Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2020 i Quilting Arts Magazine

Me and Kristine in 2012. I’VE BEEN THINKING A LOT LATELY ABOUT HOW ART INFLUENCES DIFFERENT PARTS OF OUR LIVES. My son’s guitar strumming filters into my home office and reminds me of concerts from the past. As I start humming along, his music makes the hours slip away. Likewise, I hear a podcast that mentions a painting by Van Gogh, and I’m transported to a museum and am standing in front of the artwork again, observing my daughter as she experienced the art in person for the very first time. Suddenly, the flowers I’m arranging take on new meaning. The serendipitous fall of light through a window creates a transparency effect when it hits a bowl, and the next thing I know, I’m pulling similar colored fabrics from my…

Vivien Zepf started quilting because she became besotted with the beautiful fabrics in a neighborhood shop. Today she often uses photography as inspiration, using what she sees to inform her process. The intellectual rigor of her work as a museum docent complements her creative pursuits. Vivien has had her artwork juried into national exhibitions and has appeared on “Quilting Arts TV.” vivienzepf.com Julie B. Booth is a surface design artist, teacher, and author of Fabric Printing at Home. She has written articles for Quilting Arts Magazine and appeared on “Quilting Arts TV.” Julie teaches numerous classes in hand stitching as an expressive art form, including telling stories and sharing memories in cloth and creating appliquéd and stitched works with a healing message. threadbornblog.com Jovita Revathi Vas is a self-taught quilter…

as I embarked on my creative journey at the start of 2020, I had to decide what I wanted the next year to be about. As the year began, I was focused on vision and clarity and the start of the new decade. As you start looking at yourself, you are forced to create from a different place. I will do my best to describe this. Until last year, I was always hesitant to create any rendering of myself. In 2019, for the Sacred Threads show, it was the first time I finished and exhibited a quilt with my likeness, “Simple Joy.” I would start a piece and never complete it. After the Sacred Threads exhibit, the creative doors were opened. At the end of that year, I rendered a…

1. Create a ‘postage stamp’ quilt based on the theme ‘Art as Inspiration’ and inspired by your art hero. The quilt must be 6" x 6". Embellishments must not protrude more than ½ " from the surface of the piece. The quilt may be made with any materials but must consist of three layers and be closed along the edges. 2. Your entry must be free of any text or images protected by copyright, unless you have the expressed written permission from the person or institution that holds the copyright and you include that written permission with your submission. 3. To be considered for the challenge, attach two jpeg images of your completed quilt to an email—one of the entire quilt, including all of the edges, and one of a…

over 20 years ago I fell in love with dyeing using Procion® MX fiber reactive dyes and my path to art quilting began. In the past few years, my explorations in color and texture on cloth have taken me into the world of indigo dyeing. I have experimented with techniques to create patterns of white and blue on several different textile substrates and in this threepart series we’ll delve into some of them. In this first article, we’ll talk about indigo vat dyeing and explore the technique of using a glue resist to create simple patterns informed by the work of African dyers who create mud cloth. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s first explore the chemistry and process of indigo vat dyeing. QUESTION: What is indigo vat dyeing?…

several years ago, a friend gave me a stack of vintage feed-sack Ohio Star blocks that were too dirty, uneven, and worn to use, even after gentle washing and pressing. I finally cut them into smaller squares, targeting the areas where they were most stable. I used these small squares in a new quilt that showcased the fabrics and honored the original makers. This process jumpstarted my exploration into block manipulation. I began to sew new Ohio Star blocks, this time with the express purpose of slicing them into smaller components. When sewn together, something magical happens: These small squares combine to create complex visual compositions that are dynamic and perfect to use in many projects. I’m currently experimenting with ways to transition between shades of a single color and/or…

to say that the first nine months of 2020 have been “unprecedented” is to overstate the obvious. Most of us were caught off-guard by the tremendous speed and strength of the spread of COVID-19. We were utterly unprepared for the loss of life, social isolation, political turmoil, economic impact, and overall upending of daily life. Creating a context of this worldwide event will take years of study and the perspective of history. But while the world is still in the midst of this pandemic, a frame of reference is formed by sifting through the news reports and interpreting through an individual lens. Luckily, art quilters have the materials, tools, and skills to make sense of the world through their artistry. As Linda Colsh’s work “Disappearing Act” explores, isolation is a…

