The View From My Hammock

"The View From My Hammock," 20" x 27.5", made by Pam Geisel, 2015

This art quilt is based on a photo that I took of the sky and the trees from my back yard a few years ago.

My original idea was to make the sky with square pieces of fabric, similar to the way I did it in "High Line in New York City," but it just wasn't working for me. I was happy with the way the trees and roof were going, so I focused on them and saved the sky for last.

I tried a few ideas then cut some organic oval shapes and that seemed to work. I fused the pieces and quilted them down with long, curvy stitches, and added some pieces of lace cut in a similar way that was attached with the quilting stitches. You can see one of the pieces of lace at the top of the photo above.

Then I quilted around the edges of the trees and over the pieces that were fused down. To finish, I used a knife-edge binding.

You can click on any of the photos to see them larger.

More about The View From My Hammock

Custom Quilts made in 2015

It's my annual look back on the custom quilts I made during the year that were made as gifts, so I didn't want to show them too soon and accidentally ruin the surprise.

Click on the photos to see larger views.

T-shirt quilt made with Dad's shirts for his daughter. 47" x 83"

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Front                                           Back

This T-shirt quilt, 74" x 92", is a little different from my usual style because the customer started it and already had the shirts cut into squares. She had also intended on using a pieced quilt top for the back.

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"Murphy Theater" (Wilmington, Ohio) fabric mosaic, 11" x 14" framed

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"Ivy's Favorite Place" fabric mosaic, 11" x 14" framed. Ivy is a cat and a cardboard box was her favorite place.

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"African Animals" lap/throw quilt, 43" x 65"

"African Animals" detail, it's a "Disappearing Nine Patch."

Project Quilting Season 7

It's time for Project Quilting's seventh season! It's a three month on-line event that challenges participants to create a quilt in one week, with a week off in between. You can participate in as few or as many as you like. Participants are automatically entered into random prize drawings and at the end of the season there will be grand prizes awarded to all participants, with one entry per challenge quilt, so the more challenges you enter, the better your chances for winning.

The schedule for 2016 is:
Challenge 1: January 3
Challenge 2: January 17
Challenge 3: January 31
Challenge 4: February 14
Challenge 5: February 28
Challenge 6: March 13

Each challenge is posted at noon CDT and due exactly one week later at noon CDT.

The challenge will be posted on the "Persimon Dreams" Project Quilting blog and you can also find links about past seasons there. Still have questions? If so, check this out.

Art & Soul art show this Sat, Nov. 21 in Yellow Springs

Art & Soul, features 30 exceptional artists who “put their souls into making art.” The show is this Sat., Nov. 21 from 10 am-5 pm. It will be in the Mills Lawn School Gym, 200 S. Walnut St. in Yellow Springs, just one block from the Xenia Ave. There's plenty of free parking in town and also in the lot behind the school.

There is a $3 admission fee, a portion of which will go to the Yellow Springs Schools and the Yellow Springs Police Coat Fund.

You can find photos and bios of all the artists participating on the Art & Soul Facebook page (and you don't have to have a Facebook account to view the page).

Project Quilting's Focus Through the Prism: All Seven

Here are all seven of my art quilts that I made for Project Quilting's "Focus Through the Prism" challenge. (Click on the image to see larger.)

To participate you needed to purchase a ROYGBIV hand-dyed bundle of fabric from Cherrywood Fabrics and then at the beginning of the month a traditional quilting block was posted. Participants chose which of the seven focus fabrics they want to emphasize for the month, but other fabrics could be added. All quilts are 20" x 20" and the hope is to exhibit them together in the future.

I decided to make a series for my seven, since we were already constrained my size and color palette. I made mine in a nine-patch format around a solid black center square, with 2.5" borders of black with gold stars. Along with being the most prevalent color, the focus color has triangle shapes fused onto the center black square, on the borders, and on the other colors.

The backgrounds are pieced with the Cherrywood Fabric then smaller pieces of other fabrics that are almost the same color are fused on top of it.

