth, then run it through my Epson color printer. But I’d read in a blog about someone who simply ironed the fabric and freezer paper together, making sure it was a standard paper size, and then ran it through the printer.

Don’t you love the ink smudges? The next time, I made sure the freezer paper was really well-adhered to the fabric, then set the printings for thick matte paper on high quality and ran it through again, using a long thin tool to assist it through the last phases and so the fabric wouldn’t touch anything. The closest thing I could grab was a nail file — but it worked.

I peeled off the freezer paper carefully and cut apart my sixteen squares of Mr. Owl.

Layering the background — Kona Ash — with the backing and batting. Kona Ash? Light taupey gray? Cindy of Live a Colorful Life is probably laughing her head off now because she knows how much I hate gray. Really, I do. In so many modern quilts it acts as a big hole in the composition, especially if it’s a medium gray. I think if a quilter has to go gray in a quilt (and I’m not talking about those low-volume quilt compositions where it is intentional and where it works) they ought to go charcoal. Or slate. Ash is what I had on hand, as I don’t generally keep gray around (I bought it for a bee block I had to do). But it worked for this as the picture, except for the owl’s eyes, is all in taupes and grays. Yeah, low-volume.

Using the paper mock-up as a guide, I start layering the cloth images onto the backing.

Moving things around, trimming down the pieces so some aren’t square, trying for balance. Trying for that little artist’s lightbulb to go off in my head. I got about a night-light’s worth of illumination, but from my writing in grad school, I knew that showing up wouldn’t get you anywhere–you have to keep trying. To fully put this concept into action, I went to dinner, then let it sit for a week while I went to our quilt retreat.

Then one morning it was simply time to tackle it again. I couldn’t decide between satin-stitching a thicker line (close zig-zagging) or straight-stitching a narrow line of thread around each piece. Narrow won. I trimmed it up to 12 inches and then thought I’d like to try a faced binding (tutorial on how to do a faced binding coming in a couple of days).

I cut strips to match the backing, sewed them on.

When I ironed them to the back on a couple of sides, it became apparent that I needed that “frame” of the binding for this particular quilt. Rip off the binding.

I kind of liked the way the binding corralled those tiled pieces.

I made the label, sewed it on, then went outside to photograph it. I made an interesting discovery.

This lower section of the feathered wing imitated the gnarly bark of my silk oak tree in my backyard. Maybe because I’d dampened the literal image of feathers with Photoshop filters? I don’t know, but I liked the effect.

So, all the incongruent small pieces — the images, the tiling, the layering, the stitching — all merged into a lovely congruence of an owl, just like the metaphoric meanings discussed yesterday. All combine into that creature that captures our imagination while mystifying us as well.

And now I leave you with a poem by Mary Oliver, that I think captures this idea:

“Praise,” by Mary Oliver

Knee-deep
in the ferns
springing up
at the edge of the whistling swamp,

I watch the owl
with its satisfied,
heart-shaped face
as it flies over the water–

back and forth–
as it flutters down
like a hellish moth
wherever the reeds twitch–

whenever, in the muddy cover,
some little life sighs
before it slides into moonlight
and becomes a shadow.

In the distance,
awful and infallible,
the old swamp belches.
Of course

It stabs my heart
whenever something cries out
like a teardrop.
But isn’t it wonderful,

What is happening
in the branches of the pines:
the owl’s young,
dressed in snowflakes,

are starting to fatten–
they beat their muscular wings,
they dream of flying
for another million years

over the water,
over the ferns,
over the world’s roughage
as it bleeds and deepens.

from House of Light, 1990

Quilts

Congruence, a Four-in-Art Challenge Quilt

August 1, 2013August 12, 2013 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Congruence, #4 in the Four-in-Art Nature series

In one of Mary Oliver’s poem, “Praise,” she watches an owl “as it flies over the water” with its “heart-shaped face,” hunting down “some little life. . . before it slides into moonlight and becomes a shadow.” She wrote multiple poems about nature, and owls were a featured bird in her poetry. She captured their qualities from their nocturnal hunting to their perceived wisdom to their wildness. As I read further about owls, the more I discovered. I felt the owl — or its ideal –was being fractured into many parts.

Some say the owl is wise, other say evil. Some say the owl brings death, other say he represents the ideal of living for a millennium. I couldn’t find any sources that agreed on what an owl represented metaphorically, and so I, too, began to see the owl as fractured, of being composed of multiple parts. And so I present my version of an owl, a congruence of many similar, yet disparate parts.

