Cosmic Connectivity - Quilt of the Week - 1/25/21

 

Cosmic Connectivity, 22" x 33", made by Pam Geisel

This piece is currently hanging over my sewing table so I'm actually looking at it right now while I'm writing about it.

This art quilt is a unusual for me because I didn't have a specific plan when I started it, I just knew I wanted it to have contrasts: light vs. dark and small pieces vs. large pieces. It is the only quilt that I've started then set aside.

When I came back to it, a few years later, I made decisions as I went. I thought there was too much blue so I added some small yellow and orange pieces under the light blue lace

I decided I wanted to add yarn to it so I got out the yarn that I had and played around with where to put it. There's a light blue yarn that connects all of the light blue swirls together. As you can see above, I also played around with some yarn going under other yarn (which is also how I decided to name this piece "Cosmic Connectivity.")

The light blue that's just under the dark blue yarn but above the dark blue fabrics is a piece of thin blue sheer fabric that I twisted to make it more yarn like then I sewed it down. 

Then I decided to add some beads so I got out the yellow, gold, and blue beads and played around with where to add them. I also did some hand stitching with gold and brown embroidery floss to accent the smaller lace pieces.

This is probably my favorite photo of me with one of my quilts, although I'm not really sure why. This was taken at the Wheat Penny Oven & Bar in downtown Dayton, Ohio, for Art in the City in 2016. In addition to Art in the City, it was also in Sacred Threads in Herndon, VA, in 2019 and the ​Best of 2013, Ohio Designer Craftsmen's traveling exhibit in 2013.

Because this is the Quilt of the Week, it is 10% off the original price of $600 through 1/31/21 if you purchase directly from me. Details can be found here.

Laurel Burch Cat Quilted Postcards - Project Quilting

Three Laurel Burch Cat Quilted Postcards, 6" x 4" each, made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting Season :12, Challenge 2, Fussy Cut

Recap for "Fussy Cut":

Some part of your project must be fussy cut.

I don't do a lot of fussy cutting, which is when you cut the fabric in a way that singles out an image or motif instead of just cutting randomly, but I have done some including the Celestial Winter wall hanging and the way I cut and arranged the stripes for Rainbow Heart.

My stash mostly consists of batiks and fabric that is tone-on-tone (so it reads as a mostly solid color without being a solid color) but I do have one yard of Laurel Burch Cat fabric that I've been hesitant to cut into. There are only 3 repeats so I decided to make three postcards.

Originally I was going to make three mug rugs but the cats were a little on the small side so even when I added the striped fabric on the left and the colored ribbons, there would have been a lot of black space around the cats so I decided to make fabric postcards instead.

I've found when doing fussy cutting that will be fused it helps to iron the fusible to the back of the fabric first. You can see in the photo of the whole fabric that the cats are printed fairly close together. They are on a dark gray background so I fused them to a piece of fabric that had black and dark grays on it (the same black piece that I used for the background of one of my other fussy cut projects, Celestial Winter).

I added a striped fabric to the left and different colored ribbon either next to or behind part of the cats. I added a thin purple ribbon to all three postcards. I fused these fabrics to a stiff interfacing (which makes it a postcard) then I sewed down the ribbons with matching thread, sewed around the edge of the cat fabric with black thread, then went all the way around the cats with a variegated rainbow colored thread.

Then I fused a piece of white fabric to the back and did a satin stitch (a really tight zigzag stitch) around the edges.

(Note to my mother who reads my blog...I believe you gave me that striped fabric many, many years ago. Do you remember it?)

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Click on any of the photos to see larger images.

To read more about Project Quilting, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the Fussy Cut page.
 

Inside of a Dog - Quilt of the Week - 1/18/2021

Inside of a Dog, made by Pam Geisel, 22"w x 17"h x 7"d

This week's "2021 Quilt of the Week" is Inside of a Dog. I made this in March of 2012 for the "Inside the Box" exhibit at the Dayton Art Institute.