Each piece has a pieces of black yarn arranged in an intentional fashion and couched down. The quilting lines echo the yarn 1/4" away with black thread. All are faced so there is no visible binding.

Here are my seven, with links to the blog post about each one:

Title : Monkey Tail
Month : May
Traditional Square : Monkey Wrench (aka Churn Dash)
Focus Color : Blue
Yarn Represents : A monkey's tail
https://pamgeiselartquilts.blogspot.com/2015/05/monkey-tail-project-quilting.html

Title : A Second Self
Month : June
Traditional Square : Friendship Star
Focus Color : Yellow
Yarn Represents : Celtic friendship symbol (simplified)
https://pamgeiselartquilts.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-second-self-project-quilting.html

Title : Cabin Sweet Cabin
Month : July
Traditional Square : Log Cabin
Focus Color : Purple
Yarn Represents : Smoke rising from a chimney
https://pamgeiselartquilts.blogspot.com/2015/07/cabin-sweet-cabin-project-quilting.html

Title : Positively Pinwheels
Month : August
Traditional Square : Pinwheel
Focus Color : Orange
Yarn Represents : Wind blowing
https://pamgeiselartquilts.blogspot.com/2015/08/positively-pinwheels-project-quilting.html

Title : Chasing Geese
Month : September
Traditional Square : Flying Geese
Focus Color : Indigo
Yarn Represents : A bird in flight
https://pamgeiselartquilts.blogspot.com/2015/09/chasing-geese-project-quilting.html

Title : Nine Ball
Month : October
Traditional Square : Nine Patch
Focus Color : Green
Yarn Represents : A pool stick and cue ball
https://pamgeiselartquilts.blogspot.com/2015/10/nine-ball-project-quilting.html

Title : Red Rubber Ball
Month : November
Traditional Square : Snow Ball
Focus Color : Red
Yarn Represents : A bouncing ball
https://pamgeiselartquilts.blogspot.com/2015/11/red-rubber-ball-project-quilting.html




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To read more about Project Quilting's Focus Through the Prism, go here.

Red Rubber Ball - Project Quilting

"Red Rubber Ball," 20" x 20", made for Project Quilting, Focus Through the Prism, Challenge 7: Snow Ball, Nov. 2015 in Yellow Springs, Ohio

This is my seventh and final entry in the Project Quilting "Focus Through the Prism" challenge. To play along you need to purchase a ROYGBIV hand-dyed bundle of fabric from Cherrywood Fabrics and then at the beginning of the month a traditional quilting block is selected. Participants get to chose which of the seven focus fabrics they want to emphasize for the month, but other fabrics can be added.

All quilts will be made 20" x 20" with the intention of displaying them together in the future.

November's block is "Snow Ball."

I wanted my design to be similar to the other quilts I've made for the Focus Through the Prism challenges: "Monkey Tail",  "A Second Self", "Cabin Sweet Cabin", "Positively Pinwheels!", "Chasing Geese", and "Nine Ball."


Since the only color I hadn't used was red, that is the color for this quilt. I made four of the snow balls red and used the other colors for the other snow balls and the two darkest colors for the corner pieces.

I pieced the Snow Ball blocks together around by 5" black center. I fused fabric in similar colors on top of the pieced fabrics and I used the same border fabric and couched a piece of black yarn, this time representing a bouncing ball. Then I quilted black quilting lines that echoed the yarn at 1/4" apart.

I used a knife-edge facing to bind the quilt.

More about Red Rubber Ball and my Focus Through the Prism series

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Click on any of the photos to see larger images.

To read more about Project Quilting's Focus Through the Prism, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the Snow Ball link up.

High Line in New York City

"High Line in New York City," 30" x 29", made by Pam Geisel, 2015

The High Line is a 1.45-mile-long linear urban park built in Manhattan on an elevated section of the New York Central Railroad that is no longer used for trains. I wanted to create a piece that explored the contrast between the concrete world and the grassland world and how they can coexist.

