Innholdsfortegnelse for October - November 2015 i Quilting Arts Magazine

“Back in New England” CATHERINE FLOWERS • TEWKSBURY, MASS. “This quilt is inspired by my love of New England autumns and my recent move back to Massachusetts from Texas. I was inspired by Jane Dávila’s ‘Stitch by Stitch: Blanket stitch’ article in the June/July 2015 issue.” In every issue, there’s a new Reader Challenge to get your creative juices flowing. Why not give it a try? Catherine Flowers did when she entered her quilt in our “Autumn Leaves” challenge announced in the April/May issue. Such inspiring work in one tiny quilt! “NO, I JUST CAN’T SEE IT.” THAT’S MY STOCK RESPONSE TO MY KIDS WHEN THEY PULL THE MAGIC EYE® ILLUSIONS BOOK FROM THE SHELF. No matter how hard I squint or move the page, the patterns they see (or…

abstract quilts can be designed in as many different ways as there are artists. Many of my designs are inspired by images. My preferred design tool—my hand-held or smart phone camera—is always at the ready to record images that interest me. I look for compositions that I can interpret abstractly so I tend to like close-up images of objects or landscapes. I know that if I start with an edited or close-up photo, I am already choosing shapes and color that interest me, as well as deleting information that interrupts the design flow. I take design elements from the photo, but go beyond the exact photo image to abstract the design. Then the work becomes my original work, rather than a photocopy done in cloth. DIRECTIONS Get started Slip a…

Think. What do you care about? You can think about it on your own or share ideas with a friend. Raise awareness by tuning in to the world— visuals, radio, books. All provide clues. Write. Engage by writing. Try free association. Write “What do I care about?” at the top of a page and get going. Stop when you run out of thoughts or set a timer and stop when it beeps. Review. What do you see? Prioritize. Your list may have 30 topics. Or four. No matter. The question to ask: “Where will I start?” Eventually, you may be able to work on several series at once. But most of us do better focusing on one idea at a time. Prioritize topics and choose the top three. Now choose…

“Like many art quilters, I was introduced to quilting after years of garment sewing and tailoring men’s clothing. When I decided that I wanted to make my first quilt in the 1990s, I went to my local fabric store. They said I could have a free Log Cabin class if, in return, I made a quilt top for them. I jumped at the opportunity and made a California king-size quilt. Having only one child, I only could make so many bed quilts, and quickly became bored of making blocks. In the beginning, blocks were in the background of my quilts. Then, to quote Michael James, I ‘yucked them up.’ To add interest, I appliquéd designs on top of the blocks and cut away the back. I had some success with…

Haven’t you been quilting long enough to start thinking about your own creative legacy? Submit your completed essay (up to 800 words) along with a low resolution image to submissions@quiltingarts.com with “the last word” in the subject line. MY LOVE OF ALL THINGS FABRIC STRETCHES BACK TO CHILDHOOD. There was an old fashioned craft supply store with a creaky wooden floor in my town that sold all sorts of wondrous things— colorful pompoms, pipe cleaners, little felt hats, sequins, and beads. Across the street was a small fabric store. My friend and I would visit both places, and inevitably return home with a bag of materials we could assemble into little sewn and sculpted projects. Little did I know that this was a path to becoming a textile artist and…

FROM OUR READERS Reader Louise VanLandingham of St. Louis, Missouri, sent this clever idea for photographing a quilt. “My large finished quilt lay spread out on the floor, smooth and square. I was delighted, but there was one last step: To photograph it. Many times I’ve perched on top of a ladder with camera in hand. Leaning, stretching, reaching out toward the center of the quilt … a frustrating venture full of blurry and off -center photos not to mention potential danger! The last time I struggled with this, I heard a soft voice from the doorway—‘Mom, would a selfie stick be helpful?’ I snapped it on the camera, extended it out over the quilt, positioned the lens parallel to the floor, held steady … click. Done! The image of…