The DAI contacted several area artists and gave us each a wood box to create a 3D piece of art. We were allowed to have objects outside of the box as long as they didn't extent out too far.

One of the things that I remember about making this piece is that I spent as much time thinking about how to assemble it as I did actually working on it. I knew I had to get the order of what to work on right or else I'd have to take something apart in order to fix it.

I also hadn't made any 3D quilted art before this. (There have only been a few since then including "How Does Your Garden Grow" and "Taking Flight")

I did document the entire process (including how I came up with the idea) in the original blog post, if you want to read about it).

In addition to being in the exhibit at the Dayton Art Institute, this piece was also included in the juried show "Fantastic Fibers" at the Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, KY, in 2014.

Because this is the Quilt of the Week, it is 10% off the original price of $800 through 1/24/21 if you purchase directly from me. Details can be found here.

Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom - Quilt of the Week - 1/11/2021

 

Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, made by Pam Geisel, 24" x 29"

This week's "2021 Quilt of the Week" is Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom. I made it March of 2011 for the Project Quilting challenge Large Scale Print challenge where we also had to use a striped fabric. I also included some fabric mosaics and some twisted yarn.

Other than the two Project Quilting challenges that we had to buy specific fabrics for, this was the only Project Quilting piece that I bought fabric for, all others I was able to make using just my stash. I bought the burgundy background fabric and also the stripe, which I recently used on "A New Day Yesterday" which is the most recent Project Quilting Challenge piece that I've made.

Because this is the Quilt of the Week, it is 10% off the original price of $300 through 1/17/21 if you purchase directly from me. Details can be found here.

A New Day Yesterday - Project Quilting

"A New Day Yesterday," 8.5" x 20.5", made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting, Season 12, Challenge 1: Illuminating + Ultimate Gray

Recap for "Illuminating + Ultimate Gray":

Based on Pantone’s Color of the Year 2021 – which is actually two colors: PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating. Your project must be predominantly yellow and gray in it. You may add black and/or white, if you wish, but you do not have to. Fabrics may have other colors included in their print, but those colors may NOT be dominant.

I can't say that using just gray and yellow is something I've never done as I made "Whoo?" (left) in 2019. (And I probably would have used more of that Effervescent fabric this time if I had any left).

I also can't say that I didn't have a good amount of yellow and grays to chose from as I do.

What I can say about this project is that I kind of designed it backwards. Recently I've wrapped some of my art quilts around a canvas frame (like I did with "Whoo?") or put it in a frame. When I don't do that I usually use a facing sort of binding, which is all on the back and not visible from the front.

But in my stash of yellows and grays were two lovely striped fabrics, and striped fabrics are great for bindings, so I decided that I was going to make something with a visible binding (more about that later).

I did a rough sketch of my idea. I didn't want to try and figure out the angles and shapes for the background, which I wanted to piece, so I made a paper template to paper piece it together. I could have improvised but I wanted the two sides to mirror each other. I've done a few paper pieced projects in the past and I don't really like doing them because I feel they waste fabric. Also I have some trouble keeping the tops and bottoms and fronts and backs in the right order. Luckily this was a simple project and I managed to only cut one piece incorrectly but realized it before I sewed it.

The sun, moon, ground, trees, and leaves are all fused so I sewed down their edges during the quilting process.

I also added a piece of hand dyed yarn that has just a touch of red and blue in it.

When it came time to do the binding, I knew I wanted to use both the yellow and gray striped fabrics, but I wanted the yellow on the left and right sides and the gray on the top and bottom, so I sewed the yellow to the front then wrapped it around to the back. I cut the grays a little longer than I needed and folded the edges over so the raw edges wouldn't be exposed then I sewed them to the front and folded them to the back.

A few notes about some of my fabrics:

The black fabric with the stars on it was a piece that I bought while on vacation in 2014. I only bought 1/4 of a yard. I used it in "Sunrise Celebration" (also a Project Quilting piece).

The yellow striped fabric in the binding I used in "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" for a Project Quilting challenge back in 2011. (I believe that was the only Project Quilting challenge piece that I bought fabric for, other than the "Focus through the Prism" and the "Tradition Time Three" which both required using specific fabrics).

