The Last Tree in the Batty Binder Forest Linette Vagades

Linette Vagedes is a special needs teacher in an elementary school and loves to mess around with art quilting...She is often frustrated, however, at trying to get what is in her mind's eye, onto the fabric, something which stymies most of us from time to time.

Here's her little "blank" tree.

I'm a little amused by this...it seems to have a split personality...a tree in the late autumn just as the frost and snow begins to come.  You might think that the addition on the side of the piecing is a bit odd...but the exercise that the person who added it was trying to work with was creating piecing.

I really can't remember who did what here.....I do know, however, that Susan Pickrell was responsible for the fairy and for the spiderweb in the tree....

I love the texture and depth that the additions to the base gave the tree. I think that the trunk may have had some paint added as well.

I'm sorry my picture didn't show it better, but there are whispers of silver thread through it very nicely stitched close together to suggest the wind.  I think Becky Goodwin was responsible for that, but it may have been Jo Heffner.

Here's the whole crew with their pieces....I'm not sure if the group really accomplished what they wanted to do with this project, but I can say they had a whole heck of a lot of fun doing it.

Art Quilt Forest: Ruth Treon's Tree

 I have been madly trying to get three quilts done to submit to the Studio Art Quilt Associations Ohio regional show...and quite frankly, have been too tuckered out to write! As I just got two of them pinned to the carpet and blocked, I'm going to take a little break and post this. :)

One of the things I think which was difficult for our little art Quilt group is to figure out how much or how little to make our blanks.  
Compare Ruth Treon's branches which flow off the space, with Gwen's (Here on Feb. 1)which were well.....truncated!

Ruth also packed her quilt bits in a shoe box to pass around.

 Remember, the originator didn't get to see these until the reveal.  Here you see Ruth's surprise as Loraine looks on.

As I mentioned, Susan Pickrell decided that the boxes needed embellishment....and she really had a heyday with Ruth's box.  The cover was covered with some trapunto quilting.  Inside, Susan made a yarn cover (I don't know if she knitted it or crocheted it) for her camera and stuck in some other interesting things in case someone wanted to use them on Ruth's work.

 Here's Ruth's finished piece.  Susan did the first thing which was to work with a word (the assignment from the Art Quilt Workbook which was applied on her turn).  Her word was "shadow."  Susan wrote "shadow" repeatedly on her sewing machine over net stabilized with water soluble stabilizer. This became the tree's shadow.

I think, but I'm not sure, that Linnette Vagedes added the pieced quilt...Becky Goodwin added the angelina frost which I think turned out great, Gwen Brown the painted area in the sky, and Jo Heffner made the rabbit and the rabbit footprints.

Here you can see more closely the really cool bird that Loraine Smith added...it has a real feather tail, and it is really tiny.  The over all size of this piece is about 14" tall.....so the bird is about 1/2" long.

Art Quilt Trees: Becky Goodwin

 Here's Becky Goodwin and her tree "blank" for the Round Robin.  Becky's was really neat because everyone reacted to it in the same way.....We saw an acacia tree in Africa....

The background is a brown batik ....

When we were passing these around, the person who started the piece had to leave the room....they were kept in boxes , and we discovered we had to add paper to some of the boxes so you couldn't peep in and see your piece before "the reveal."

Here's Becky and her sister Jo Heffner as Becky looks at her piece for the first time in a year.

This turned out to be one of the best ones.  Linnette Vagedes added the eagle---and her husband and she kept on moving the eagle around the piece before it was positioned here.  She made it so that the wing would flip out and be dimensional.

Loraine Smith added the hut, which also had dimensions....I think...I don't remember who added the one lady with the burden...I think it was Ruth Treon who added the path as well.  Then the second lady was added by someone else...

The stamped giraffe in the background was really neat...as was the dimensional "bush" at the far right (Gwen Brown's addition?)....Jo Heffner made the really cool mask....in a really creative way.  She took a plastic baby spoon and cut the handle off..her husband smoothed it out for her.  She then made paper mache out of shredded paper to make the dimension of the mask. covering it with fabric.  She then painted the face marks on with paint pens as the fine elements of the mask were not noticeable unless you increased the contrast.


I'm really glad that they had the journals which accompanied this because I sure as heck can't remember who did what!
Well done!

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...