A Tree in the Batty Binder's Art Quilt Forest: Jo Heffner

 As I mentioned in my post from earlier this week, the art quilt subgroup (Twisted Stitchers) of the Batty Binder's Quilt Guild in Troy did an exchange this last year.  The process is commonly called a "Round Robin".  Each person in the group made a basic quilt (usually in a traditional guild it is a block), then, they pass off the quilt to the next person who adds something.  After passing through the entire group, the piece returns to the originator to finish it.

In the case of the Batty Binders, each "turn" of the round robin was to be drawn from the theme of the chapters in Jane D'Avila and Elin Waterston's Art Quilt Workbook.

Here, you see Jo Heffner's "blank."  All of the quilts were to have a tree motif.  Jo was quite clever and shows her traditional roots by piecing the sky.  You can see what a great job she did at shifting the colors and texture to give it more interest.  Oh...and all of the quilts were supposed to be around 11" x 14".

Here's what Jo got back.  The first person to add something was Becky Goodwin who added the paper pieced flying geese swath which is just gorgeous in real life.  She used iridescent fabric and I think (if I remember correctly) batik for the points. Susan Pickrell added felted leaves embellished with beads....she got carried away with the felting and I love the whimsical feel the addition gives the piece.  Gwen added the "creative piecing" element with the kite....and I can't remember if she also added the girl or if Ruth Treon added that.  I think...but I can't swear to it, that Linnette Vagedes added the squirrel and the dragonfly....

I'm going to have to rely on the group to chime in and straighten me out....The owner's are lucky as they sent a blank notebook around with their work and as each person worked on it, they added their thoughts and reasons for adding what they did....in addition to exactly what they added and the date.  They also took a picture of what it looked like when they were done with it so that the originator could see it "grow."

I didn't participate, largely because I had only had two courses of chemo therapy under my belt at the time and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to complete it even in the 2 months that everyone had to work on them...I think I made a wise choice because my hands just don't work like they once did and I find it interesting to say the least as I re-learn how to quilt with my hands just not going like they once did.  Practice will make perfect.  In addition, in about June of this year, I began to have vision problems which progressed...