Fireflies on exhibit with Best of 2011 Show

My art quilt "Fireflies" is in the Ohio Designer Craftsman's "Best of 2011" show. The travelling exhibit will be at the following locations:

Ohio Craft Museum
1665 W Fifth Ave., Columbus, OH
May 1-June 19
Mon.-Fri. 10 am-5 pm and Sat.-Sun. 1-4 pm
Opening reception Sun., May 1 from 1–4 pm

Southern Ohio Museum
825 Gallia St., Portsmouth, OH
July 8–August 27
Tues.-Fri. 10 am-5 pm and Sat. 1-5 pm

School of Art Gallery
Kent State University, Kent, OH
October 11–November 11

Project Quilting Off Season Challenge

The second season of Project Quilting is finished but it will be back soon for season 3. In the meantime, there will be some off-season challenges. There are no prizes for these challenges but you do have a month to complete them. Here’s the first off-season challenge.

“It’s All In Your Initials”

This challenge is all about using your initials to determine what colors you can use.

1. You must use all three or four of your colors in your quilt or project.

2. It doesn’t have to be a quilt.

3. You may use as many fabrics as you want; just no more than 3 or 4 colors.

4. You may not add any other colors to your piece except when embellishing. Embellishing isn’t required but it is always fun.

5. Project may be any size.

6. Project must have a name.

7. In your story, list your initials and your color choices. Be creative!

8. Please remember that these projects need to be created during the time frame of the challenge.

The deadline for this challenge is Sunday, May 8, 2011, at noon, CDT.

For a list of colors in alphabetical order, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colors

What I Got From Project Quilting

The second season of Project Quilting is over and it was both fun and exhausting.

What did I get? I am the grand prize winner for the season! I’ll be getting some great prizes (lots of fabric) and helpful comments from the judges. Most importantly I got 6 wonderful art quilts that I probably wouldn’t have made otherwise (technically I only have 5 because one has sold).

There were some really great competitors, which should be obvious since while I won first place over all, none of my individual quilts made it to first place (although 4 of them got second place).

I also learned more about how I like create. My main method of working was to read the challenge then go to my fabric stash and start looking through the fabric options. Usually that would start me thinking of possibilities and I’d sketch out a few layout options.

With the exception of “Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom”, all the other fabric was taken from my stash. I find it interesting to think that if I’d hadn’t had the fabric I did at the time, my projects could have ended up quite different.

Below I’ve given some more information about the six quilts, including what I would have done differently, although most of the changes I would have made were how I constructed the quilt and not in the design or fabrics.

"Carnival of Colors"

for the Primary Colors challenge

What I would have done differently: I thought that fusing the color squares to the background and covering the edges with cord would save some time, but I don’t think that it did. The cord was too thin to completely cover the edges so I ended up going back and quilting in the ditch inside the color squares. I think it would have gone better to just piece it in a more traditional way and the put the cords over the seams. This would have made the quilt smaller as part of the original fabric would have ended up as seam allowances.

To read more about "Carnival of Colors" click here.

"Sometimes I Dream of Flying"

for the What's in a Name challenge

Maybe this one was a little too ambitious as it was the largest one and took the longest to make, but it is the one that I’m the most proud of.

One of the reasons it took awhile was because I decided to add the traditional Birds in the Air blocks at the top and the bottom and I wasn’t paying enough attention because I ended up cutting twice as many pieces as I needed, but I ended up using some of them because I didn’t piece it together correctly.

Then there were some of the “field” pieces that I didn’t like the placement of during the quilting stage so I ended up hand appliquéing some different fabrics on top of the original pieces. I don’t think I mentioned this is the original blog post but some of the fabrics I used the “wrong” sides of because I wanted them to be lighter in color.

What I would have done differently: paid more attention when piecing the Birds in the Air blocks and made the correctly the first time and planned the field fabrics better so I wouldn’t have had to replace some. 

To read more about "Sometimes I Dream of Flying" click here.

"not even the rain: a love poem"

for the Be My Valentine challenge

I originally had the middle sections (with the flowers and text) covered with a nice sheer fabric to help hide the places where I machine appliquéd the fabric with the text but then I decided it was too subtle so I had to cut the sheer out. I was really concerned that the piece was too plain. I had planned on adding the fun fur all along and I was surprised how much of a difference it made. One of the judges gave me a perfect 10 on this quilt, and it has already sold.

What I would have done differently: not put the sheer on in the first place.

To read more about "not even the rain: a love poem" click here.

"After the Rain"

for the Hardware Store Challenge

Since the first season of Project Quilting had the Office Store challenge, I was expecting something like this for this season. This was my favorite challenge because it came together fairly easily. I already had the fabric and since I’d bought them at the same time, I knew they went well together. Most of my time on this project was sewing the silver cord through the drain cover to make it appear less metallic and for me it was actually relaxing to do this.

This is my favorite of the six quilts and I there isn’t anything I would have changed about the way I made it. I love that it has a simplicity about it but also has movement and texture. I also really like our local hardware store.

To read more about "After the Rain" click here.