This is the 4th challenge under the heading of Nature for the art quilt group Four-in-Art. Initially that number four denoted the four of us (see below for their quilts), but we have now stretched our group to eight, so in November (when our next challenge is due) we’ll have other quilts to look at.

I found this theme to be a challenge, yet am happy with what came to me and how it fell into place. Do I feel it was a home-run? Hmmmm. But even a base hit will get you started round the bases, and double or a triple will get you a good way towards home plate. When I began this year-long process, I had no idea how it would work, or even if everyone would stick with me to the end. But for this to work, I needed to see their home runs, their doubles and triples in order to grow. Congruence now hangs in my studio, the last in a line of four quilts that have become a narrative to a new kind of journey in quilting. So, to my fellow Four-in-Art artists, I say a heartfelt and mighty thank you. You are the best.

Leanne of She Can Quilt

Rachel of The Life of Riley

Betty — who did two! — from her Flickr site

Tomorrow, I’ll deconstruct Congruence, quilt #119 on my 200 Quilts list, and tell how I put it together.

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Our next year-long theme is Urban, and our first challenge is Maps.
I’ll have a future post about ideas for this.

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This is another finish for the Finish-A-Long, organized and championed by Leanne, of She Can Quilt (yes! one of our Four-in-Art artists!).

Quilt Shows · Quilts

Road to California Quilt Show 2013—part III

March 5, 2013March 3, 2013 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

This is the final post on the quilts I saw at Road.

Fiesta Mexico was made by Karen Kay Buckley and quilted by Renae Haddadin.

The back was amazing, with all the colored thread. Details of the front are below.

Chromatic Transitions. Rachel Wetzler adapted a late 1800s Minton tile pattern to make her quilt. Four tiles pivoting on center makes one block and there are 25 blocks in the quilt. She played with the placement of values to de-emphasize some shapes and empasize others. Details below.

This quilt fascinated me by the way she appliqued it. Some swirlies were turned-under (freezer paper method?) and then appliqued using a small zig-zag.

And then there’s this section which is raw-edge appliqued. I love the combo of both in one quilt.

Cranes in Motion was made by Gloria Gilhousen and quilted by Jean McDaniel of Oregon. So you’re thinking: nice birds, nice autumny background. And then you realize that the background is all flying geese, set on the diagonal. Clever.

Inspiration came while she was vacationing in Florida where “cranes are ubiquitous and sunsets are an extraordinary visual experience.”

Sheil Frampton-Cooper is the one who put together the Perspectives exhibit where you saw lots of landscapes yesterday. This is her quilt, Fantasyland. She writes: “Created during an emotionally challenging time, working on this quilt was an escape to a fun place. It was my ‘amusement park’ and regardless of what I had to deal with, as soon as I entered my studio and felt its vibrant energy, I was comforted and full of excitement.” She is from California.

I included this quilt because when was the last time you ever saw a cream and green quilt? Green Miles was made and quilted by Peggy Kragnes of Minnesota. She writes that it was made “using green fabrics gathered on a 7,000 mile road tip with patient husband.” No kidding. There are many different fabrics in here and the quilting is wonderful, too. Detail shots below.

Annette Guerrero made two solid-fabric quilts. This first one is titled Convergence.

This quilt is titled Iris.

She included a quote from Emile Zola on her sign: “If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.”

Lily Pad, made by Patti Van Oordt and quilted by Cory Allender (both of St. George, Utah) is a paper pieced design that had its origins in a class by Claudia Meyers. Since I’ve been working on a hexie-shaped quilt for eons, I was interested in how she displayed the pieced hexies against the rusty-orange background.

This little stunner, titled McTangerine Rose, was the 2011 Block of the Month patter by Sue Garman for “The Quilt Show.” Lynn Droege, the maker, added an additional border. It was quilted by Lisa Sipes; both are from Kansas.

For a change of pace, here’s a miniature quilt. Kaye Koler of Ohio, “set out to see how small I could make a log cabin.” Each block is ONE AND ONE-HALF INCHES!! Which means, my thumb (and yours) would just about cover one log cabin. She used 172 different fabrics. All of the miniatures were amazing, but because of the plastic tape, I couldn’t really get in to see them.

Pam Hadfield, from California, saw a trivet in the airport, and used it as inspiration for her quilt We Moost be in Yellowstone. I have a Christmas ornament similar to this from when I visited Yellowstone: a moose filled with designs.

Another exhibit in the show was something called “Power Suits,” and each quilter used their own ideas to depict the theme. I liked some of these very much.

