Holiday Bazaar this Saturday

There's a new holiday event in Yellow Springs

Holiday Bazaar

Saturday, November 26, 9 am-5 pm
Mills Park Hotel
321 Xenia Ave., Yellow Springs, OH 45387

This event will have over 40 vendors and 5 food trucks both inside and outside. I'll be inside.

I Will Paint Rainbows All Over Your Blues

"I Will Paint Rainbows All Over Your Blues," 21" x 24", made by Pam Geisel, June 2022

There are so many layers in this quilt:

- The bottom layer is the deep purple batik, most of which is visible under the umbrella

- Next are deep teal strips of fabric sewn as raw edge machine applique with rainbow colored yarn couched on top

- There are thick rainbow colored ribbon couched to the purple batik between the teal strips

The letter blocks have another four layers: a square, a diamond, the letter, then a square sheer are all quilted down with a rainbow variegated thread. 

The letters are arranged in a staggered layout so the top of the diamond point is between the letters in the rows above and below it.

The silhouette of the person dancing in the rain is a piece of very dark hand-dyed purple fabric. It kind of reads as black but it's a very rich purple. 

There are also bright blue bugle beads hand sewn as raindrops.

The quote is from a John Sebastian song, "Rainbows All Over Your Blues" (used with permission).

More about I'll Paint Rainbows All Over Your Blues

Granny Squares/VOTE art quilt series

 "Women's Work," "Peace Wheel," and "Half the Sky," each is 30" x 36" and are the Granny Square/VOTE series handmade by Pam Geisel. (Larger photos of each are at the bottom of the post.)

Each of these quilts features hand crocheted granny squares arranged and applique quilted on a vintage white curtain panel. The curtain panels are then quilted to a colored fabric.

Each granny square is a mini quilt with a layer of batting and sheer fabric behind the granny square and held together with hand stitching that create either a letter or a symbol with different colors of embroidery floss.

Each quilt has the word "VOTE' incorporated somewhere on the quilt and they are embellished with buttons and beads.

The last letter of “Work” is intentionally unfinished, with the embroidery floss left hanging.

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More about Women's Work

The original rhymed couplet is "Man may work from sun to sun, But woman's work is never done." I certainly know a lot of men who work very hard and their work is also never ending, but I believe women’s work won’t be done until ALL women have the same rights as men. In this quilt the VOTE is larger hand embroidered letters in the four corners.

More about Peace Wheel

After I made Women's Work I still had many of the hand crocheted granny squares left and I immediately came up with two more ideas that I wanted to play with. Peace Wheel doesn't have letters but it does have symbols that when arranged together form a peace sign in rainbow colors. In this quilt the VOTE is white yarn couched at the top of the quilt in script letters.

More about Half the Sky

I've always liked this quote as it implies and equality and not a competition. In this quilt the VOTE is made with blue glass bugle beads and is placed just under the word "THE."

Art on the Lawn, Sat. Aug. 13 in Yellow Springs

Art on the Lawn is this Saturday, Aug 13 from 10 am-5 pm at Mills Lawn, 200 S. Walnut St. in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I'll be there under the shade of the trees with my art. There will be over 100 artists, plus some food vendors and live musicians. The show is sponsored by and just a block from Village Artisans, where I am a member.

Art in the City - Downtown Dayton & Wheat Penny

 

Art in the City is happening in downtown Dayton this Saturday, August 6 from 1-7 pm. My art quilt "Lavender Diamonds" will be at the Edward A. Dixon Gallery at 222 N St Clair St, in Dayton. The gallery has recently moved into a new home so they are also having a grand reopening on Friday, August 5 from 4-8 pm. In addition to this Friday and Saturday, the gallery is open by appointment.

While the Wheat Penny is not of the official Art in the City map, it is just a few blocks away at 515 Wayne Avenue in Dayton. I have 16 art quilts on display there through October 1. The restaurant is open Tue-Thu 11a-9p, Fri-Sat 11a-10p, and closed on Sun-Mon.

