She Paints with Fabric - Quilt of the Week

 

"She Paints With Fabric," 19" x 25.5", made by Pam Geisel

Did you know that I used do some painting? I didn't like oil painting because of the clean up. I did like watercolors because they were easy to clean and I liked how the water would sometimes make magic things happen. But I struggled with getting really bold colors, which is one of the reasons I switched to quilting, because the fabrics had such wonderful colors and patterns (plus it's easy to clean up after). So I took my artistic ability to a different medium but I like to say that I paint with fabric.

A little background: back in the early part of 2016 my friend (and amazing watercolor painter) Libby Rudolf was planning to have a show at the Winds Cafe here in Yellow Springs and she asked if I'd like to be a part of it. I said yes and then I suggested that she could make a painting of a quilt and I could make a quilt of a painter (both shown above).

At that time I was an ambassador for Island Batik, which meant they'd send me fabric and I'd make a quilt with their fabrics and blog about it. I thought this fabric, which looks like it has paint spots on it, would be perfect for this quilt. I made several other quilts using this fabric because I love it so much. (Of course it is now out-of-print.)

So this art quilt is special to me for several reasons, including the title, the fabrics, and the fact that it was my 500th quilt. And because today is my birthday, I'm going to offer double the discount on this piece.

Because this is the Quilt of the Week, it is 10% 20% off the original price of $735 through 6/13/21 if you purchase directly from me. Details can be found here.

Three art quilts in the 25th Annual Art Quilt Exhibit at Aullwood Audubon Center

Three of my art quilts (from left: "Persian Shield", "The View From My Hammock", and "She Paints With Fabric") are included in the "Spots, Stripes, and Shapes in Nature," the 25th annual art quilt exhibit at Aullwood Audubon Center, located at 1000 Aullwood Rd. in Dayton, Ohio. The show runs from Sept. 16 through Nov. 4 and there will be an artist reception on Sunday, Oct. 1 from 2-4 p. The center is open M-Sa from 9a-5p and Su from 1-5p. There is a $5 admission fee that allows access to the center and also to the farm.

New Note Cards!

I had some new professionally-printed note cards made of some of my quilts.

Top row, left to right: Birches, Reflection/Refraction, Mermaid Haiku.
Middle left: The View from My Hammock
Bottom left: Virginia Reel
Middle: She Paints with Fabric and Standing Tall
Middle right: Sweet Dreams Counting Sheep
Bottom right: Louie

They are available as singles ($5) and in sets ($25) at in Yellow Springs at Village Artisans, where ever I'm doing a show, and on my Etsy page.

"Color & Light : Brush & Needle" a watercolor and art quilt exhibit at the Wind's Cafe

My friend Libby Rudolf, who is a very talented watercolor painter, invited me to be a part of her most recent exhibit at the Winds Cafe, 215 Xenia Ave. in Yellow Springs. The Winds Cafe is open Tues.-Sat. from 11:30 am-2:30 pm and 5-10 pm, and on Sun. from 10 am-3 pm, they are closed on Mondays.

The exhibit will be up for the months of May and June and there will be an opening reception on Sun., Sept. 20, from 6:30-8:30 pm.

Since we are exhibiting together, I suggested that she make a painting of someone quilting and I'd make a quilt of someone painting, which I titled "She Paints with Fabric".

For Quilts Sake: By the Numbers - My 500th Quilt!

Me with my first quilt "Hearts & Arrows" which I made in a class in 2001, and my 500th quilt "She Paints With Fabric" which I finished this month

The quilt "She Paints With Fabric" is my 500th quilt! This is amazing considering that I took shop class in Junior High so that I wouldn't have to learn how to sew! I always loved art classes, and up until about 10 years ago, one of my hobbies was watercolor painting. So it seems fitting that a quilt of someone painting is my 500th quilt.

What happened ten years ago? In April 2006, I decided to start making quilts to sell. I had applied for a craft show that would take place the following November and it was time to start making items to stock the booth with.

It wouldn't be entirely accurate to state that I made 500 quilts in ten years because I had made 15 quilts before April 2006. But it does almost boil down to 50 quilts a year. (Back in 2013 I did a blog post because I'd made 52 quilts that year. What I didn't realize at the time was that was pretty average for me.)

While I've made more art quilts than other types of quilts, they don't account for even half of what I've made.

This total includes:
195 Art Quilt and 14 Custom Art Quilts
3 Bed Quilts and 8 Custom Bed Quilts
2 Lap Throws
11 Quillows and 5 Custom Quillows
8 Custom Memory Quilts
16 Custom T-Shirt Quilts
36 Table Runners and 15 Custom Table Runners
32 Baby Quilts
46 Fabric Mosaics and 21 Custom Fabric Mosaics
9 Paintings with Quilt Squares and 14 Custom Paintings with Quilt Squares
65 Other types of quilts

This total does NOT include the following items:
364 Bookmarks
638 Cards with Fabric Squares
8 Coaster Sets
53 Journal Covers
3 Mug Rugs
31 Quilted Necklaces
433 Postcards
30 Purses from Neckties
13 Tooth Fairy Pillows
39 Christmas Ornaments

And my biggest seller:
1350 Wine Glass Coaster Sets. Each set has 4 coasters so that would be 5400 individual wine glass coasters. (That's almost 11 wine glass coasters for every quilt!)

She Paints With Fabric

"She Paints With Fabric," 19" x 25.5", made by Pam Geisel, April 2016

This month the Island Batik Ambassador's are creating pieces for #AprilShowersIB Challenge! The final size was up to us. but we were encouraged to use images of Spring including: umbrellas, rain gear, spring flowers, farm life, weather, bugs, plants and seeds, or pond and water. So many good inspirations! I decided to go with spring flowers, specifically poppies.

In May and June I will be exhibiting with my friend Libby Rudolf who paints watercolor paintings. It was decided that to commemorate our exhibit, she would make a painting of someone quilting and I would make a quilt of someone painting.

I went through my Island Batik fabrics and just like last month with the minis, I mostly used the Sea Salt Sandy fabrics. I thought they were the perfect choice since they look like they were splattered with paint. (I did use a cream-colored piece for the hand and the face from a different collection).

For the painting itself, I used lighter colors of fabric to keep it from disappering in the background. Her hair is yarn that was couched down. The subtle shadow on her right arm was made by drawing on with a brown fabric marker. I don't usually draw on fabrics but since these had the splatter marks it seemed like it wouldn't be too distracting.

The flowers in the foreground are made with fabric. The flowers in the background are red sequins with red glass seed beads on top. And the flowers in the painting, which are even smaller, are just the glass seed beads. The small cans of paint were and afterthought but the splatters on the outside of the can seemed appropriate.

In our last shipment, we also received some Superior brand thread. I got these three spools of variegated Fantastico thread. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've never used Superior thread before now. I've been having some issues with thread breakage when doing free motion quilting. I wasn't sure if it was me, the machine, or the thread. Now I'm pretty sure it was the thread because this thread worked perfectly!

I used the blue/green thread (#5070) on the left in the sky with a large, stippling type quilting.

And I used the green/yellow thread (#5156) in the grass. I did a dense pattern of vertical zigzags to indicate the direction the grass was going. I also couched some thread for the poppy stems.

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

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