"Dancing Geese" for the Flying Geese challenge

I got my lowest score on this quilt (so it’s the one that was dropped from the total score) and this was probably my least favorite of the challenges and I think it’s because I’m not fond of working with contrasting color schemes. I took this to mean that we could only use the complimentary colors but some others interpreted that you could add some other colors as long as the contrasting colors were the most prominent.

It also took me awhile to come up with a layout for this quilt, I’ve got 21 pages of sketches. I’m not sure what I would have done differently, maybe gone with another layout or different color scheme.

There is, however, one judge’s comment that I’d like to address. “I don’t see any binding in any of your photos.” I used a facing technique because I DIDN’T want the binding to show. I really like this technique because it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the design, it takes the bulk out of the corners, and it helps the quilt to hang straighter. While facing might work better with art quilts, is an acceptable technique to use to bind quilts. 

To read more about "Dancing Geese" click here.

"Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom"

for the Large Scale Print challenge

Sometimes when I’m making a lot of custom quilts, I don’t have the luxury to go back and re-explore some techniques. For this quilt, I decided to incorporate a few ideas that I used in some of my other Project Quilting pieces.

I used the fabric mosaic technique that I used with the bird on “Sometimes I Dream of Flying” only I let the edges stay at whatever angle they ended up at and I covered them with netting.

I also used the yarn and ribbon embellishments similar to “After the Rain” except instead of letting them just hang down, I had them run horizontally so I had to attach them to the quilt so I did that using beads.

What I would have done differently: One of the judge’s comments was “I like to see mitered corners on a striped border.” I totally agree and usually do this, however the yellow inner border is so thin it was giving me problems when I tried to miter it, and after several unsuccessful attempts, I gave up on it.

An interesting side note to this challenge: the last several times I’ve been in quilt shops I’ve looked at several large scale prints and stripes with a new appreciation. I haven’t bought any, but I did consider some. 

To read more about "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" click here.

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I appreciate all the hard work that the competitors and judges did, plus extra kudos to Kim who co-ordinated the whole challenge. I urge other quilters to participate in this wonderful project. I’ll let you know when the next season starts, but until there there will be some off-season challenges (no prizes but you’ll have a month to complete your projects). More info will be posted soon.

Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom - Project Quiting time to vote

"Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" 24" x 28.5" Project Quilting, Season 2, Challenge 6: Large Scale Print, Mar. 2011

Quick recap of the challenge "Large Scale Print":

1. Use at least 1/8 yard of a single large scale print on the front side of your project. It can be a regular eighth (4 1/2" x 44") or a fat eighth (11" x 18") or anything in between, but the total needs to add up to 1/8 yard. It can be used as 1 piece or cut into smaller pieces and used.
2. You must also use at least 1 stripe or plaid fabric. No restriction on quantity.
3. Add any other fabrics or materials you wish.

I don’t usually use a lot of large scale prints, but I did have half a yard of one with large overlapping yellow, orange, pink and burgundy flowers that I’d bought several years ago for a purpose that I don’t remember now. It’s just been sitting in my stash taunting me.

When this challenge was posted I knew I wanted to finally use that fabric and a layout came to me rather quickly, it was just the stripe that had me concerned. I’ve used striped fabric before (I like to use them for bindings) but when I’ve gone to buy them I usually haven’t liked the selection of striped fabric.

Because of that concern I actually came up with a second layout using a different large scale print that went with a striped fabric I already had in my possession. Off to the fabric store (the only one of the six challenges that I’ve had to buy fabric for).

I wanted a stripe fabric with at least one of the colors in the large scale print but not something too formal or straight. The very first striped fabric I found was perfect, and how often does that happen? I did check out all the other options but went back to the first one, a yellow fabric with an orange stripe that looked like it was made with a crayon, so not too formal or straight! And it was a remnant, so I got it for half price.

I also purchased the burgundy background fabric because I wanted something that was mostly solid so it wouldn’t compete with the large scale print or the stripe but it had just enough color variation to provide some visual texture.

I pieced the background fabric to the stripes so the stripes are horizontal on the left and right inner borders and vertical on the top and bottom. Then to be a little different, I cut out one stripe and ran it the other direction going length-wise on the left side of the background (more obvious on the detail photos).

Then I pieced the corner blocks and added the large scale print fabric as borders. (Regarding the first part of this challenge: including the seams I used about one quarter of a yard of my large scale print fabric.)

Before I added the other elements, I quilted the burgundy background at this time with slightly-curved horizontal lines in both a dark burgundy and a pink thread to give it more visual depth (the dark burgundy thread is a little hard to see in the photos).

I quilted stitch-in-the-ditch on both sides of the yellow stripe border then did the same slightly-curved horizontal lines in the borders, going all the way across the top and bottom borders and doing shorter waves on the side borders.

I wanted a visual element to go on the burgundy background that had the same energy that the large scale print had but at a smaller scale so I made the three “fabric mosaics.” I fused many small pieces of orange, pink and burgundy fabrics on a square orange background allowing the mosaic pieces to form unusual angles at where they stopped.

