I’m in Quilting Arts Gifts magazine!

My “Classic Evening Bag” is going to be featured in Quilting Arts' Gifts issue, which will come out September 16! It is a huge issue jam-packed with seasonal projects for arty quilters to make. Look for my project on page 106. You can pre-order it on the Quilting Arts website here for $13.49 (which is 10 percent off the newsstand price). Quilting Arts magazine subscribers save an additional 10 percent. And if you like art quilting and you are not a subscriber, what are you waiting for? I find it to be an incredible source of information and inspiration each time it lands in my mailbox. I'm really honored to have my project included!

My “Four Pieces Project”

Yesterday, my friend Lushorn brought me the last piece of my fern (the part on the far left) for my Pandora’s "Four Pieces Project." (The Pandoras is an art-quilt group of which I am a member.) I just love it! Thanks, Lushorn!

The pieces were made by (from left:) Lushorn Millsaps, DeLane Rosenau, me, and Grace Howes. The two on the left do not have finished edges yet; that's why they are a bit larger than the other two. Here's the photo we started with:



We each chose a 4x6" photo, blew it up to 16x24" and split it up into four equal pieces (horizontally, vertically, or criss-cross) and then gave out the pieces to the members of our group. Every two months, we have a deadline to complete one person's project. (DeLane's was due in July, and next month, Grace's pieces are due.)

Each peron's job is to recreate their section of the photo using a technique they want to try out. The color is to remain fairly close to the photo, since it would be too jarring if the colors varied widely once the photo was reconstructed. It is really fun to see how the pieces come together.

If you are interested in doing something like this, check out the brand new book by Linda Chang Teufel called Quilting Party! Group Quilting for Celebration, Commemoration & Charity, or Just for Fun! It is published by Dragon Threads. Linda shows how bigger groups used this technique for some spectacular art quilts. We started this project before I read the book. I wish I had read it before we started, as it offers some wonderful ideas, tips and planning lists.

I met Linda in a gift shop in the Portland Airport last May as I was leaving Quilt Market. My mom complimented her necklace and we started chatting. Turns out she is the publisher of Dragon Threads, which publishes beautiful art quilt and fiber art books, several of which I already owned!

Painting fabric with the Pandoras

At the meeting of the Pandoras (my art quilt buddies) this morning, we altered fabric using Jacquard Textile Medium and Lumiere fabric paints, and a whole bunch of "stuff." I made this piece using a circle cut from a pool noodle, and a piece of plastic from the bottom of a nursery flat (those plastic bins that hold the six-packs of flowers); I wet the fabric first so the designs would be a bit blurred:


The one below is also my piece. The big squarish dots in the upper right are made by painting on top of a plastic sink liner (the ones that are supposed to keep you from chipping your dishes when you wash them in your sink). I bought it for $1 at the Dollar Store.

This is Grace's piece next. You might not be able to see the beautiful subtle marks left by her running a brayer with paint on it over the fabric, with a piece of plastic canvas underneath:

Here is Grace using part of a construction fence to stamp her fabric. She started out with green fabric, and added some marks with a stamp, the construction fence, and the little liner that comes on the bottles of Lumiere.



This next one is mine, made using the plastic canvas stuff. I unevenly applied paint to the brayer before rolling it over the fabric; that's how I got the cool stripes.

Lushorn used my Cedar Canyon rubbing plates (which I usually use with Shiva Paintstiks) under her fabric to add a nice leaf motif to her yellow flowered batik fabric:


Grace and I have both been reading Rayna Gillman's fantastic book, Create your own hand-printed cloth: Stamp screen & stencil with everyday objects, and we tried out some of the techniques she outlines in Chapter 2 today. I'm eager to try out some of the other techniques in her book on another day.

Magic Beans

I've just finished this little 13" square piece I call “Magic Beans.” I made it for an online challenge group called The Baker's Dozen. Every few months we choose a theme and sign up. This time, the theme was caffeine.

Rusted I

Here’s what I made out of my bottle-cap rusted fabric. I’m calling it Rusted I. While brown is not a color I usually work with, I'm liking these orangy-brown rust stains. I think I'll probably be making more pieces from rusted fabric in the future. This may get some additional embellishement, maybe buttons or embroidery...



I used a new kind of batting, EcoCraft by Mountain Mist, in this quilt, and I liked it very much. (I requested a small batt when I was at Quilt Market in Portland in May.) It contains Ingeo™ fiber, which is made from corn! Here's what Mountian Mist's website says about Ingeo™: "It is also known as PLA, a polymer is made from lactic acid, which is a natural product. Lactic acid is made from fermentable sugars, sugars that are found in plants and more specifically corn. This process is both revolutionary to the textile and fiber industry and patented by our partner, Nature Works LLC."

