Using Hand Dyed Fabrics featured in Art Quilting Studio Magazine

Two of my art quilts, "Daybreak is Your Midnight" and "Early Morning Nine Patch" are featured in Art Quilting Studio's Magazine's Summer 2018 issue.

The article that I wrote gives a brief description on how I made both of these pieces which use hand dyed fabrics and also has lists some places where you can buy hand dyed fabrics on-line.

Art Quilting Studio, which used to be published only two times a year, is now published quarterly! It is packed full of new quilting techniques and innovative design ideas.

It is one of many publications put out by Stampington & Company. I've heard it's available at some Joann stores. You can find a store near you where it's sold or order it directly from the Stampington website.

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Another way I like to use hand dyed fabrics is when I make bookmarks which can be found on my Etsy page.

Daybreak is Your Midnight

"Daybreak is Your Midnight," 35.5" x 36", made by Pam Geisel, 2014

This art quilt began it's life as a completely different idea that I'd already purchased the hand-dyed fabric for. My test samples for the original idea just weren't working so I decided to create something using the 8-steps of gray and 6-steps of brown fabric that were purchased as fat eighths (9" x 22").

I decided to do something similar to my "Early Morning Nine Patch" and "Four Patch Bridge at Sunset" but without a representational object. I like the five-column format on these two art quilts, so I started by calculating how many 1" (finished size) strips of each fabric I would have to figure out how high the quilt would be.

Since I would be able to cut more than 5 strips from each fabric (to have 1 per column), I decided to change the pattern to this:

1 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 5 - 6

By doing this it would also make the quilt 2.5 times taller than if I just went 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6. I did have to print out a sheet with the steps on it to reference while I was pieceing, so I would get the right strip in the right place.

Next I did some sample layouts on the computer:

 With the darker strips at the top and the bottom.

 

With the darker strips at the bottom. 

With the 2nd and 4th columns inverted. 

With the middle column inverted and the meeting points staggered.

Now it was time to piece!

I added two inset pieces to each of the 180 horizontal strips, with one of insets being one step darker and one being one step lighter. I did this to add visual texture.

To add just a pop of color, I added a thin strip of maroon fabric with a small inset piece of turquoise fabric where the brown and gray fabrics met. To keep everything lined up, the darker piece next to the maroon pieces is thinner than the other horizontal pieces. I also added a variegated yarn couched between the five columns.

I machine quilted sticth-in-the-ditch to hold it all together and used a knife-edge binding. The final step was to add the three large hand-quilted circles comprised of five ripples each. I really wanted this to stand out so I used a thick embroidery thread. There were some places where I was sewing through as many as six layers of fabric, so I kept my needlenose pliers nearby to help pull the needle through.

In order to keep the shape of the circle, I created circles made of dotted lines on my computer at the sizes I wanted them. I tile printed them onto letter-size card stock then taped the card stock together. I hand quilted the largest circles first, cut away the template to the next sized circle then quilted it. I tried to keep the stitches the same width as the dotted lines to keep everything consistent.

More about Daybreak is Your Midnight

"Early Morning Nine Patch" in "Art We Use" exhibit

"Early Morning Nine Patch," 40.5" x 18"

My art quilt "Early Morning Nine Patch" is included in the "Art We Use" exhibit at the Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Oh. This is a national exhibition of objects both everyday and special with 70 pieces from all over the country, including one from Alaska.

The Dairy Barn is located at 800 Dairy Lane in Athens, Ohio. The show runs from June 20-Sept 1 and there will be an artist reception on Fri., June 20. The gallery is open T-Sa from noon-5p and is open until 8p on Thursdays.

12 Quilts...Six Locations!

Details of quilts and fabric mosaics by Pam Geisel on exhibit this summer.

Last year there was one day in June where I had several local art exhibits overlap and I had a total of eight quilts in six locations. This year it turns out I have 12 quilts in six locations that will overlap for 35 days! From Fri., July 12 through Thurs., Aug. 15 these are the six locations:

Ohio Designer Craftsmen's Best of 2013 Show 

at the Southern Ohio Museum, 825 Gallia St, Portsmouth, OH 

"Cosmic Connectivity" is in this exhibit

 

Annual Members' Juried Exhibition
at the Springfield Museum of Art, 107 Cliff Park Rd, Springfield, OH
"Early Morning Nine Patch" and "Inside of a Dog" are in this exhibit

 

Seasons of Life: the 21st Annual Art Quilt Exhibit
at Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm, 1000 Aullwood Rd, Dayton, OH
My"Seasons Fabric Mosaic" set is in this exhibit

 

Adventures in Design: Miami Valley Art Quilt Network art quilts
at South Park United Methodist Church, 140 Stonemill Rd, Dayton, OH
My "Adventures in Design" series is in this exhibit

 

Dayton Landmarks Quilts Redux: Miami Valley Art Quilt Network slices
at the Dayton Metro Library, 215 E Third St, Dayton, OH
My slice is "Industrial Dayton #3"

 

22nd Annual Open Members' Show
at the Dayton Visual Arts Center, 118 N Jefferson St, Dayton, OH
"Indigo Dreams" is in this exhibit

Springfield Museum of Art's Annual Members' Show

"Inside of a Dog," 22"w x 17"h x 7"d, Mar. 2012

The Springfield Museum of Art's 67th Annual Members' Juried Exhibition is June 22-Aug. 11 with an opening reception on Sat., June 22 from 5:30-7:30 pm.

The museum is located at 107 Cliff Park Rd., Springfield, OH 45504 and they are open Wed.-Sat. from 9 am-5 pm and Sun. 12:30-4:30 pm. Admission is $5 although Sundays are free.

"Inside of a Dog" and "Early Morning Nine Patch" are both in this exhibit.

