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.

Mid-winter frost

Yes, I've been absent for awhile, but I have a backlog of photos and stories to share.

 In this case, there's no story -- just photos taken around our property in early Jan. after a few days of cold weather and heavy frost.

 A garden ornament was encrusted with white.

 

 A fence was transformed.
 

 Spider webs that looked crocheted.

And long-needle pines wearing ghostly-white.

  Beautiful.

"Letters" Challenge Unveiled

Our annual holiday potluck was held on Dec. 17th at Deb's, and after a great meal, we exchanged fabric postcards.  This year we added Put a bird on it to the holiday theme of our cards:

Our holiday fabric postcards.

 A few members were unable to attend the gathering, including Torrie (a huge snowstorm kept her on the other side of the mountains), but she sent a photo of her postcard:

Torrie's postcard

 Before unveiling the "Letters" challenge quilts, Chris showed a really cool gift she made for her daughter, a cover for her e-reader:

Chris's e-reader cover.

Inside the e-reader cover.

And the challenge quilts . . .

"64 by 64"  -- Torrie

 In 1964, Torrie began corresponding with a penpal in Australia, which has developed into a lifelong friendship that's continued to this day.  They've even met in person twice!  This quilt is a testament to that correspondence; the blue in the center represents the ocean that separates them.

"DNA" -- Chris

"Egg" -- Nancy

(title to be added) -- Deb

"Love" -- Patty

"Madrona"  -- Erika

"Postcard for my Family" (in progress)  -- Maureen

Detail of  Maureen's "Postcard"

"The Signal and the Noise" -- Deb

"Too Much Noise and Not Enough Transparency" -- Deb

Lisa's "Plork!?" (the sound raindrops make when they hit the ground)

My "Blue Secrets" (not yet quilted)

Another challenge with varied and interesting interpretations of the theme.  That part's always a thrill to me.  What will we do next?  Stay tuned to find out!

"Letters" challenge deadline approaches

A week from tomorrow is our annual holiday potluck/meeting.  We're having it at Deb's again because it was so much fun last year (and she didn't mind hosting again this year!).  We'll each show our finished pieces for the current "Letters" challenge and much of it will be a surprise.   Interestingly, it seems that there's been much less previewing of our work in progress this time than there was with past challenges.

Soon after the "Letters" theme was suggested as our next challenge, I had the idea of secret writing.  I was also playing around with some encaustic wax projects and wanted to incorporate that  into this challenge

Here is the encaustic bit that I'll add to my "Letters" piece:

Layers of writing on watercolor paper, dipped into encaustic wax.

Previously, we've shared our challenge quilts throughout their construction.  Some members were simply excited to show what they'd done so far, while others sought specific design feedback (Do the colors flow?  Does the quilt have enough contrast?  Does it keep the viewer's eye moving through the piece?)  One of the beautiful things about our group is the willingness of members to share their knowledge and their generosity in offering valuable suggestions in a completely noncompetitive manner. We've created a very supportive environment where members feel safe enough to show work that may they feel less than confident about.  Unfailingly, someone will speak up about the elements of that design that do work, and others chime in with thoughtful ideas and suggestions, sharing even their favorite tips and tricks.  Such encouragement is like a shot of confidence for the recipient.

So it seems that we're all growing more confident and have less need to get feedback while our challenge pieces are in progress.  I'm excited about that.  I've often thought it would be more exciting if our challenge deadlines were actually unveilings where we'd see each others' quilts for the first time.

That being said, I realize I'd have even less reasons for posting on this blog if I didn't show my work in progress (or my design dilemmas, and of course there have been plenty this time, as always). 

A section I've pieced, including rust-dyed silk (left), deconstructed
screenprinting (blue spirals),  and a Thermofax screenprint (lower middle in blue).

Hand-dyed silk; 3 needlefelted pieces incorporating hand-dyed cheesecloth,
rust-dyed silk, wool and silk rovings.

Still much to do to get this finished by next week.  The ideas continue to flow, so I'll keep working on it until it feels like enough!

Deb's quilt accepted into Road to California Show!

Fiberexplorations member Deb Sorem recently learned that her quilt Grandmother's Secret Flower Garden was accepted into the juried Road to California Quilters' Conference & Showcase "The Best in the West."  The show runs from Jan. 24-27, 2013 in Ontario, Cal.

Gwen, Cora, and Harper in "Grandmother's Secret Flower Garden" by Deb Sorem.

"I took my granddaughters' names and worked them into kaleidoscopes," Deb said.  "The traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden pattern was a favorite of mine, and my mother made one for me as a wedding present.  I repeated the shape of the hexagons in this contemporary version." 

You can see the pieced hexagons in the blue sky background above

Detail.

This ingenious design could have easily worked as Deb's entry for our current "Letters" challenge, but I think she's done something entirely different for the challenge!  Here's one more detail shot of her quilt:

Detail.

Deb's granddaughters' names are Cora, Gwen, and Harper.  I think I've successfully deciphered each girl's name in its corresponding flower.  If you want to give it a try, click on the first photo to enlarge it.  (Hint:  each flower blossom spells out one of the girls' names in both its normal orientation and in reverse image.)

My "answer"  to the puzzle (and I sure hope it's correct!):  Clockwise from the top left, the three names are in the order given in the  first photo caption above.

New samples for winter classes

It was a very busy week!  I didn't get any photos at our meeting last Monday because of poor lighting, but next month should be a different story.  That's our holiday potluck dinner, where we'll exchange fabric postcards (this year we're adding a distinctive Portland spin on the cards: Put a bird on it!) AND unveil our Letters challenge quilts.  And it will be at Deb's, where the lighting is much better.

Last week's stormy weather was good for keeping me at home, working on the samples for the three new classes I'm teaching this winter at Greenbaum's Quilted Forest (Salem OR).  In fact, I turned them in just one day late, and that was because I kept adding tiny details to my fabric collage (Hello Mr. Sun) to create more definition.  That project is for my Serendipity Quilts class from the book by the same title (Susan Carlson, author).

"Hello Mr. Sun" class sample.

I still see areas that beg for more detail, but I had to stop and get this guy delivered!  That's okay; I'll use it in class at a teachable moment -- an opportunity to show the impact made by the tiniest of details.

Eye detail of "Hello Mr. Sun."

Detail of lips on "Hello Mr. Sun."

My sewing machine was so sweet and compliant as I did the free-motion quilting on Mr. Sun.  I used rayon threads for the soft gleam they impart (light gold for the sun and a medium blue for the background). 

My next duo of samples is for the Zen Quilts class, and is based on the concept of Zentangles, a type of doodling I've played around with for the past 5 years. I just now clicked on that link and visited their website for the first time in quite awhile, and I am WOWed by its popularity.  There are even yahoo groups set up for sharing the tangles that people have come up with!  (tangle is the term for a specific doodle design).

"Zen Quilts # 2 & 3"

 My third new class is the one I'm most excited about.  For me, surface design on fabric is all about making discoveries, and I love sharing those techniques.  When you combine fiber reactive dyes with a soy wax resist, you get batik!  To make my sample for this easy batik class, I simply cut some of the pieces I've made and stitched them together: 

Samples for my soy wax batik class.

With Thanksgiving behind us and my class samples finished, I'm ready to concentrate on pulling together all my ideas for our Letters challenge and choosing a starting place.