The one problem I had is that I usually iron my batting to get it smooth before I layer my quilt, batting and backing. When I touched the iron to it, it stuck slightly, and left a residue on my iron. So I just steamed it heavily with my iron and patted it flat instead.

I probably won't be washing this piece, so I can't give you my opinion on washability. Perhaps I'll use it again in a small project, and test that out sometime later. The company recommends washing in cold water and laying flat to dry.

“Home Planet”

Since the 2009 Quilting Arts calendar is now out, I can reveal my piece, "Home Planet,” which was selected for the month of April, because Earth Day falls in that month.

12" x 12"
Cotton fabrics, cotton and rayon threads, fabric paint, Angelina fibers, watersoluable wax pastels, Tyvek, cotton batting, machine thread painted and quilted.



You can see the Tyvek (gold mountain ranges) and the Angelina (wispy clouds) in the detail shot above.

Cloth Fiber Workshop

I went with some friends, Cathy and Michele, to see the Asheville Quilt Show this weekend, and after that we wandered down to Cloth Fiber Workshop, which offers workshops and classes, sustainable and organic materials and supplies, home furnishings and wearable accessories. Cloth’s owner, Barbara Zaretsky, was there, and we enjoyed talking to her about her shop, and the classes offered there. Here is Barbara with some of her beautiful work for sale at Cloth:

It is a very nice retail space, with lovely art and art supplies to purchase. (I came home with some Indigo dye, a special button and some gorgeous wool embroidery thread.)

Next to the retail space is a large classroom, with lots of wonderful art exhibited on the walls.

If you are visiting Asheville, make sure you don't miss Cloth!

Cloth Fiber Workshop
51 Thompson Street, Suite D
Asheville NC 28803
828.505.2958

Foothills Quilters Guild

About two weeks ago, I spoke to the Foothills Quilters Guild of Shelby, North Carolina (a wonderful, friendly group, by the way), and I started out by telling this story:

I was going in to do a presentation at a guild meeting, and overheard two women having a conversation that went like this:

"Do you know who the speaker is tonight?"
"No, I didn't look."
"I hope it's not one of those art quilters again!"
"Me, too..."

I explained that I hoped that no one at this meeting felt that way, and assured them that I loved traditional quilts AND art quilts, and that I made a lot of traditional quilt patterns. After the meeting, a woman named Leah Day came up and introduced herself. Leah is an internet marketer as well as a quilter and pattern designer and teacher. I later discovered that she had posted about me on her blog (and you can read her comments about my presentation and her thoughts on art quilt/traditional quilt issues here).

I also met Harriette Grigg, who showed me a photo of her art quilt, "Baskets – Two" and told me that it was going to be displayed at the Asheville Quilt Show. It was gorgeous, and I told her that I thought she would win a ribbon. Sure enough, when I went to the show on Saturday, her quilt had a blue ribbon on it, a first place prize in the "Art Quilt, Established" category. Hoooray for Harriette!

Here's a photo of her winning quilt:

Rust dyeing experiment #2

Yep, vinegar works better. Tying the rusty objects into the fabric also helps. Here are the same rusty bottlecaps I used yesterday, only I used rubberbands to tightly tie them into the fabric. Then I put vinegar into a plastic bag with the fabric and let it steep for about 12 hours. Voila! The shot above shows most of the fat quarter.

And here's a detail shot:


The stains are darker and more well defined. And the rest of the fabric is a light reddish brown color, too. Next time, I'm using vinegar instead of salt.

Rust dyeing experiment #1

I've been eager to try rust dyeing for a while now, and yesterday I came across Bonnie McCaffery's interview with one of the rust dyeing gurus, Lois Jarvis. This made me even more interested in testing it out.

I had been collecting some metal objects for a while. Some I found around my neighborhood when I was walking the dog. The crushed old bottlecaps were retrieved from the gravel parking lot at Charlotte's Verizon Ampitheater.

I wet the fabric first, placed the metal objects on top, sprinkled them with table salt, folded the fabric over them, and spritzed it with more water. From what I've read, vinegar can make the oxidation process happen faster than salt. I'm going to try it next.

Rust is iron oxide. The iron reacts to the oxygen in the water and the air and creates rust. Rust is a mordant, and remains in the fiber permananently.

Here's what it looked like after about 12 hours:



One of the biggest surprises is that some of the metal objects that were rust-free when I started (like the bigger square with the circle in it) produced the strongest rusty marks. This made me want to run to the hardware store and buy some other metal pieces to try. Maybe tomorrow...