Someday I aim to make a pineapple log cabin quilt!

The annual awarding of The Ugly Quilt came from this exhibit, but this year we had a tie. You’ll find them at the end of this post.

Remember the swirly quilt above in yellows and blues? Well, Rachel Wetzler did it again: Rare Birds is a quilt depicting the six of her friends in a their quilt critique group: (l to r) Denise Havlan, Rachel Wetzler, Annette Hendricks, Beth Gilbert, Ann Fahl and Robbi Eklow. That’s quite a group!

Along the front wall of the ballroom was a Route Sixty-Six quilt. It consisted of large panels with lots of small quilts adhered to the “road,” showing off the sights in the area of the cities along the route. Here are some of the panels, with some close-ups of the mini-quilts as well.

I included this one because my daughter used to live in Kingman Arizona, and I’m pretty sure the movie Cars was based on some of the scenery around there.

We have a giant orange stand like this in Riverside, in our State Citrus Heritage Park.

Let Sleeping Cats Lie, by Cheryl Giovenco (quilted by Sheila Osbrink, both of Corona, California). This quilt is made of 19 different batik fabrics, and was designed by Helene Knott.

Vincent–Haunted Genius was made and quilted by Danna Shafer of Temecula, California and is her interpretation of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” She used fused appliqué, secured with monofilament thread; it was five years in the making. Detail below.

This is for you applique fans. Joan Lebsack made Welcome to My Tea Party, based on a pattern by Verna Mosquera.

The sign next to this quilt was wrong, so I have no idea who made it or what the title is. It’s really lovely.

A couple of years ago (March 2010), there was an exhibit of red and white quilts in New York City, “Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red & White Quilts,” which took us all by storm. Thelma Childers made this quilt as an homage to that amazing show, but also as a way to show many different quilts, and how one might have obscured the other as a person walked through that show. I’m a fan of Thelma’s, so was really excited to see it in person, as I read about on her blog as she made it.

The beautiful quilting is by Connie Lancaster.

This is another Childers’ quilt: Two Score and Seven Stars, and it is quilted by Judi Madsen (both are from Illinois).

Tree of Life, by Allison Lockwood of California, was based on a trip to Thailand, where she was “enthralled with the color and sparkle of Thai Buddhist temples.”

What made this quilt by Gayle Pulley stand out for me was not only the coloring of her hand-painting on a whole cloth, but also where the color isn’t, and how the stitching fills in. Two Tenacious Crows are certainly having their feast in a cornfield.

And now I bring you my truly subjective category: Ugliest Quilt. One is easy and you’ll probably agree with me. This first one, however, may make you howl, especially if you loved this Award-winning Quilt. I couldn’t find anyone who did, so I think there are more that might give me a thumbs’ up on my awarding of this quilt one of two in the Ugly Quilt category.

I like red. I like gold. I’m not opposed to feathers. But I couldn’t make any sense of this one, other than it was one of those quilts that was just a show-off for technique, and not for design, or cohesiveness. It’s made by a couple of big-name artists (I never reveal my Ugly Quilt makers), and while a lot of times I see their quilts up here on Winners Row at Road, this one just made me scratch my head and realize that my puny efforts will NEVER get in, if this is what the winning quilt looks like.

This is just all wrong on so many levels: the art, the composition, the appliqué wads of dyed cotton batting for hair. It has nothing at all to do with the subject matter, just like the quilt above.

I guess I look for quilts that have some intrinsic beauty, when I pick out my favorites, or colorations or design elements that are interesting. I also appreciate technique, but “over” technique is just as big of a sin to me as is “under” technique.

Other observations: The people that hang the quilt show still have that affliction of hanging subjects together, such as all the flowers together, all the birds together, all the zombies together (I didn’t show any but we did have some Halloween quilts) so that you don’t let the quilts interact in a more natural way. Wish that would go away.

I think the show overall was better than last year (it could only go one way), but I was not as charged up about the vendors as I usually am. Perhaps that’s just because I’ve gone too many times and seen everything that is brought to the show (or maybe I have just too projects on the back burner with too many yards of fabric home in the closet). I did buy a bead bracelet (quilt shows are a great place for jewelry), and some solids from Ginger’s, but other than a few bits here and there, it wasn’t a Big Haul. I think the group that we were with didn’t buy as much as usual, either.

I do appreciate having a quilt show nearby, and look forward to Long Beach the first week of August. The best time of all was with my friends–both new and old–eating together, doing Show and Tell, taking a break. See you all next year!

And that’s a wrap for 2013.