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Archive for the ‘quilting designs’ Category

Pivoting

Friday, March 6th, 2015

stillwaters

I finished these two pieces except for the zig zag edge.

Greenpasturesfini

They are 18 inch square. I did zig zag free motion quilting on the green areas of both quilts.

zigzagfreemotion

I am putting my solo show on the back burner. I found out this week that the gallery at Trinity will be in use during the time when conference attendees could come. It was going to be a very short show -10 days. Doing all that work for ten days and no exposure to SAQA members was just not worth it to me.

For me to get the work done, I would need to spend most of my time for the next six weeks getting it done. I could have done it. I hope to be able to do the show in 2016 when Trinity selects the next group of artists for exhibits. If not, I have lots of gorgeous fabric to play with.

Now, I have time to make work for shows that I thought I would miss, which is a very good thing. And, first thing to do, is get the kid quilts quilted and sent to New York.

Here are two things I did this week. I made a platter in the clay class, working with slab clay. It is a bit dorky, but we have such a short time to work that there is not enough time to finesse things.

clayplatter

And here is a fun postcard that I made in the Photoshop class – I added Paige to a photo of the rose garden.

finalexampostcard

 

 

Will She or Won’t She?

Monday, October 28th, 2013

seasonalbackgroundquilted

I am plugging away on this big piece while I am dealing with a nasty virus and men on my roof, making noise that hurts me to the core. This particular virus made its way through the Barnes family and then skipped over here to me. Fever, swollen glands, dizziness, sleepiness – ack! So, will I finish this in time to photograph it and enter it on line?

I got the background quilted over the week-end, in short spurts, a section at a time.

Spring:

springquilted

Summer:

summerquilted

Fall:

fallquilted

Winter:

winterquilted

So far I have 3 layers – hand-dyed cotton, painted organza and thread. The next layer will be tulip tree leaves. I got the idea of making this quilt because when I walk around the neighborhood, I pick up leaves for their colors or shapes and bring them home and scan them. I love the shape of tulip tree leaves, they are kind of short and curvy, like myself!

I am trying to use up what I have in my studio and not go out and buy more stuff. I found this roll of Jacquard paper  backed habotai silk on a roll.

JAC9813_Silk-Roll_120-inch

I played with my scanned leaves in photoshop and printed them on the silk. I  then fused them to cotton crinoline to give them some shape.

silktulipleaves

I have pinned them to the background and now I am deciding if I am ready to stitch them in place. I was orginally going to make thermofax screens and screen a layer of leaves and then add the silk leaves. Seemed like too much to me. Today, I almost bagged the silk leaves and was about to make screens and screen the leaves. I just don’t have time to deal with that and so I think I will stick with these. What do you think? You can click on any image to see it larger.

takingleafpreview

I need to crash. It has been a long day.

Like Butter

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013

XOquilting

 

Here is a snippet of the big quilt I am making. I started the quilting. I am doing simple diagonal lines of stitching. I am using Superior’s Kimono silk thread and it looks gorgeous – quilts like butter

 

.

silkthread

I have six color and am doing a few rows of stitching and then change color. I like the effect. I usually use variegated thread which add another element/layer of design, but I think the solid colors are better on this quilt.

I am using a batik that I got on sale for the back. It is a rather in your face piece of fabric which is why I think it was on the sale table. Here it is, fused to the back.

XOquiltback

 

Here is a detail:

 

XOquiltbackdetail
I managed to get in a drawing tonight and some stitching on the 3 x 3’s. I grabbed a wilted tulip from my patio garden. I can see that I should have blended the yellow an orange better.

 

 

 

 

drawing 4-2-13

 

It was a nice day. I had lunch with my friend and sort of neighbor, Reva. We haven’t had face time in quite a while so we really yacked and caught up. We had lunch at a Paleo restaurant, Dick’s kitchen. I had a venison burger – no bun – and salad. It was very tasty.

 

 

 

The Textile Mill and Antique Quilts

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

I was impressed with how well maintained the Heritage Center is. It looked freshly painted. I love those slanted windows up at the top of the building. There is a self-guided tour of the woolen mill and an exhibit area. The rest of the building is devoted to offices and meeting and event rooms.

The old Dye House is a space now devoted to swanky events.

I was fascinated with the mill and the ability to get up close and personal with all the machinery. The mill closed in the early 60s and it is as if they shut things down and just left it.

This is a bin of roving before it goes to the carding machine.

It is then spun into yarns.

There was a long row of machines with yarn I am not sure what the function was.

I was fascinated with this large mechanical loom.

There were spindles of all sizes. I wanted to bring some home with me.

After our side trip in the mill, we finally got access to the quilt show in the gallery. One needed a key from the front desk in another building. The quilts are a collection of quilts made by women in the 1800’s who arrived here on the Oregon rail.

Between 1840 and 1870 thousands of women arrived in the Northwest by way of the Oregon Trail. Stored away for months in trunks specially built to protect them from the hazards of weather, rivers, fire and dust, heirloom quilts found new homes in Oregon. Guest curated by Mary Bywater Cross, renowned quilt historian, Treasures from the Trunkcexplores the inventiveness of these women, their eye for color and design, and the stories of where they came from, where they were going and what happened along the way.

Here are a few of my favorites from the exhibit.

The stitching on this is exquisite – both the applique and the quilting.

This was one of my favorites. Just love the color in this. Notice the orange which gives a nice pop to the design. Very nice quilting, too.

This is called a Wedding Dress quilt. It was common to use old clothing in quilts, which was done in this.

This quilt was quite something. It was constructed of silk taffeta. The outside edge was a ruffle.

This was a beautiful red and white quilt.

 

This log cabin quilt was an anomaly in that it was machine stitched and quilted.

This gorgeous Road to California blue and white quilt was one of the older quilts.

This was a beautiful and subtle Tree of Life signature quilt. The signatures were stitched so nicely, but in thread that matched the background so it is a surprise when you get close.

And, lastly, another red and white quilt with a Tulip pattern.

Much of the delight with this exhibit was reading the stories of each of the quilters.

We ended our day with a short visit and some fun at the Salem’s Riverfront  Carousel. The horses are lovingly hand carved and cared for by a group of volunteers. We got to meet and chat with a few of them.

We all got to ride one or two times. Here is our effervescent priest, Catherine, enjoying her second ride.

For Jeannie who wants to know what happened in the yarn shop. I was just going to browse – you know, look around and fondle yarn. Then, I saw this adorable sweater made up and hanging right in front of my eyes.

I was smitten. I had to get the pattern and some yarn to knit this. The photo from the book does not show the details very well. I bought the same yarn as the photo.

OK, I have rambled on long enough.

 

Ouch

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

I have a splitting headache. I think it is allergy related. We had to cancel our STASH outing today because Terry is sick and two are out of town and one has a brother visiting. I took a nice long walk with Scooter. It was a beautiful day, but I think there was one too many leaf blowers on our route.

I got some more work on the disappearing nine patch quilt for Gwen. I know that arranging those blocks to my satisfaction is going to be an exercise in futility.

I took some gorgeous photos of the fall color in my neighborhood, yesterday.

 

You can see the rest of them on my Flickr site. Just click on the photos on the sidebar.

I am going to put on my pj’s and call it a day.