And here's what it looked like after about 24 hours, before rinsing and washing:



Notice the blue-grey marks in the photo above? I think they were made by twigs from my maple tree! (Keep reading and you'll find out why they made a different color.)

Here it is after washing in Synthrapol, drying and pressing. This shot shows the entire sheet of fabric, about a fat quarter, and how the objects left different marks on the fabric below them (right side) and above them (left side). It is interesting that the marks are more solid on the fabric above. This may be because the fabric was dyed on my sidewalk, and the gritty texture pushed the fabric close to the metal in some places and not in others.



A shot closer up:



And even closer:



I also put a small scrap of white cotton into an old rusty pail with some salt. This time I also added some strong tea. Tea is a tannin, and it combines with iron to make a more color-fast dye. It has the added effect of making the color shades of gray.



Here is the fabric I dyed in the bucket, after washing and drying:


Want to know more? Kimberly Baxter Packwood of The Prairie Fibers Co. has great information on her website. And Paula Burch does a good job of explaining the chemical process behind rust dyeing.

Watercolor

I'm in the last few weeks of my online Studio Journals class, and I've been working on some ideas for some new art quilts. Our instructor has encouraged us to think about how we can translate our designs into fiber. This is a water color painting I did using the lines from a Painted Lady butterfly’s wings, but with different colors. This intrigues me because I have always found it easier to work in a realistic style. In doing this exercise, I am seeing how I can take something realistic and abstract it using color and scale.

RIP: Canon PowerShot SD400

Yesterday, I discovered that the LCD screen on my Canon PowerShot SD400 digital camera was damaged. I have no idea how it happened. Those photos I took on Wednesday at the N.C. Arboretum were its swan song. Snif, snif...

The repairs would have cost more than it was worth, so after a few sad hours, I started camera shopping. I got a new camera today, a Canon PowerShot A590IS. It is going to take a while to learn the features and get comfortable with it, but I think I will like it eventually. Here are a few photos I took this afternoon in my garden. I use the macro feature a lot; I love how you see things you never noticed before when you get that close.





Here is a photo I took with my old camera last week, and a colored pencil sketch I did based on the photo:

Looking for lines

Yesterday I was at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, and set myself the job of taking photos of lines. All but the bottom row of photos were taken there. It is a marvelous place that boasts not only gorgeous plants, but beautiful architecture, spectacular decks and fences, and great sculpture. I particularly like the shots where the lines frame negative space that changes (for example, the fence shots with blue sky in some spots, clouds in some spots, and grass or trees in some spots).

It is interesting to note that none of the line photos I took at the Arboretum are plants or natural materials. I guess I was looking for primarily straight lines, and the structures of the man-made things are mostly straight.

Going round in circles

I created this collage of circles for an exercise in my online class. This week's lesson is called "Looking, Hunting and Gathering with a Camera." I already do this a lot, but searching for a single shape in one outing seemed intriguing. I took all but one of these photos today in about a 30 minutes walk with the dog down my street.

From upper left: Drainage pipe in an old stone wall; air conditioner vent, doorbell, planter, electric meter, daisy, old cauldron, cast iron sewer grate, railing joint, drainage pipe in concrete block wall, cast iron water grate (painted blue for construction), stop sign post, soft drink can, hubcap, water handle, basket handle, palm, electric meter gauge, iron pipe joint, watering can spout.

Kaleidoscopes!

Through the online class I'm taking with Sharon Boggon, I was introduced to an addictive piece of software on the internet where you can create your own kaleidoscopes! It is http://www.krazydad.com/kaleido//

Follow the directions at the bottom of this web page to paste a photo from the internet into the "Image" field that ends in .jpg, .gif or png. You can use the 5-way, 7-way or 11-way buttons to change how it looks. Move the portion of the image around to change the view further. Then you can click on the "JPEG" button and you'll get a screen where you can save the kaleidoscope you've created.

I created these kaleidoscopes using images on this blog. The blue one above is wet paint on a piece of Wonder Under. Below, the images are (in order): pincushions, "Harbinger's Hope", "Ferns", violets, and "A Dozen Hearts" (two different kaleidoscopes from the same image).

Bohemian Bouquet Block #7

It’s the fifteenth of the month, and that means it is time to reveal the next Bohemian Bouquet block in my mystery block-of-the-month program! I think this one may be my favorite so far. I'll have the patterns available for sale on my website later tonight. Here is DeLane's version on a cream background:

Christmas in July project

My local guild, Lake Norman Quilters, is having a Christmas in July bazaar at our meeting next Tuesday, July 22. We are all bringing items to sell (and money to buy, of course!). I decided to make some fiber art postcards. Here are two I did today.