After the flock is adhered to the fabric, it is soft and easy to sew or quilt. A sewing machine presser foot will not disturb it—it is glued to the fabric and there to stay. If needed, the flocked fabric can be pressed with medium heat/wool setting. The flock is permanent and will not be melted or otherwise affected by ironing, from either the front or the back. Use flock on art quilts only—it is not washable. For the quilt “Fish,” I created several squares dotted with flock. After creating the fish focal image, I sewed the squares to create a half border along the left side and top edge of the quilt top. For a trapunto effect, I quilted around the flock circles. I love the dimension!…

at QUILTING ARTS, we celebrate contemporary art quilting, surface design, mixed media, fiber art trends, and more. we are always looking formnew techniques, innovative processes, and creative 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, Open Studio, and Q&A articles. Show us your work and tell us your story. • Unique techniques, new ways to use existing tools and supplies, and ideas we’ve never featured before. • Projects and techniques featuring mixedmedia, collage, and fabric book art. How to submit • Write a brief description of your idea and email it to qasubmissions@goldenpeakmedia.com. Your submission should give us an overview of what you are…

I have had several conversations with colleagues in recent days about today’s quilting industry and its roots in prior centuries. It is all too easy for currentday quilters to get caught up in the whirlwind of new fabrics, patterns, and creative influences available now and forget about where we came from. Even during the COVID-19 health crisis and its myriad accompanying stay-at-home orders, I have been able to order all the fabric I need online, including some of the newest releases. I have been inspired by the work of various makers on social media and have found new patterns with just a few clicks. But it is impossible to fully appreciate today’s quilts without thinking of those that came before us. Tucked away in my closet is the pink Tumbling…

Yoshiko Kurihara in 2018, Yoshiko Kurihara held a solo exhibition at the Chiba City Culture Center in Japan. It was an amazing experience for her; she said, “During the five-day event, over 600 people visited despite bad weather due to a typhoon. I exhibited 30 large quilts (mostly created for exhibition at the Tokyo International Quilt Festival) and about 30 small works. Some of the small works were made specially for this exhibition.” This recognition is just one of many that have honored Yoshiko Kurihara and her art. I first interviewed Yoshiko in 2011 for the book ART QUILT PORTFOLIO: PEOPLE AND PORTRAITS. I was fascinated by the wide variety of gestures and expressions that she managed to convey with her elongated geometrical figures. Each year since then, when visitors…

we often think of hand stitching or hand embroidery as a technique for creating decorative work or embellishment with an emphasis on color and motif. In this series of four articles, I take a different approach and explore the potential of basic stitches to create interesting marks, textures, and layers on fabric. Each challenge will focus on a theme and a few basic stitches. Don’t let the simplicity of the stitches fool you! By exploring the themes starting with line in this article and moving on to rhythm, texture, and layers the beauty and nuance of the stitches will be revealed. To keep the focus on the mark-making potential of the stitches, I set some limits including limiting the color palette and size of the work. For this first challenge,…

• An Ohio Star is a nine-patch quilt block made with 5 plain squares and 4 quarter-square triangle units. I find this block simple yet versatile; it provides a balance of plain and pieced units that cut up nicely. Other star blocks work, too. In fact, any pieced block can be used in this technique. There are numerous open source patterns available online or in reference books. • Consider making Ohio Star blocks of different sizes for visual interest. I like to make 6", 9", and 12" blocks. • Select fabrics based on your project goals. For example, use fabrics in the same color family from lights to dark if the goal is to create a color gradation in the final composition. A minimum of 8 fabrics is good for…

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earamichia Brown has a colorful story and a colorful nickname. (Her given name is pronounced Ear-ROM-i-ka, but she also goes by the nickname Encyclopedia, like the boy detective from the ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN book series from the 1960s). “When I was very young, as early as two or three, my family says I was able to read the encyclopedia,” she said. “That’s how I got that nickname.” “I had an extremely traumatic beginning, up through the teenage years,” Earamichia said. “That probably informed a lot of decisions I made.” Despite the difficulties, she absorbed an appreciation for creativity in many forms. As a youngster, she was especially fond of World Book’s CHILDCRAFT: THE HOW AND WHY LIBRARY series and MAKE AND DO, Volume 11, in particular, which contained basic instruction on…

Postal history around the world is fascinating. Did you know there is a division of the U.S. Postal Service called Stamp Development in charge of developing and designing new stamps? Other countries have similar agencies. In the U.S., approximately 35 stamps are issued each year—created mostly by professional designers and artists commemorating all sorts of people, things, historical events, causes, and more, and suggestions for stamp subjects are welcome from anyone. Postage stamps often feature the work of well-known artists. Some are exquisite miniature pieces of art on their own. Imagine creating an art-inspired design for a stamp—that is our challenge to you, dear readers. What modern artist, architect, or creative inspires you? Create a 6" x 6" ‘postage stamp’ quilt inspired by (but not copying!) your art hero—and tell…