Photo by Lara Donnelly

I've never been to the High Line, but have heard wonderful things about it and want to visit it soon. So I contacted my friend Lara Donnelly, who had recently moved to New York City, if she would be able to take some photos for me. She sent me several, and I chose this one because the park designers left a section of the actual railroad tracks to honor the previous life of this park.

I made this quilt with the same methods I used when making the Dayton Landmark quilts. First I used the computer to trace the outlines of the buildings, windows, railing, and train tracks. I printed that out (tiled onto letter-sized paper that I had to tape back together) and placed it under a thin layer of fusible innerfacing with the sticky side up. You can see the outlines for the windows in the photo above.

I used commercial cotton and batik fabrics, placing blue pieces for the sky and gray pieces for the concrete with two pieces of black for the train tracks.

Here I am working on the building in the upper left. I had printed out additional prints of my layout but didn't tape them together and just used the parts as I needed them. I have the tracing on my light box so I can place the windows in the correct place. The windows have additional fusible webbing on the back and once they are placed they get fused with the iron.

During the work-in-progress stage the studio can get a little messy. For this project I kept the laptop near by so I could check my colors when auditioning fabric. The two baskets at the top of the photo, behind the quilt in progress has just some of the fabric that I either used or considered using. The ironing board was moved close to the work table so I could easily fuse the pieces one they were placed.

My other work area is out in the hallway. I have a board that goes over my washer and dryer which I used as a cutting area, with a smaller ironing board and my light box. Here I'm working on the middle building.

The whole quilt is machine quilted with a blue-gray thread, free-motion with overlapping squares. I moved from the sky into the buildings to catch the edges of the fabric that make up the windows.

I couched some black yarn to echo the rail lines then did the same quilting in the concrete area and with the wall and railing.

I did the same sort of quilting in the bushes but used a triangle shape instead of squares. I couched some funky green yarn along the top of the railing and in the bushes. Once it was all finished I trimmed it and added a knife-edge binding (facing).

You can click on any of the photos to see them larger.

More about High Line in New York City

Christmas Birdhouses and Postcards

The first week of November was unseasonably warm and it seemed strange to be working on Christmas items while the windows were open. But now it has started turning colder.

I made three birdhouses (left to right) Birdhouses on Cream, Winter Wonderland, and Birdhouses on Red. The two with the birdhouse prints have holly leaves printed on them and feature the colors red and green but could probably be put up year-round. All three are embellished with ribbons and buttons. (Click on the photos to see larger images.)

And here are some holiday quilted postcards (some of the fabric should look familiar since I also used it for the birdhouses).

The birdhouses can be found in my Etsy shop, and I'll be bringing them to Art & Soul in Yellow Springs on Nov. 21. If they don't sell there, they'll be at Village Artisans after that. Of course you can always e-mail me at PamGeiselArtQuilts@gmail.com if you're interested in something on my blog.

Nine Ball - Project Quilting

"Nine Ball," 20" x 20", made for Project Quilting, Focus Through the Prism, Challenge 6: Nine Patch, Oct. 2015 in Yellow Springs, Ohio

This is my sixth entry in the Project Quilting "Focus Through the Prism" challenge. To play along you need to purchase a ROYGBIV hand-dyed bundle of fabric from Cherrywood Fabrics and then at the beginning of the month a traditional quilting block is selected. Participants get to chose which of the seven focus fabrics they want to emphasize for the month, but other fabrics can be added.

All quilts will be made 20" x 20" with the intention of displaying them together in the future.

October's block is "Nine Patch."

I wanted my design to be similar to the other quilts I've made for the Focus Through the Prism challenges: "Monkey Tail",  "A Second Self", "Cabin Sweet Cabin", "Positively Pinwheels!" and "Chasing Geese."