I covered them with netting (which provides the sparkle that shows in the photo) and quilted them together with a purpley thread and also an orange thread. I folded the raw edges under then machine appliqued the mosaics to the background, aligning the top and bottom blocks so they were centered on the yellow stripe.

To hold the yarn and ribbons in the center of the fabric mosaic blocks I considered at least 10 sets of items including shells, plastic rings and round paper clips but decided to use three square buttons from a blouse I bought about 18 years ago (I probably bought the blouse because I liked the buttons, and when it was time for it to become a rag I saved the buttons…and my husband even recognized that they were from a blouse that I used to have).

I twisted different yarns (including fun fur) horizontally across the quilt and added beads every few inches to hold them in place.

More about Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom

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Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the Large Scale Print page.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilt: National Quilting Month

This month is National Quilting Month, and this Sat., Mar. 19 is National Quilting Day. How will I spend National Quilting Day? At a Miami Valley Art Quilt Network meeting. The meeting is at the Dayton Public Library in the room that we are having our current quilt exhibit.

To celebrate National Quilting Month, my on-line quilting group "Quiltsy" decided to work on a traveling quilt. Every year the National Quilting Association decides on a theme and this year's theme is "Build Your Own Log Cabin." We decided that each of us would make a log cabin square in the colors of green, blue and purple. One of our members even mailed a strip of fabric that had all three colors in it and it was optional to include in our blocks.

We have 43 quilters participating from 22 states and 2 Canadians Provinces. Texas has the most with 6 participants and Ohio the second most with 4 quilters participating.

We'll have 6 rows and each row will have seven blocks. We've all been assigned a spot and the first person in the row sends her block to the second person, who adds her block and sends it to the next person. I was the fourth in our row so my block is the one on the right in the photo above and I've sent it on to the next quilter. I'll be sure to post of photo of the whole quilt when it's finished.

One of our members has been blogging about the quilters as it progresses across the country, you had read about it on our Quiltsy blog.

Dancing Geese - Project Quilting time to vote

At left: "Dancing Geese" 10" x 18.5" Project Quilting, Season 2, Challenge 5: Flying Geese, Mar. 2011  

Quick recap of the challenge Flying Geese: 
1. Your inspiration is Flying Geese. I'm sure you've all seen the traditional flying geese. Your challenge is to let them inspire you to do something unexpected.

2. For an extra twist this week, you are required to use a complimentary (opposites on the color wheel) color scheme.

I actually spent a lot of time coming up with the layout for this quilt. Using my computer, I played with many, many different arrangements. One of the things I love about using traditional quilt blocks is the way different parts of the block are emphasized or de-emphasized depending on color and fabric placement.

I knew I wanted the background fabric to be all the same so the triangle parts of the geese would be the focal point. Once I finally came up with a layout I wanted to do, it was time to start playing with complimentary color schemes.

I went to my stash to see what fabrics I had that I thought would work with and I wanted the fabrics for the triangles to be the same color but to range from light to dark. The color that provided me with the most range from my stash was yellow, although yellow is a light color so it doesn’t have a large range of shades. And if the geese were going to be yellow, then the background would have to be purple. I found a wonderful purply batik that had cream and yellow colored swirls, so it was time to get started.

"Dancing Geese" detail

I knew that I could fuse the triangles to the background but I was a little concerned about the background showing through the yellow fabric and I also didn’t want the geese to be so flat.

I played around with some origami-like folds, kind of like making prairie points, only I didn’t realize that until later. The triangles are pretty small, only 2” on the longest point. (The 3-D quality of the triangles is more noticeable in the “Side View” photo.)

A few false starts on figuring out how to piece the background led to cutting the background fabric for each “stripe” and drawing the shape on the wrong side, much like using a template only I traced by placing the fabric over my full-sized diagram on my lightbox.

Still using the lightbox, I placed the triangle in its proper place then sewed adjoining pieces and attaching the bottoms of the triangles at the same time. The points of the triangles were sewn into place during the quilting.

"Dancing Geese" side view

I made the top and left borders the same width as each other and made the right and bottom borders the same as each other but larger than the left and top borders and I added a light purple cord in the larger yellow borders to contain the triangle that extended beyond the background. I decided to do some of the quilting with the opposite color, which is something I don’t do a lot, but I think it helped the design. I did some echo quilting around the triangles with a yellow thread and also stitched in the ditch on the yellow inner border and more echo quilting in the purple background with purple thread.

For the binding I used the same strip- facing technique that I used on the last challenge quilt “After the Rain” because I liked how well it worked.

More about Dancing Geese

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Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the Flying Geese page.

Local Art Exhibits in March

Yellow Ribbon Fabric Mosaic on exhibit in Yellow Springs

Women's Voices Out Loud

March 1-31 Program and reception Saturday, March 12 at 7 pm John Bryan Center, 100 Dayton St., Yellow Springs, OH 45387

Uncommon Threads V: At the Library

Miami Valley Art Quilt Network Exhibit March 2-April 13 Mon., Tues., Thurs. 9:30 am-8:30 pm Wed., Fri., Sat. 9:30 am-6 pm Sun. 1-5 pm Dayton Metro Library, 215 E. Third St., Dayton, OH 45402