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

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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

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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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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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To read more about Project Quilting, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the Kitchen Influence page.

All You Need Is Love

 

All You Need Is Love, 18" x 13", handmade by Pam Geisel, January 2022

Ever since I made Be a Spark a few years ago, I've been wanting to make more art quilts with the same technique of using squares rotated and on top of squares with letters and sheer fabrics on top but I've been having trouble coming up with inspiration.

A few nights ago I was thinking about the Village Artisans' lobby show that we're going to hang this week, which has the theme of "All You Need is Love." Knowing I had a deadline coming up, I spent the weekend working on this piece.

Originally it was going to be on a white background and I pulled out the red fabric that I used for the background fabric thinking I could use it for the binding. The white background wasn't working for me and I considered not finishing it but then I tried the fabrics on the red background and I started to feel excited about this project. This project is this size because that is all that I had of that red fabric.

I don't have a lot of pink fabrics in my stash, but I did have some small amounts of dusty pink fabrics, which I used for the larger squares that form the heart (that are at a 45 degree angle). 

Because the layout dictated that the letters would be spaced far apart, I decided to make the letters of each word the same color and have them go in the rainbow order of blue, indigo, violet, purple, and then red (and I didn't have enough room for the word "Love" so I used a heart).

It's quilted with a dusty pink thread which crosses through the squares instead of around the outside which make the sides stand out from the background.

It's embellished with a chunky, funky red/purple variegated yarn that outlines the heart (and breaks the frame by going above and below the background) and a thin red silk ribbon framing the edges. The sheer fabrics, the glitter in the yarn, and some handsewn beads add sparkle to this piece.

The "All You Need is Love" show at Village Artisans runs through March 21. Village Artisans is located at 100 Corry St. in Yellow Springs and is open M-Sa 11 am-5 pm and Sun noon-5 pm.

More about All You Need Is Love

Mystical Moon Cat - Project Quilting

"Mystical Moon Cat" 6" x 6" x .5", made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting, Season 13, Challenge 2: In Silhouette

Recap for "In Silhouette":

Be inspired by the concept of silhouette; explore the idea of a simple, contrasting image.

I love using silhouettes in both my art quilts and also in my graphic design. I've just started a larger project that I think will have a silhouette in it, although I'm not positive what the silhouette will be of. If I get that project finished, it won't likely be until summer time.

Because I've worked with silhouettes in the past, I've already got some sketches of silhouettes, including this one of a cat on a crescent moon, although I did spend some time trying to decide which fabric to use. It wasn't until I remembered I had some Island Batik Sea Salt Sandie fabrics (one of my favorites from when I was an Island Batik Ambassador) that I knew this was what I wanted to make.

I've made several of these little 6 x 6 wrapped around canvas pieces, both for other Project Quilting challenges and for Island Batik projects and they're quite fun to make.

More about Mystical Moon Cat.

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To read more about Project Quilting, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the In Silhouette page.

Rainbow Plaid Baby Quilt - Project Quilting

 

"Rainbow Plaid Baby Quilt" 30" x 30", made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting, Season 13, Challenge 1: All the Colors

Recap for "All the Colors":

Your project must be colorful with at least five colors.

Considering that the quilt I consider my first art quilt had the rainbow colors in it ("Rainbow Pinwheel") and I both made a quilt called "All the Colors" and one of my solo shows was also called "All the Colors," this was not a challenge for me, but fun nonetheless.

I used the six traditional rainbow colors although the one that I used for the blue I also used for the backing and binding. 

It's blue but also has some rainbow stripes that cross to make a fun plaid pattern, which is why I named this baby quilt "Rainbow Plaid."

It's quilted with blue thread that make "x"s through all the squares.

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To read more about Project Quilting, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the All the Colors page.