You might notice that the general layout for all of the ones I've done for this series are a Nine Patch block with the center block being black. For this challenge it was a matter of deciding whether to make the eight outside blocks all Nine Patches or just some of them. I decided to just do the four corners, so the Nine Patch would be more obvious, and it would give me larger areas for my focal color of green.

All that was left were three decisions to make: what colors to put where within the Nine Patch blocks, what to do with the yarn shape, and what to name it.

I played around with several different color combinations within the four Nine Patch blocks, but nothing really stood out, so I decided to move on to the "What to name it" question. I thought about phrases with the word "Nine" in them and when I thought of the pool game "Nine Ball" I realized that my focal color was green, the same color as the cloth on a pool table.

I did some research to find out what colors the balls are for the game Nine Ball and decided that would be the colors I'd use in my Nine Patches. I did have to make one small change, the 7 ball is usually burgundy and not only did I not want to introduce a new color at this point, I wanted to use all of the colors from the Focus Through the Prism set so I used my artistic license and changed it to the only color not represented, the blue color (I used the indigo for the blue ball).

There are a few places that this quilt deviates from the others in the series. It's the only one that represents something else instead of just being abstract. It's the only one with black outside of the center square and borders, but I didn't want it too far out so they are the squares that touches the center black square. And it's the only one with a significantly lighter color. In order to make the striped 9 ball (in the center of the Nine Patches), instead of using white, because I thought it would stand out too much, I used a lighter yellow. It's subtle.

I pieced four Nine Patch blocks, which was a little tricky because the final blocks were 5" finished size, so the smaller squares are 1.667" which is not a measurement on my ruler. I estimated between the lines and it came out just about right. I pieced the Nine Patch blocks with the green squares then pieced them together around by 5" black center. I fused fabric in similar colors on top of the pieced fabrics and I used the same border fabric and couched a piece of black yarn, this time representing a pool cue and pool ball. Then I quilted black quilting lines that echoed the yarn at 1/4" apart.

I used a knife-edge facing to bind the quilt.

More about Nine Ball and my Focus Through the Prism series

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Click on any of the photos to see larger images.

To read more about Project Quilting's Focus Through the Prism, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the Nine Patch link up.

My Quilt "Gypsy Moon" on the set of The Art Show

If you live in the Dayton, Ohio area, you can see one of my quilts without leaving the comfort of your living room. My art quilt "Gypsy Moon" has been lent to the producers of The Art Show to use on their set. You can see it in the upper left part of the photo, and it really pops off the wall. This is for Season 4 which is taping now and I believe will start airing this week.

The Art Show is a weekly program broadcast on ThinkTV16 on Sunday afternoons at 5pm. The show features local artists, as well as regional and national arts highlights. In this photo host Rodney Veal (in the yellow chair) is interviewing artist Matt Kish; his episode will air on January 24.

The photo was taken by Bill Franz, who is spending his retirement as a volunteer photographer, doing photo projects for the Humane Society and for almost two dozen other organizations. You can check out his blog "Dayton Artists at Work" and his Facebook page "Dayton at Work and Play."

The FINAL Yellow Springs Artist Studio Tour: meet my guest artists

This weekend is the 15th and Final Yellow Springs Artist Studio Tour. On Sat., Oct. 17 and Sun. Oct. 18, from 10 am-6 pm you can visit 26 artists at eight locations. This is my eigth year participating as a host, and this year I have three guest artists. Let's have a look at what they do.

Alice Young-Basora creates unique jewelry using beads of stone, glass, and handmade paper, vintage buttons, and recycled fabrics and painted canvas. Each handmade bead is unique, as is each painted canvas flower, yielding completely different pieces of jewelry art. When using hand-painted canvas, fabric, paper and beads, she uses up-cycled materials when possible.

Geno Luketic creates both functional and sculptural pottery. Wood firing allows the nature of the material be apparent in the finished work as he does not want to hide the clay beneath harsh uniform glazes or sharp structured forms.