For a blast from the past, this photo was taken of me an my art quilt "Cosmic Connectivity" at the Wheat Penny at the Dayton's first Art in the City in 2016. And it is a part of the show that is up at the Wheat Penny now.

Two New Autumn Table Runners

(Left) Autumn Table Runner Long, 12" x 38" and (right) Autumn Table Topper Square, 25" x 25", made by Pam Geisel, June 2022

It's a little out of season but I recently made these two autumn table runners. They are both on the large side so I borrowed a friends large dining room table to take my photos.

The long rectangular one has rectangular fabrics that blend from a yellow gold through rust orange to a deep red and the border has autumn leaves in it.

The square one is done in a traditional "Broken Dishes" arrangement with triangles of yellow gold, warm brown, orange, and red and the background triangles have autumn leaves.

 

Letters from Lincoln: a patriotic art quilt

 Letters from Lincoln, 35" x 34", made by Pam Geisel, June 2022

I had an idea to make an art quilt with a patriotic theme and using an American flag seemed like a good way to arrange the letters on the stripes. I did a quick mock up and really liked how it looked. When I refined my idea I did spend some time working with a flag that is the actual dimensions of a flag but they are twice as wide as they are tall and that ratio wasn't working for me, so I decided to use my artistic license and go back to my quick mock up, even if it wasn't the correct dimensions.

Next it was time to chose a quote. For most of my other word quilts, the words came first and the image second. But this time I worked backwards. I searched patriotic quotes and found quite a few that I liked but they had to be able to be broken down into somewhat equal length chunks and this quote ended up working the best. This quote had a nice balance because the words and combinations of words all had even numbers so there are the same number of blank squares on the left and right side of each row.

The other quotes that I considered were:

May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please but as the opportunity to do what is right - Peter Marshall

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else. - Clarence Darrow

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. - James Bryce

The love of one’s country is a splendid thing, but why should love stop at the border.  - Pablo Casals

Now to create the quilt. Like the other word quilts I traced the letters in reverse onto fusible webbing, fused those to a white fabric, and cut out all the letters. The letters were then fused to either a red or blue diamond shape, depending on where they would end up.

Because I already had the red and white stripes I did not add another colored square in those areas but I did to the blue section where I tried to used many blue pieces that had stars printed on them. (Some of the red diamond fabrics also have stars on them.)

All the diamond shapes got a piece of sheer fabric on top. Some of the sheers were in the expected colors of red and blue but others were orange, green, and pink which I thought added a nice subtlety to the quilt. The whole piece is quilted with "x" shapes through the square/diamond shapes using a variegated red and blue thread.

The quote comes from a letter that President Lincoln wrote to Henry L. Pierce declining an invitation to speak at an event honoring Thomas Jefferson. I named this piece "Letters from Lincoln" since I literally cut out fabric letters to put on the piece.

More about Letters from Lincoln

Bee Kind

 

"Bee Kind," 11" x 11", handmade by Pam Geisel, May 2022

The hexagon shape is a common shape in quilt patterns, although in order to piece them together you have to do what is called an inset seam, which is when three fabric edges meet in a single junction when sewn together, with the angles different than 90 degrees. This is a tricky skill that I haven't really mastered but if I leave a little space between the hexagons and fuse them to a background, they look like a honeycomb. 

The shape of the whole piece is also a hexagon and I used my favorite facing method to bind it and it went easier than I expected, possibly easier than the usual 90 degree corners. 

In my other word quilts, the letters have mostly been on top of squares but in this one they are on the hexagon shapes. Like the other word quilts the letters have sheer squares of fabric on top of them to give them an added layer of visual texture.

With the exception of the backing fabric, the rest of the fabrics are hand dyed, with the letters "B E E" in warm colors (reds and orange) and the "K I N D" in cool colors (green blues, and purple).

Along the left side of the piece is a honey bee floating along. The body and the wings are all appliqued along the raw edges, the winds are made with a silver sheer fabric, and the antenna are couched yarn with knots on the ends.

The hexagons and letters are quilted with a yellow thread that crosses over the hexagon shapes three times creating diamond shapes. The bee's flight path is indicated with a dotted line hand quilted with black embroidery floss.

