Damage to One of My Quilts in a Gallery

Some of you may remember this piece that I did for Dijanne Cevaal's "K.I.S.S." challenge. I used a white sateen on black Kona, outline stitched in metallic thread, then bobbin stitched and hand stitched using perle cotton.


Earlier this month, I submitted it and three other of my quilts to a gallery which usually does fine arts about 4 miles from my house.
I didn't think anything about the fact that I hadn't put any of my quilts in a bag, after all, it was just down the street and I turned them in in the afternoon of the last day. The gallery owner said that I was the last to bring them in.

Yesterday, I stopped in on the way back home....and discovered that all of the white areas had turquoise color transfer. One of the more traditional (and larger quilts) in the show was made with multicolor batiks and the back of it was ....turquoise batik. It was the only quilt in the show that I could see that had this color in it, so I am assuming that they laid that quilt on my smaller quilt (it's 20" x 20") and that the color had to have transferred by just rubbing.....at least I'm hoping there wasn't any moisture involved.

Hree's what it looked like originally (although it was taken with my other camera and the lighting isn't the same). You can see, this is pretty noticeable.

So....now I'm left wondering what to do with it. I don't dare wash it because I'm afraid that the perle cottons would bleed.

From now on, all quilts I submit ANYWHERE will have their own bags with labels sewn in and also with tyvek labels backed with a piece of the major fabric in the quilt and on the drawstring.

I'm thinking that perhaps I can use some shiva paintstiks on white in either wite or silver, or a combination.....Any other ideas? What do you think?

SAQA'S This is a Quilt entry finished and sent

This is a photo of a Great Spangled Fritillary I took in June of 2010. I loved the rich colors of this butterfly, even though it is a common one in the Northeast and Midwest. I've been meaning to do something with it since I took the photo.

I have to say that I have a little Devil or Angel who periodically sits on my shoulder and gives me a shove. Her name is Vivien Zepf. Vivien has strongly urged me to do items to enter into SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) exhibitions. Hmm.

Currently, SAQA is collecting little quilts that they will mat and put into a trunk show. The title is "This is a Quilt" and the goal is to explain art quilts and yet connect them with the folk art tradition. Why do we choose to do this type of art? A question I often ask myself as art quilts are not often accepted as "fine art" but are often classified as "craft" (with a negative connotation).

I struggle with this because I love to paint and indeed many of my art quilts have painting in them if they aren't done completely in paint. If I painted the image, I would be finished much more quickly than if I quilted the same image. I wouldn't have to quilt and bind and hand sew in a hanging sleeve. I would just have to wait until it dries, maybe slap a coat of varnish on it, and frame it. Much easier than quilting and certainly a ton less time consuming. Paintings regularly get into shows easier and also command higher prices. Phyllis Cullen has written a blog post on this topic (Is it Art ) . Hopefully the pieces put together with their artist statements will help explain quilts as art. In fact, the matting will make the point even stronger.

First, I selected a piece of rust dyed fabric as it seemed very similar to the background of the quilt. Then I drew the butterfly freehand with Derwent Inktense pencils. I think I need to learn how to get the pencil darker as it just doesn't get the richness that I know these pencils are capable of.

Here's what I ended up with. It is more of a collage as when I drew it, all I could think of is the 19th century specimen collections. I used specialty papers that I layered and wrote the Latin name for the Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele cybele) and burned the edges of the mulberry paper. This is partly because most people who think "quilts" wouldn't dream of having paper on their quilts, yet paper IS a fiber. the green ribbon is a wired organdy ribbon which came wrapped around a pile of fat quarters. I'm sorry I can't show you a close up as the only ones I took ended up being a bit blurry (it WAS early morning and I am decidedly NOT a morning person.) The other writing is in Pigma pen and is "Great Spangled Fritillary." The long whitish piece on the left is on a scrap of cotton grabbed from the waste basket at our quilting group and reads "Lepidoptera" the name of the order of Butterflies and moths.