Krissie Mastin’s art is a journey. She scours the Midwest for leftover articles from the past. Once her stash is sufficient, she pounds, melts, hammers, transfers, patinates, and shines to reinvent beauty from the leftover and forgotten. Most of her designs include basic metalworking techniques incorporated with found objects, recycled metals and oddities unknown to create inspirational pieces that have meaning to their wearer.

The tour is a driving tour. Visit the Yellow Springs Artist Studio Tour website for more information about the other hosts and guest artists and to download a tour map. Maps can also be picked up at the Winds Cafe, Young's Dairy, the Yellow Springs Chamber of Commerce, and at the artists studios the days of the tour. All studios will have red balloons and signs. 

Autumn Table Runner, Just in Time for Fall!

 

"Autumn Island Batik Table Runner," 36" x 9" handmade by Pam Geisel, Oct. 2015

Here's a little project I finished recently, using some of the Island Batik fabrics that I got last Spring. This table runner uses 17 different fabrics and each piece is approximately 1" x 3".

Here's the table runner on my dining room table. The backing is a yellow green and the binding a darker green.

And here's a close up of the detail in the fabric.

Dayton Landmarks Presentation at Troy-Hayner Center Sept. 29

"The Dayton Art Institute" part of the "Dayton Landmark Quilts" by the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network. The three quilt panels on the right were made by Lori Gravely, Lisa Quintana, and Mindy Marik.

The art quilt group that I belong to, the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network, did some group projects a few years ago called the "Dayton Landmark Quilts." Photographs were taken of Dayton Landmarks then the photos were cut apart vertically into two or more slices.

The slices were assigned to different quilters and the only rules were that they had to be the same height and we had to try to use realistic colors as close to the photograph as possible, but the style and techniques were up to us.

The group of six quilts were displayed around town and got such a great reaction and we had so much fun doing them, that we did a second group of eight quilts.

In conjunction with the Five in Fiber exhibit at the Troy-Hayner Center in Troy, Ohio, four of us are giving a presentation about the landmark quilts and how we made them. We'll have a slide show that shows all of the quilts as well as the original photographs, and we'll have some of the quilts on display during the presentation, including "The Dayton Art Institute" (above) which is hanging in the show.

The presentation will be this Sunday, Sept. 29  at 2 pm at the Troy-Hayner Center, 301 W. Main St. in Troy, Ohio.

If you’ve never been to the Troy-Hayner center, it’s worth a visit just to see the inside of this beautiful building, which used to be Mrs. Hayner’s home. While you’re there you can check out the giant Abraham Lincoln one block southeast.

Chasing Geese - Project Quilting

"Chasing Geese", 20" x 20", made for Project Quilting, Focus Through the Prism, Challenge 5: Flying Geese, Sept. 2015 in Yellow Springs, Ohio

This is my fifth entry in the Project Quilting "Focus Through the Prism" challenge. To play along you need to purchase a ROYGBIV hand-dyed bundle of fabric from Cherrywood Fabrics and then at the beginning of the month a traditional quilting block is selected. Participants get to chose which of the seven focus fabrics they want to emphasize for the month, but other fabrics can be added.

All quilts will be made 20" x 20" with the intention of displaying them together in the future.

September's block is "Flying Geese."

I wanted my design to be similar to the other quilts I've made for the Focus Through the Prism challenges: "Monkey Tail",  "A Second Self", "Cabin Sweet Cabin", and "Positively Pinwheels!"

I pieced eight sets of two Flying Geese blocks with indigo backgrounds to make 5" squares then pieced them together around by 5" black center. I used the same border fabric and couched a piece of black yarn, this time in the pattern of a bird in flight. Then I quilted black quilting lines that echoed the yarn at 1/4" apart.

I used a knife-edge facing to bind the quilt.

More about Chasing Geese and my Focus Through the Prism series

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Click on any of the photos to see larger images.

To read more about Project Quilting's Focus Through the Prism, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the Flying Geese link up.