More about Bee Kind 

Be a Spark on Exhibit with Best of 2022 Travelling Show

My art quilt "Be a Spark" is in the Ohio Designer Craftsman's "Best of 2022" show. The traveling exhibit will be at the following locations:

Ohio Craft Museum
1665 W. Fifth Ave, Columbus, OH 43212
May 8-June 26
Opening reception Sun., May 8, 1-4 p

Kent State University, CVA (Center for the Visual Arts) Gallery
325 Terrace Dr. Kent, OH
August 25-September 29

The Persistence of Pluto

 

"The Persistence of Pluto," 20" x 23", handmade by Pam Geisel, April 2022

If you're like me, you learned that there are nine planets in our solar system. Some facts about Pluto:

• It was discovered in February 1930
• It was the first planet discovered by an American
• With the exception of Earth, all the planets are named after either a Greek or Roman god, and Pluto is named after the Greek god of the underworld (the cartoon dog was named later)
• It is one-fifth the diameter of Earth 
• It is about 3.6 billion miles from the sun and 1 billion miles from Neptune
• It takes 248 Earth years to complete one revolution around the sun
• In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union demoted it to a dwarf planet

Even though Pluto is no longer considered a full-fledged planet, it still persists, orbiting around the sun.

After working up the design for this quilt, the first step was to select the fabric. I'd recently organized all of my colored scraps so that made the process easier although I'd need nine colors and technically there are only seven colors in the rainbow, so I added a hot pink for Mars and a teal green for Neptune. I'd originally started with the traditional rainbow order of red for Mercury but at the last minute decided to start with the yellow for Mercury since it was the closest to the sun.

I thought I wanted a deep black for the background and looked at fabrics online but then decided to go with a deep purple, which luckily I had a large piece of purple batik in my stash. I basted this fabric to the batting and backing fabric and pinned the sun in place then started quilted 1/4" lines echoing the orbital paths around the sun.

Then I added the colored squares, diamonds, letters, and sheer fabrics and quilted on top of the already quilted lines, tucking Jupiter behind the letters but putting the other planets next to the letters, with the exception of Pluto, who's "O" is the planet, and Mercury, which didn't have room next to the letters so it's between the "C" and the "U".

When I thought of adding some stars to the background, I'd originally thought I'd use some gold sequin-like stars that I had but when I went to get them, I found these plastic rainbow colored star-shaped buttons. I'm not sure where they came from and can't imagine having a chance to use them again in the future, so I decided to use them for this project.

More about The Persistence of Pluto

Shooting Starfish - Project Quilting

 

Shooting Starfish, 6" x 6 x .5", made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting, Season 13, Challenge 6: Flying Geese

Recap for "Flying Geese":

Your project must include a minimum of 5 pieced flying geese blocks.

There are exactly 5 flying geese blocks in this piece, although because the corner blocks are a very similar color to the background of the starfish fabric, the blocks aren't easy to distinguish. Also the top left block is wrapped around the corner of the canvas, so it's also somewhat hidden.

I also couched two different colors of yarn along the block edges, a gray blue and a lime green. Then I added two lime green star buttons.

I've had the starfish fabric for several years and every time I open the batik fabric box, it would smile politely at me. I was planning something different for this piece but when I opened the fabric box this time, it called out to me so I dropped the previous fabric plans and went with this one.

More about Shooting Starfish

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 Flying Geese page.

Ring Around the Rainbow - Project Quilting

 

"Ring Around the Rainbow," 6" x 6 x .5", made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting, Season 13, Challenge 5: Rhythm and Repetition

Recap for "Rhythm and Repetition":

There must be something in your project intentionally repeated 3 or more times for visual effect.

For this week's project, I repeated the triangle shape seven times and the round shape (buttons) ten times (there are three buttons in the center).

The rainbow colored buttons are all semi-transparent. The largest button in the center is a shell button, the center one is opalescent, and the tiny center button is a semi-transparent white button.

