Tuesday, April 29, 2014

"Quilts! Traditional, Innovative and Challenging" the Miami Valley Quilters' Guild Quilt Show

I did not make this beautiful quilt, it was made my members of the Miami Valley Quilt Guild and you can win it! It's being raffled off this weekend at their biennial quilt show.

The show "QUILTS: Traditional, Innovative & Challenging" is open this coming Fri., May 2 and Sat., May 3  from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and is at the Greene County Fairgrounds Assembly Hall located at 120 Fairgrounds Road in Xenia, Ohio. Admission is $5, the building is handicap accessible and there is ample free parking.

Along with work by members of the Miami Valley Quilters' Guild, there will be a Raffle Quilt, Demonstrations, Vendors, Boutique and Concessions.

I have several art quilts that I'm entering, so if you go to the show be sure to look for them.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Quilt Square for the Fence Project

The Yellow Springs Fence Art Gallery Project

Yellow Springs is getting a new motel! While the project is going on, there will be a construction fence around the property. The owner decided he wanted it to also be an art gallery, so several local artists were asked to create 4' x 4' panels.

The panels will be on display at the corner of Xenia Ave. and Limestone St. starting the end of April and will be up through the end of this summer.

I'd been thinking of making a "barn quilt square" to hang at our house, and since the artists get to keep the panels when they come down, I decided to go for it.


I decided to use the Pinwheel Square, since it's pretty recognizable as a quilt square. Because the sponsor's name (in this case "For Quilts Sake") had to be in 4" tall letters, I offset the square by leaving 6" of space at the bottom for the letters, and decided to put smaller Pinwheels along the right side.

When I paint I usually use watercolors, where you have to think about layers and start with the lightest color and build up. For this I used house paint but my mind was still working in layers and lightest to darkest, so first I painted the lightest purple at the bottom and along the side. This way I only had to be careful about painting the blue letters and not around them. I also painted the purple parts of the large pinwheel.

I let them dry overnight then painted the medium purple on the small pinwheels then started on the letters. I printed them off on my computer, traced the outline of the letters on the back with pencil, placed them where I wanted then traced around the outside of the letters on the top which transferred the pencil marks to the board. Then I carefully filled them in with paint, using a small artist brush.

Then I painted the blue pinwheels, touched up a few spots, then added the two coats of polyurethane.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Five Rivers MetroParks Quilts

“Four Patch Bridge at Sunset,” 45.5” x 17.5”, made by Pam Geisel, Nov. 2013

The Miami Valley Art Quilt Network has such fun making the Dayton Landmark quilts, that we decided to help the Five Rivers MetroParks celebrate their 50 year anniversary so we each chose a different landmark in one of the MetroParks and created a quilt to celebrate it.

The quilts will be on exhibit through September at the following locations:

March 1 - April 22 : Cox Arboretum
6733 Springboro Pike, Dayton, OH,
Mon. through Fri. from 8 am to 5 pm and Sat. and Sun from 11 am to 4 pm

May 1 - June 28 : Wegerzyn Gardens
1301 E. Siebenthaler Ave, Dayton, OH
Monday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm


July 1 - August 31 : Carriage Hill
7800 E. Shull Road, Dayton, OH
Tues. through Sat. from 10 am to 5 pm and Sun. from noon to 5 pm


1000 Aullwood Rd, Dayton, OH
Mon. through Sat. from 9 am to 5 pm and Sun. from 1 to 5 pm
There is an admission fee for this location only, although it does also get you into the center and access to the trails.