I outline quilted the butterfly in a metallic/rust/dark brown thread and closely quilted the background to make it lay pretty flat. Why? Well, the reason I think I like quilting images is texture. Lots of texture. You can get texture in oilpaintings by impasto and a palette knife...but that's about it. With quilting the whole world is opened up with texture: the choice of fabrics, what you do with the fabrics (fraying, manipulating, etc.), the quilting itself, and then the myriad of embellishments such as beads, buttons, sticks, metal. You name it and you can do it. Art Quilting, unlike traditional quilting opens the world of materials. Things you wouldn't dream of incorporating into a traditional quilt all of a sudden becomes fodder for an art quilt.

I debated doing this piece for a while after I saw Terry Hartzell's Luna moth at the November SAQA show. I intended to do something with my photo, but Terry has done a couple of pieces with rust dyed fabric and a Luna moth as well as a Buckeye Butterfly. Was I using her idea? Did it influence me too much? I decided that that concept was ridiculous as many people do similar topics and even use similar materials, but each individuals vision creates a different piece. Take a look at Terry's work here and you can see how different they are....and hers are down right gorgeous!

It feels good to get something done and out on the road.

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Sweet Pea Escapee

Sweet peas which escaped from an early 19th century farmstead. Thoughts of warmer times.

What's Stopping You?

Have you ever had a time when no matter what you THINK you want to do, you're stymied? Blocked? Thwarted? I'm kind of there. The sad thing is what is stopping me is that my studio (sewing room, whatever you want to call it) is an utter disaster area and it is so bad (and I'm not exaggerating) I can't stand to be in there...

The floor is covered. I can't get to the thread cabinet for all the stuff which has fallen off the back of my sewing cabinet. The table set up as an ironing surface is, no kidding, piled three feet high.

So...I'm spending valuable quilting time picking up and sorting and throwing out....all because I did not live by the addage "If it is in your hand, put it in it's rightful place." Dumb.


Sometimes we let these curves get us because we are afraid to succeed...or that we don't think we really can so we throw up roadblocks and create self-fulfilling prophecies. Sometimes it is one of a myriad of other fears, demons or whatever.

I keep on thinking about something that another art quilter said to me about Natalya Aikens (ooh..is this quilter gossip???? Hmm). She said that Natalya is really busy and has very little time to create, but she goes into her studio and spends maybe a half an hour or so at a time and manages to carve out time and create lots in that small amount. Like many of us, Natalya wears many hats and is pulled in a variety of ways...but she does it.

Which makes me think. Her studio is probably set up so that when she leaves, she has things neat and tidy and all things set up preparatory for her return...the next step's tools and needs laid out. Perhaps she even writes herself a note as to what comes next..in a quilting journal. By doing this, she records her progress and creates a history of the project she's working on.

But I'm guessing. I think what I have described is what I'm going to try to do....as soon as I dig out the mess. Do take a look at the hotlink I put on Natalya's name. I don't know her at all, but her work is fantastic. So...think of it this way, we have some curves in the road, but eventually, it opens up to a straight shot...at least it does on this road.

(Horseshoe Bend Rd., Pleasant Hill, OH...yes, it IS a horse-shoe bend on the Stillwater River and it, like so many rivers in Ohio, is on a deeply cut area, so the road switches back in order to cross it).

Collage+cloth+quilt

I purchased Judi Warren Blaydon's collage+cloth+quilt: create innovative quilts form photo inspirations (C&T Publishing, 2010. 95 pages. $27.95. ISBN: 978-1-57120-8507) the other day. At first, I was supremely underwhelmed. I felt that the book could have been largely handled as an article in a magazine.

Blaydon explores the use of photomontage in quiltmaking. In other words, slicing and dicing photos and fabrics to make quilts. I took another look at the volume however, and decided that it couldn't really be handled in a magazine article. I was still disappointed though that it didn't cover other methods of using photographs in quilts, even as collages.

Blaydon covers how to choose photographs and how she uses elements from several photographs to combine making a new image. She doesn't hit hard on the elements of design, but then she's not writing a design book but teaching people how to use photomontage in the world of quilts. She gives some handy tips on how to lay them out, seaming, using a window to isolate elements and other tricks.

