Pastels

My garden is flush this year with an abundance of delicate columbine.  Perched atop tall, slender stems, their blossoms range from the lightest, palest blush of pinky-lavender . . .

 to blues . . .

and purples . . .

They remind me of a beautiful vintage quilt that came into my possession about 10 years ago.  From a distance it's beautiful,

but on closer inspection, some of the fabrics are quite damaged.

It's a shame, really, and it's too extensive of a repair job for me to undertake, so I wondered how else I could use this quilt.

Every bit of it is hand-pieced, as well as hand-quilted, as you can see from the tiny, even stitches on the back.

After several days of working up the courage, I finally got out my best fabric scissors and began cutting from one edge of the quilt, while Baby supervised:

After I trimmed a bit, some sweet quilted stars emerged:

 

 And I knew exactly what to do with them!

QUICK! Enter to win thermofax screens!

Want to enter a drawing for some cool thermofax screens?  Hop over to Terri Stegmiller's blog  and enter the drawing -- QUICK -- before it ends tomorrow!

Terri Stegmiller's screenprinted samples.

Lucky girl, she was just gifted a thermofax machine and has been busy putting her own designs onto screens so that we can "borrow" some of her whimsical designs to use in our own creations!  Check them out on her etsy site, here.

They'd be so much fun to play with!

Unveiling the "Painted Canvas (AKA 'Name That Challenge') Challenge"

The Fiberexplorations group met earlier this month and everyone brought their quilts for the Painted Canvas Challenge.  Back in February, we got together and painted a large piece of canvas (cotton duck), which was later cut into a grid (4 across and 3 down). That's 12 sections, one for each member.

The challenge was for each of us to create a quilt, 18" x 24", that used at least 48 square inches of the painted canvas. Later, we'll temporarily stitch these 12 smaller quilts into one large 72" x 72" piece that can be entered into shows as a "group" quilt.

For the unveiling, we arranged our individual quilts on the floor, according to the original grid.  (For example, I had the piece of painted canvas from position #9 on the grid, so my quilt was placed in that position on the floor.)  One person missed the meeting, hence the "hole" in position #4.

The Painted Canvas Challenge

I'm always amazed at the wide range of design styles and the individual ways a challenge is interpreted, and this one was no exception!   In some of the quilts, the painted canvas pieces blend so well into the quilt's design that it requires closer inspection to find them.  We wondered if a viewer could figure out what the challenge was (or find the common theme) if we didn't provide that info.  With that in mind, I suggested that we rename this the "Name That Challenge" Challenge quilt.

Standing above these quilts in the fading light, I tried to photograph them, but wasn't very successful.  This shot of Chris' and Maureen's quilts was the only salvageable one:

On left: Chris's piece.  One right:  Maureen's piece.

Look for the "Name That Challenge" Challenge Quilt at this summer's Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show on Sat., July 13.

Progress on "Painted Canvas" Challenge

 We're unveiling our finished pieces for the "Painted Canvas" challenge at next Monday night's meeting.  It took me awhile to narrow down my design ideas, but I finally decided to base it on this sketch from my design journal: 
  

Challenge idea from my design journal.

When the top was finished, I needed to decide how to quilt it.  I had four ideas in mind, so I made this quick crayon sketch of the quilt . . .
 
 

 then auditioned each of the quilting designs (penciled onto tracing paper) over it:

Possible quilting lines, idea #4.

 I decided to go with my first idea, where the quilting lines curve in opposing directions:

Chosen plan for the quilting lines.

  Here's the finished top before it was quilted:

Quilt top, before quilting

 I plan to add LOTS of quilting lines in multiple colors, and hope it complements the happy feeling I already get from this quilt.

More student work and a last-minute contest

My previous post was about the classes I'm currently teaching.  Here are a few more shots from my April 7 soy wax batik class at Greenbaum's Quilted Forest:

White cloth stamped with soy wax.

One very ambitious student spent most of the class time stamping designs onto her fabric, but still managed to get them all dyed.  Do you see why I get so many ideas from my students?  Teaching is a two-way street!

Piles of soy wax-stamped fabric ready for dye-painting!

The next time I teach this class, I'll get some shots of the stamped and dyed fabrics.  This blog post needs some COLOR!

The piece of painted canvas I received for the current challenge.  Yes, I've started!

And on the subject of COLOR:


Win a set of Golden Artist  Colors' surfaces and textures for dry media from Interweave Press  -- a sampling of 13 products, including the new Micaceous Iron Oxide.  (Serendipity?? I just learned the word micaceous during last week's episode of Project Runway, when Patricia embellished a dress with micaceous sequins! Did anyone else see it?)
Deadline: midnight (CST) Thursday, April 25, 2013.

Comments are ALWAYS welcome and appreciated!

It's All In the Details: fabric collage class

In all my years of teaching at Greenbaum's Quilted Forest, I think my current class line-up is my favorite! In March, I taught Serendipity Quilts, which is based on Susan Carlson's book of the same title.  It's only a 6-hour class, so students typically don't get to the quilting stage of their projects.  In fact, they discover that it's the finishing touches added later -- in the 7th, 8th, or 10th hour they've spent on their collages -- that really makes the piece come alive!  It's all in the details.

Here are some of the works-in-progress by my students:

 Anne's two colorful fish.

  

Carlene's flowers (with Angelina fibers at their centers).

Shelley's amazing green-eyed cat.

Alice's smiling sun.

I hope to see these pieces when they're quilted and finished.  Great work!

As always, your comments are welcome and appreciated.

Two members juried into regional show

Congratulations to our members Deb Sorem and Erika Close, who recently learned that their quilts were juried into the 2013 show Fabrications: The Art of Quilting. 

Deb's "The Signal and the Noise"

Erika's "Meyer Lemons"

This is the second year for this annual juried show of art and contemporary quilts, which is sponsored by the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.  It opens on March 1 with a First Friday reception from 5-8 pm at Franklin Crossing.  This venue is on the corner of Franklin & Bond in downtown Bend.   If you can't make it for the opening reception, the show is open for viewing until the end of March.
 

Fabrications is the only juried exhibit of art and contemporary quilts in Central Oregon.  Quilts were submitted from Oregon, Washington, California and Arizona for consideration.  Jurors selected quilts that represent original design, excellent composition, and unique surface and finishing techniques.

Both Erika and Deb have logged many studio hours over the past year, as their work clearly demonstrates!

Painted Canvas Challenge

What has the Fiberexplorations group been up to?  Getting ready for our next challenge, of course!

On Sunday, our group got together at Deb's for a canvas-painting extravaganza.  Using only primary colors, we painted a large piece of 7-oz. cotton duck cloth.  We moved around the table, rotating from yellow to red to blue, giving each person multiple opportunities to use the three colors.

Lisa decides where to paint next.

 Then we added white highlights.

All hands in!

 The finished cloth, after adding bold strokes of black.

Layers build up as we added details.

Hearts, fireworks, flowers, leaves, swirls, ladybugs . . .

A truly collaborative project!

The paint has had a week to dry.  At our upcoming meeting Mon. night, we'll each receive a bag containing a portion of the painted cloth.  Stay tuned to see how we'll use it in our next challenge!

Please remember that your comments are always welcome and appreciated.