The piece is wrapped around a small canvas frame.

More about Ring Around the Rainbow

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 Rhythm and Repetition page.

What I Stand On Is What I Stand For - Project Quilting

"What I Stand On Is What I Stand For," 17" x 21", made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting, Season 13, Challenge 4: Mining for Diamonds

Recap for "Mining for Diamonds":

Use the diamond as your project inspiration. There are lots of ways to get there: combine triangles, split a rectangle, make inset seams, focus on the rhombus, use a quilt block that with the shape, or instead be inspired by the facets of a true stone.

Diamond gems are nice but mining for them can be controversial, and mining in general isn't always good for the planet, which inspired this piece and does include diamond shapes behind the letters (yes, I took the easy way out and used a square rotated on point).

I used all hand-dyed fabrics for this piece. The first thing I did was trace the reverse shape of the continents onto fusible webbing, fuse that to a piece of green fabric, cut it out, then sewed it to the blue oceans fabric with one piece of batting and no backing using a variegated blue green thread. I wanted the earth to push away from the background a bit so after that part was done I placed it on the backing fabric with some extra pieces of batting behind the earth then sewed it to the background only at the edges.

The letter blocks are layered fabric: a piece of square fabric on the bottom, a diamond shaped fabric, a fabric letter, with a piece of sheer fabric on top. The letters have fusible on the back (it makes them easier to cut) but the squares and diamonds don't as I wanted them to have a bit of dimension and not lay flat against the background.

Once the earth was in place I quilted a quilting line 1/4" from the edge of the earth and used that as a guide to place my letter blocks. I quilted the bottom part of the letter block on top of the quilting line I just sewed. Then I quilted the top of the blocks using the square as a guide. Next I quilted through the middle of the blocks using the points of the diamonds as a guide. Then I quilted the second and fourth lines trying to get them equally between the other lines.

I added a sparkly green cord around the earth and below the letters at the bottom and above the letters at the top and I hand sewed some blue bugle beads in the four corners and also on the left and right sides of the globe.

More about What I Stand On Is What I Stand For.

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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 Mining for Diamonds page.

 

 

Magic Wand - Project Quilting

 
"Magic Wand," 19" x 13", made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting, Season 13, Challenge 3: Kitchen Influence

Recap for "Kitchen Influence":

Use food and cooking as your inspiration.

I had several ideas for this week's challenge but what I settled on was soap bubbles. You know, from washing dishes after cooking. We don't have a dishwasher, and we're fine with that. It's just the two of us and we wash the dishes after every meal, so washing them is usually a quick chore. And sometimes I enjoy washing dishes because of the soap bubbles.

First I picked a multicolored batik fabric that had some interesting color patterns in it. I used my circle template ruler to find the spots that I wanted to use then ironed some fusible in that spot and then cut the circles out. I love this circle template and I use it often.

As you can see, I picked spots all over this piece of fabric. I don't really like doing this as I feel it's wasteful of the fabric but occasionally I find it's worth it.

I made some bubble letters. When using fusible to make letters you want to trace them backwards. (If you can't read backwards or 'backwords', the letters spell out SHARE MAGIC.) So not a problem for the A, H, I, and M but it will make a difference with the other letters. I fused them on this fun batik print. I do like the swirly lines but I didn't want them to distract from the letters so I placed the letters to avoid the swirls. The little yellow dots on the blue background reminded me of fireflies.

I fused the letters to the circles then fused them to this background fabric, a piece of hand dyed fabric that was mostly blue but you could see some other colors in it. They look a little lonely so I decided to add a bubble wand and some sheer circles as additional bubbles. Fusing sheer fabric is difficult (and if you get it the iron too hot the sheer will melt) so I pinned them in place. There were a lot of pins in it so I didn't take a photo of this stage.

I used a shiny, variegated thread to quilt around the bubbles and some free motion quilting on the background between the bubbles.

I off set some sheer circles on top of the fabric circles so when I quilted the edge of the sheer it would catch part of the letters.

Here's a side view.

More about Magic Wand.

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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 Kitchen Influence page.