Innholdsfortegnelse for October - November 2017 i Quilting Arts Magazine

“MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES.” An old Chinese curse What is it about making art and taking a stand that goes hand in hand? Lately we’ve been seeing a resurgence of social awareness, personal politics, and activism in the fiber arts. Controversial topics in art are nothing new: from the depictions of the horrors of war in Picasso’s “Guernica” to the subversive graffiti of Banksy, modern artists have frequently broached difficult subjects … and quilt artists are no strangers to this movement. Often, the juxtaposition of the public’s idea of a quilt—something soft and warm, made for comfort and beauty—and the artist’s rendition of a difficult topic (such as racial profiling or domestic violence) seem too divergent to make sense. But to the artists who feel deeply about their…

A digital cutter makes it work! why use a digital cutter in your art process? I have found many reasons. It eliminates the need to cut fabric pieces or templates by hand. Designs can be traced without using a light box or taping them to a window. Any part of a design can be instantly recut perfectly. Elements can be moved, changed, or resized easily. Another excellent feature is the ability to cut fabric pieces ranging from very simple to extremely intricate while maintaining crisp and clean fabric edges. And, depending on the cutter’s software, you may have access to a color palette—a fabulous feature for adding or changing colors in the design before you even begin to cut fabric. As a fiber artist, the digital cutter was the tool…

often people look at an abstract work of art and think it must to be easy to make. It’s so simple, after all—just shapes, lines, and color. Although Boise-based art quilter Lisa Flowers Ross believes that anyone can learn to create abstractions, she would like to point out that simplicity is deceptively difficult to achieve. “People think minimal is easy, but every element in a minimal piece is so important and needs to work. You can’t just throw it on there.” Lisa is an art quilter who hand dyes fabrics to create geometric quilts that she exhibits in quilt shows and fine art galleries all over the country. Formally trained as a fine artist, Lisa took a winding path toward working with fabric and thread. In 1994, a friend invited…

Dear Quilting Arts, I knew this was the year I would finally do the motorcycle quilt I’d always wanted to do. The show theme for my guild, Clark County Quilters, was “A Walk on the Wild Side.” Why walk when you can ride, especially on a Harley? I called my daughter, Breeze Kruse, and asked her to help me draw up a pattern for my quilt. She is a wonderful artist and I wanted something whimsical and fun—right up her alley. My mom took over the housework while I spent hours up in in my quilt studio working day and night to finish the quilt. My grandson, Gage, 14, helped me pick out the fabrics for the borders. He has a very good eye for color and he loves to…

history books are filled with stories of the accomplishments of men—even though women have achieved amazing things. It is time that we added HERstory to history. I was inspired to issue the call for “HERstory: A Celebration of Strong Women” by the upcoming 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution, giving women the right to vote. Responding to the call were 85 artists from seven countries. They were inspired by stories of determination and inner strength. Stories of courageous, intelligent, and ground breaking women were told in fabric, thread, paint, and more—restricted to a quilt size of 24" x 30". The quilts were juried by Lisa Ellis and Cyndi Souder. This exhibit includes tributes to women well known to us, as well as those who worked…

i love dyeing fabric for my quilts; I can make the hues and values that I need and my work is uniquely my own because it starts with fabric that I have created. Tints are a great place to start your fabric dyeing journey because you deal with one hue at a time. It’s also a great way try out new colors of dye. I recommend starting with the three primary colors: yellow, blue, and red. In painting, a tint is achieved by adding white paint to any pure hue. With a bit of white an intense magenta becomes rose. Add more white and the hue becomes pink. For a lighter, more pastel version of a particular hue when dyeing, water is added to the dye before it is introduced…

In the April/May issue, we asked you to create quilts with the theme, ‘Year of the Rooster.’ We carefully combed our way through the flock, and chose some cocky finalists. We loved seeing the variety of techniques—hand work, thread painting, appliqué— that our readers offered in their rooster quilts. As 2017, the Year of the Rooster, begins to wind down, we are pleased to present these crow-worthy quilts. We hope you enjoy this gallery of our readers’ work. Join the Fun Learn about our new reader challenge on page 65 and submit your artwork for consideration. This your chance to share your talentwith the Quilting Arts community. “My Purple Rooster” BETH MARKEL • ROCHESTER, MICHIGAN “Rufus” KAYE MARTINDALE • WEST COLUMBIA, TEXAS “He’s a Dandy” SUSAN BUCKINGHAM • SHARON, WISCONSIN…

at QUILTING ARTS, we celebrate contemporary art quilting, surface design, mixed media, fiber art trends, and more. We are always looking for new techniques, innovative processes, and unique approaches to the art of quilting. We’d love to hear from you! What are we looking for? • Artists with inspiring portfolios of work to be featured in our In The Spotlight, Artist Profile, and Q&A articles. Show us your work and tell us your story. • Essays for “the last word” (up to 800 words). • Unique techniques, new ways to use existing tools and supplies, and ideas we’ve never featured before. • If you are teaching, blogging, or exhibiting your art quilts, you probably have great ideas to share! How to submit • Write a brief description of your idea…