Eight Quilts...Six Locations...One Day...June 23

I have several quilts out in exhibitions this summer. Because of the overlapping schedules, on June 23 I'll have eight different quilts in six different locations.

"Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" is at the Ohio Craft Museum, 1665 W. Fifth Avenue in Columbus, although June 23 is the last day. It will move on to the Wayne Center for the Arts in Wooster, Ohio from July 12-August 18 and then to the Fitton Center for Creative Arts in Hamilton, Ohio from September 14-November 9.

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"Sacred Heart Church #1" and "Dayton Skyline #6" are both part of the Dayton Landmark Quilts. The other 20 panels were made by members of the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network. These quilts are at the Schuster Performing Arts Center in Dayton, Ohio, but only until June 24. They will be in other locations this summer and fall.

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"Early Morning Nine Patch - Montana Sky" is in "The View," the annual landscape competition at the Rosewood Arts Centre, 2655 Olsen Drive in Kettering, Ohio. That show runs until July 6. This quilt won "Best in Show." 

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"Zig Zag Twist" and Dancing Geese are included in the Monday Morning Artists' Exuberance exhibit at the Yellow Springs Arts Council Gallery, 111 Corry St. in Yellow Springs until July 14. If you come to Yellow Springs to see this exhibit, be sure to go across the street to visit Village Artisans where I'm one of 20 co-op artists.

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"Sometimes I Dream of Flying" will be at The Good Earth, the annual art quilt exhibit at the Aullwood Audubon Center in Dayton, Ohio. That show starts on June 23 and ends on August 19.

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"Inside of a Dog," an exhibit in the Dayton Art Institute's Experiencenter runs through April 2013. The museum is located at 456 Belmonte Park North in Dayton, Ohio.

Wanna go on a road trip? I've already planned the route, it's 90 miles and will take 2.25 hours for driving. Depending on how long you want to spend looking at the art, add half an hour to an hour per location. And don't forget time for lunch. And maybe dinner, too! (If you skip Columbus, it's 36.5 miles and takes 1.25 hours for driving.)

"Early Morning Nine Patch - Montana Sky" - Best of Show in local exhibit and new notecards

  "Early Morning Nine Patch"  43.5" x 18"

My art quilt "Early Morning Nine Patch - Montana Sky" is included in the 18th Annual Juried Landscape Competition, "The View" at the Rosewood Arts Centre Gallery, 2655 Olson Dr. in Kettering. The show runs from June 11-July 6 and the gallery is open Mon.-Thurs. from 8 am-9 pm, Fri. from 8 am-6 pm and on Sat. from 9 am-3 pm. There will be an artist reception this Sun., June 10 from 2-4 pm.

Since they only selected 61 pieces of art from the 274 pieces submitted, this is quite an honor.

(Edited to add this quilt won "Best of Show," presented at the artist reception on June 10.)

I also had some note cards of this quilt professionally printed and I'm very pleased with they way they turned out.

Early Morning Nine Patch - Project Quilting

 "Early Morning Nine Patch"  43.5" x 18", made for Project Quilting, 

Season 3, Challenge 4: Barn Quilt, Feb. 2012
Click on the photo to see it larger and with more detail

Quick recap of the challenge: 1. Your inspiration for this week is Barn Quilts.

You might have noticed recently that there have been quilt squares painted on the side of barns. Most of the time you can find maps in certain areas or counties and take a driving tour to see the quilt squares. Greene County, Ohio (where I live) has one. The first tour was in Adams County, Ohio, a 2 hour drive from where I live. You can read about how the first one got started here.

When I saw the challenge for this week, I knew what I wanted to do. I'd recently been thinking I'd like to make a quilt that was wider than tall and I thought a landscape would be nice. Originally I wanted to use thin strips to make the background, blending blue colors to make the sky and green for the field.

I went to my fabric stash and realized that I have very few pieces of fabric that are 44" wide, most of what I have are smaller chunks. Some of the fabrics I really wanted to use were only 10" wide, so I decided to make five sections that were about 9" wide. I didn't want the same fabrics next to each other with the exception of the top and bottom rows and where the land met the sky, so I added some strips to offset the pattern. The strips were 3/4" wide when finished.

I also knew I wanted to add some traditional squares into the background and since I was working with strips, Nine Patches seemed like an obvious choice but I used the same colors that were around them so they'd have a subtle effect. I machine pieced the background then machine quilted in with stitch-in-the-ditch, so the quilting isn't very obvious but quilting 3/4" apart helps the strips lay flat. 

I used my favorite strip-facing technique for the binding then started to make the barn.

 

I made the barn by paper piecing the quilt square with the front of the barn and then with the side of the barn. I wasn't sure what color to make the barn, red or brown, so I auditioned some fabric. The bright red was too much, the brown was too subtle. The deeper maroon red was looking good then I noticed on the selvage edge of one of the red fabrics that it was titled "Barn." When I say that I let the fabrics tell me what they want to be, it's not usually quite this literal. But it made the decision easier.

I fused the two red pieces to a piece of stabilizer and did some black thread painting to define the planks. Then I folded the edges over and machine appliqued it to the background. I used a piece of brown batik for the roof and appliqued it the same as the barn.

I fused the fences and attached them with raw-edge applique then couched some fun green yarn along the horizon line and in front of the barn to anchor the barn to the landscape and to give the appearance of grass.

A couple of quick pictures uploaded to the Project Quilting Flickr site and I was done just minutes before the deadline. I don't like working that closely to a deadline but was unable to do any sewing yesterday because we went to Athens, Ohio, to see one of my quilts that is in the "OH+5 2012" show at the Dairy Barn. We didn't take the official Athens Quilt Barn driving tour but I did see several of them on the drive.

More about Early Morning Nine Patch

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Click on the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the Barn Quilt page.