• Change the weight or thickness of the stitch by changing the weight of the thread. If you are using embroidery floss, you can use some or all of the individual thread strands. Compare how different the stitch looks using 1 thread versus 4 or 6 threads. • Change the type of thread in the needle. Try different types of thread (shiny, matte, braided, textured, etc.). Compare stitches made with shiny rayon thread versus crewel embroidery wool, for example. • Change the size of the stitch. Long versus short. Wide versus narrow. • Change the space between stitches. With running stitch, the amount of fabric left between stitches can significantly change the look of the stitch. • Change the angle of the stitch. Instead of stitching in a straight line,…

the quintessential phrase voiced by adults and heard by children—“My, how you’ve changed!”—is a truth. We all know that now, but who among us did not at least secretly roll our youthful eyes when we heard that from our elders way back when? And yet we all change throughout our lives; most things do. That is progress, growth, and evolution. We invited our readers to create an 8" x 8" portrait quilt using a photo as inspiration to express this. We are pleased to share this gallery of our readers’ work—plus their inspiration photos, too! We hope you enjoy the following pages of original art. “STILL MUDDY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS” JERRI PENNEY WYLIE, TEXAS “How you’ve changed … or how you have not. Recently my sister Jill and I…

“The variety of artists and work I encountered that semester opened my mind to the huge scope of what sculpture—and therefore art—could be.” ishould have been excited; instead I was full of dread and my imposter syndrome was flaring up big-time. I imagined it would be like stepping into a room with all my favorite famous quilters. Would they smile and be nice to me? Probably, yes. Would I feel small, untalented and out of place? Also, undoubtedly, yes. Over a decade after leaving college I had decided it was time to finish my degree, and a big chunk of my graduation requirements were art credits. Having never taken a formal art class, I worried about my lack of basic skills. My drawing repertoire, for instance, was strictly cartoon clouds…

Free-form quilting: There are no hard rules, no ripping of seams, no restriction on stitch-length Recycling: Quilters make do with locally available materials and used clothing Functionality: Made with the purpose of keeping loved ones warm Evoke emotion: Fabrics that tell stories and honor memories are often used Borders: Optionally, when the quilt has a border, it is stitched around the edges with the corners mitered Improvisation: Although the final size and thickness of a quilt is planned, the quilt top has few planned elements, if any Arrangement: The quilt is worked from the outer edge to the center, often using running stitches in concentric squares/rectangles spiraling into the center…

I love these collaged compositions but also thought they would make great backgrounds for a simple, large central motif. I have many photographs of birds and decided to print some onto Lutradur®, a spun-bonded polyester stabilizer with a translucent appearance that can be printed or painted on and trimmed to size. • Select an image to incorporate into the composition. Consider how the fabric might show through lightly colored areas. Use your own or copyright-free images. • Reverse the image with photoediting software to preserve directionality, if needed. Using an inkjet printer, print the image on Lutradur. Let the ink dry for 24 hours to avoid smudges. • Apply fusible web to the reverse side of the image with a dry iron. • Cut out the printed photo and place…

A thermal laminator is truly needed here—a conventional iron just doesn’t get hot enough. Here are some tips for sourcing and using this tool. • There is no need to buy an expensive thermal laminator. There are excellent choices on the market for less than $25. • If you belong to a guild or artist cooperative that shares tools, check to see if there is a thermal laminator available to borrow. • Thermal laminators may be safer to use than irons since the heat is inside the machine and the outside is cool to the touch. It also uses less energy than an iron. (In my experience, an iron did not produce satisfactory results.) • A laminator with a 9" wide opening is a good size for this project.…

thinking about dipping your toe into the business side of the quilt world means thinking about how you want to make money. Most art businesses start out with one product line or service, and add more as they grow. It is an important aspect of the business to think about how your revenue comes in, and how you plan to grow. A revenue stream is an avenue for money to flow into your business. Just like streams of water, they can trickle, they can be steady, and they can overflow. Unfortunately, they can also stop. Diversifying streams of income is an important aspect of your overall business plan. Hands-on creativity Kristin Rodriguez and her mother Jan Girod own Fiber on A Whim, a company that caters to art quilters and…

Sell Your Art: Selling your original (or reproduced) art directly has always been one of the top ways to make money. License Images: Pairing with another company or entity, you allow use your artwork in their products and collect a fee. Write Professionally: Articles, patterns, and books are possible avenues for income. Research publications that appeal to your customers and/or are aligned with your style of artwork. Teach: Becoming a teacher—either in person or online—helps others grow as artists while strengthening and diversifying your personal brand.…