as long as I can remember, I’ve had a love for fonts and letterforms. My favorite project when I was studying to be a graphic designer was creating letterforms using Albrecht Durer’s book OF THE JUST SHAPING OF LETTERS as a guide. After creating the letter S from his instructions, I was hooked. This project made me see letters not just as text but also as works of art. The latest home decor trends include using oversized letters and monograms as design elements. I created the following project as a gift for my niece’s new home. Along the way, I rediscovered the beauty of the letterform and added my own embellishment with free-motion quilting. WHAT’S YOUR TYPE? In simple terms, a font is a graphic representation of text, a set…

WHEN THE WORDS ‘DOMESTIC VIOLENCE’ AND ‘QUILTS’ COME IN THE SAME SENTENCE, YOU MAY WONDER WHAT THAT IMPLIES. I have made a lot of quilts in the 26 years I’ve been quilting. Some I believe I have been called to make: those are the domestic violence quilts that have become part of my legacy. I often wonder when I enter one in a show whether or not it will be accepted by the show audience. It seemed as though each one would reach a few people, then it would go back into my quilt inventory, waiting. I began my first domestic violence quilt in 2002. It was an expression of one climbing from deep depression to the surface by telling one’s story, thereby surviving. I felt that the energy for…

Abby Glassenberg is a sewing pattern designer, craft book author, teacher, and writer. She blogs about the sewing industry, running a creative business, and the online culture of craft. She is the co-founder of Craft Industry Alliance. Abby has an undergraduate degree in history from Johns Hopkins and a master’s degree in education from Harvard. She’s the author of three sewing books and lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with her husband and three daughters. whileshenaps.com Candy Glendening teaches biology at the University of Redlands in Southern California by day, and quilting and dyeing techniques by night. Candy is addicted to color, and dyes fabric to produce just the right hue and texture she wants. She uses her hand dyes in her artwork and encourages others to do the same. candiedfabrics.com Sharon…

greer presciently purchased the domain name “craftivism.com” and launched an online discussion among like-minded crafters. A social media hashtag soon followed, and Greer’s followers grew. In 2014, she published CRAFTIVISM: THE ART OF CRAFT AND ACTIVISM, a collection of essays from crafters with a mission to create crafts for personal growth and the greater good. Steadily, Instagram users logged about 5,000 posts using the hashtag #craftivism. Greer thought that was pretty good. Until the recent presidential election. From November 2016 through April 2017, use of the craftivism hashtag had more than doubled, to 12,000, Greer says. She credits the Women’s March on Washington and the Pussyhat Project (where crafters knitted or crocheted pink hats with “cat ears” to wear at the March) for the spike. “It’s been kind of amazing,”…

it may be intimidating to work improvisationally, but many people wouldn’t hesitate to make a meal without a cookbook. Working improvisationally is the same concept. The ingredients—in this case solid-colored fabrics—are cut up and pieced together to create prints. This article outlines how to create ‘stripe recipes,’ but the types of prints made possible by piecing go well beyond vertical lines. Follow along in this master class on stripe recipes and improvisational piecing. Making strip sets is a quilting technique where strips of fabric are pieced— selvedge-to-selvedge—into a set combination. This practice is economical in its use of fabric and time. Making stripes is similar, but instead of following someone else’s instructions, you will create your own stripe recipes. To get you started, I have included the stripe recipes I…

i am in awe of quilters who have the time and patience needed to make art quilts with hundreds of pieces of fabric sewn perfectly together. I do not have that sort of patience—so I developed a way I can make art quilts using a whole cloth background and fused geometric shapes. This process allows me to take the art quilt from idea–to plan–to completion in a day. Instant gratification. My geometric art quilts measure 22" x 30". The background cloth can be any cotton or cotton blend—from a favorite white fabric to an intricate hand-dyed batik. The appliques are geometric shapes cut from a print or batik and fused to the background. Using a single fabric highlights the shapes and creates a unified look with consistent color. Although my…

point me in the direction of an estate sale or a flea market and I will make a beeline to salvage old napkins, tablecloths, and doilies. These treasures have stories woven into them along with their original patterns, textures, and embroidery. It gives me such pleasure to bring them home and use them in my artwork. When I stitch with vintage linens, it brings them back to life! Maybe you were fortunate like I was to have grown up with a mother, aunt, or grandmother who treasured linens and made them a part of daily life or special occasions. I remember holiday dinners when the linen napkins with an embroidered monogram were placed on the table instead of the paper ones we used everyday. It seemed like we might get…