She has copious examples of work from her students. Some of them are quite successful. Others are a bit ho-hum, but that's OK. If you're interested in this type of work, it is worth a look. Amazon has the click-on opportunity to look at several pages plus the table of contents. It is presently available new from about $20; and used from $14.98. Take a look
here and explore.
http://www.amazon.com/Collage-Cloth-Quilt-Innovative-Inspirations/dp/157120850X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295834860&sr=8-1

The Forest of Trees: Susan Pickerell's Round Robin

This is Susan Pickrell and her tree which she is sending on for her round robin. It's a great tree and Susan believes in practice....lots of practice.

She tried several different things before finally settling on this one....and I have to admit, some of the pictures aren't terribly flattering of Susan as she was flipping through them all so quickly, it was hard to get....and I didn't notice Gwen's straw sticking up into the photos.







This one is her "Jungle tree" . She slipped in a lion and a monkey from some novelty prints into it....and there's a Cheetah Girl from the print she chose as a background.














She used some t-shirt transfers cut out and arranged so that the words made the "leaves" of the tree in this one....which will be really cool with more embellishment. Like me, Susan haunts the clearance section of various craft stores and comes up with some really interesting ways of using them.

This next one is her strip tree....notice how she's been consistent with her light source and made sure that the shadow only fell on one side of the tree...something I really have to be mindful of. It's easy to accidentally place light coming from several different angles....



This next one she used some cheese cloth....and then painted it. She felt that the paint wasn't too successful. The writing in the fabric is from a "Cheetah Girl" fabric which was in clearance...I liked the fabric, and I liked the sentiment...but I wasn't thrilled with the signature of "The Cheetah Girls." Somehow when Susan's using it, you don't even notice.











This next one is one which Susan calls her "fiber tree." Susan needle felted a variety of specialty yarns into the background. She bought a Singer Embellisher and has been very happy with it.





























This ones kind of fun because she used some fabrics from her stash. I can't wait to see what she ends up doing with it.especially since the blue of the tree is so similar to the lightning print she used for the sky.


This next one is what she calls her "Asian Pine." She was doing some machine embroidery and designed this one.








This last one is another one which I think is kind of fun. The fencing is made from an embroidered ribbon.

Susan is relatively new to art quilting...I think this exploration the Batty Binders has been doing has really pushed her to try some of the things she had in her head already. She does a lot of the practice pieces from Quilting Arts and is very faithful in working at this. She's also got a great imagination. I can't wait to see what she's going to do next!

Batty Binder's Art Quilt Round Robin

My local guild, the Batty Binders, has an art quilt group which we sort of call "Twisted Stitchers." Most of the Batty Binders are pretty much traditional quilters. Several of us, however meet and explored Jane D'Avila and Elin Waterston's Art Quilt Workbook.

While we finished the book, they decided to return to some of the concepts and that they would do a round robin. A Round Robin in quilting is where someone does a central motif or block and then the piece is passed on to the next person who adds something else. In this case, the concepts are provided by the Workbook and all the quilters are following the theme of trees. At left is Ruth Treon's tree.

The trees look great. I'm saving one of our members, Susan Pickrell, just to show you all the samples she did. I am not participating because I am having a hard time finishing up things with the fatigue I'm experiencing...as well as having a hard time going to night meetings.


Loraine Smith loves tropical things and these colors as well as the use of batiks are her "thing."








Linnette Vagedes was pretending to be a Lisa Clone....but here's her piece.















Jo Heffner did an interesting "pieced" background, shading the background by using fused squares. I love her tree shape.















Gwen Brown is actually doing two, one which she will keep and do exactly what she does on each of the other round robins so she can keep a record of what she did. Her exchange piece is set on an angle..but the shot was so bad of Gwen that I know I'd take some heat for it if I posted....so I'm kind and didn't.





Becky Goodwin is also doing two. Here she is showing her tree which has a loose trunk so that if someone wants to put something behind the tree, they may do so. The tree is cut out, and the branches were added by doing free-motion embroidery on the piece.









The second one is her practice piece and is a free motioned pine tree. She used two 40 weight rayon threads through one needle. She had some trouble with the tension until she added a heavier cotton in the bobbin.


I'll keep you posted on the progress as we meet months.