The second yellow stripe from the left (which has suns/stars printed on it) was one that I bought back in 2005 when I made a baby quilt for my niece.

More about A New Day Yesterday

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Click on any of the photos to see larger images.

To read more about Project Quilting, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the Illuminating + Ultimate Gray page.

Custom Art Quilt "Touching the Sky"

"Touching the Sky," 30" x 48", made by Pam Geisel, January 2021

Last fall I was contacted by a couple that wanted me to make a landscape art quilt. They had a location they wanted to hang it so they told me what size they wanted. They also sent a photo of another piece of art they owned and wanted the colors to complement that piece. Beyond that, the image was left up to me.

My first step was to select some fabrics to use and get their approval. The light blue sky and the white clouds are the only fabrics that aren't batiks. Of the batiks, half of them are Island Batiks that I got a few years ago when I was an Island Batik Ambassador.

The colors used in the inspiration piece made me think of purple mountains, green fields, and a deep blue lake. They also wanted me to use some yarn so I used some purple yarn with other colors in it to outline the three purple mountains. The customers did say that they liked the sky in my piece "The View from My Hammock" so I made white clouds that were similar in shape and also added some gray fabric as the bottom of the clouds. There's also a little bit of white yarn where the white and gray fabrics meet.

I also used some purple yarn that had some orange in it to outline the top two red/orange hills. The inspiration piece didn't have any red in it but the customer had some rugs in that room that had red so they requested I add some red fabric. I kept it fairly thin because I didn't want the red to overpower the piece.

The green fabrics start to take on the shape of the trees and I fussy cut the fabric that had trees printed on it so the tree images weren't cut off at the top. The mint green fabric right behind the trees had images of deer printed on it so I wanted to avoid having those images show too much. You can see a bit of their antlers, though. 

There's some green yarn along the bottom of the tree fabric and also on top of some of the tree trunks. The flowered fabric is more of a meadow.

This lake has a bit of a sandy beach and areas where the shallow water is lighter. There is some blue and white yarn on the lake area and if you look closely you can see some organic oval shapes in the water that are the same blue as the lake but with tiny silver stars. This is actually the other side of the deep blue fabric that I used for the lake and the shapes are similar to the shape of the clouds.

While I did finish this piece and I'm posting it in January, the bulk of the work was done in December, lest you think I've been very productive during the first week of the year.

The customer was very pleased with this and I am also very happy with the way it came out.

Dancing Geese - Quilt of the Week - 1/4/2021

 

Dancing Geese, made by Pam Geisel, 10" x 19"

My first "2021 Quilt of the Week" is Dancing Geese. It is the oldest quilt that I have for sale. I made it March of 2011 for the Project Quilting challenge Flying Geese where we also had to use complementary colors. The flying geese are only 2" on the longest point and they are folded then appliqued to the background.

Because this is the Quilt of the Week, it is 10% off the original price of $200 through 1/10/21 if you purchase directly from me. Details can be found here.

2021 Quilt of the Week

I realized that I usually have about 50 art quilts available for sale at any given time. With the pandemic continuing and live art events more difficult to have I've been looking for other ways to connect people to my art. In 2020 I used my social media to have a Virtual Retrospective where I featured photos of exhibits that I had participated in the past. For 2021 I'm going to feature one of my art quilts every week, with a special offer.

The Quilt of the Week is available for a 10% discount. The quilt will be posted here on my blog, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter sometime on Monday and will be available until 11:59 pm the following Sunday or until it is purchased. In order get the discount you need to purchase the quilt directly from me (and not on Etsy or from Village Artisans). You will need to:

​ - Send me an email with your name and mailing address before 11:59 pm on the Sunday the quilt is featured
- I will then email you a PayPal invoice and the transaction must be completed within 24 hours

Shipping to US addresses is included in the price but if shipping is to anywhere outside the US then you are responsible for paying the shipping and any associated fees, duties, or taxes.