Since I started ice dyeing in 2011, I’ve really enjoyed the unexpected results from this simple, but powerful technique. As I continue on my surface design journey, however, I find I want more layers and complexity in my fabric. One of my favorite ways to add interest to fabric is to use resists. Resists block areas on the fabric from absorbing dye, creating a layer of pattern in the original color of the fabric. For this icedyed fabric, I’ve pulled out two of my favorite resists—soy wax and Lumi Cleanline. DIRECTIONS Prepare the fabric Normally when dyeing with ice, you start with wet fabric. However, because both soy wax and Cleanline resists are water soluble, the fabric needs to be dry. 1. Prewash the fabric in hot water with Synthrapol…

French knots are like stitched punctuation. Whether you use one knot or a legion of them in a piece of fiber art, the eye is drawn to the French knot. It rises above the surface, lending depth, tempting the viewer to feel the surface, and adding dimension in a way that few other stitches can so easily accomplish. French knots are simple to master and offer nearly endless possibilities for adding texture to your work. I invited three fiber artists to share how they use French knots in their own work. Each of the three uses the knots in different ways—nowadays Lesley Riley most often uses them as fasteners, Sue Spargo adds them to her hand appliqué for color and emphasis, and Kirsten Chursinoff creates organic compositions with combinations of…

Spring is a time of opportunity. Gardens are waking up from winter naps, loved ones are graduating and transitioning into new stages of their lives, birds are leaving their nests, and there is new hope of warmer days to come. Everyone and everything seems to be wiping off the cobwebs, going somewhere, transforming. How are you reshaping things? What do you see in nature that exemplifies transition? What fresh opportunities do you see? How are you moving on? Our challenge is for you to create an art quilt based on “Going Places,” in whatever way that translates to you. Share your quilt with us and we’ll publish a sampling of readers’ artwork in the April/May 2016 issue. Here’s how to enter • Create an art quilt based on the theme…

Jamie Fingal is a contemporary quilt maker from Orange, California who makes whimsical art quilts for the wall. She is a fabric designer with Hoffman California Fabrics and she and artist Leslie Tucker Jenison are the curating team of Dinner at Eight Artists. She is a frequent guest on “Quilting Arts TV” and has created two Quilting Arts Workshop™ videos. jamiefingaldesigns.com Susan Purney Mark is a dyer, quilter, and textile artist living in British Columbia. She has spent many years learning, experimenting with, and teaching a variety of surface-design techniques. She focuses on dyeing, painting, screen printing, and soy wax resists. She is the author of six quilting books, she travels and teaches extensively, and has her own online teaching series. susanpm.com Cheryl Sleboda is an award-winning art quilter who…

in contemplating the subject of new technology, I am reminded of so many debates in the quilting world over the concept of “cheating” with new ideas that might change the way we looked at quilting. Remember when machine quilting was discounted by show judges? Or how we used to cut every piece of fabric with a pair of scissors? Personally, I would not call new technologies cheating, just different ways to approach a problem or accomplish a goal. These new technologies might be something that could make your life easier. I am all for changes and taking risks. Technology played a huge role in the making of this quilt, starting with the fabric, a commercially digitally printed design. All hexagons were cut using a die cutting machine and fused to…

how many of us have been to workshops and made small samples that then languished in our stashes? Perhaps the sample you made wasn’t quite what you wanted or expected. Maybe you understood the process but couldn’t see using the piece in your art. Or you tried an experiment in your studio and there’s one little part that smudged. It’s a shame to throw those little bits of art away but if you save them, they stack up in a pile and stare you in the face. As a surface design instructor, I make multiple samples when I demonstrate at workshops. In the past, they often went in the trash at the end of an event because I just couldn’t bear adding to the stack in my studio. But then…

micro machine quilting—using very small, tight stitching to hold the layers of a quilted piece together— is a great way to show off your craftsmanship while drawing attention to the main subject of an art quilt. In my beetle pieces, for example, the dense background stitching flattens out the area around the beetles and helps the insects pop forward with more dimension. The backgrounds of these pieces are very plain and the teeny, tiny quilting motifs add a lot of interest. Using a strongly colored thread or a variegated thread also helps create a more dynamic piece. Many of the quilting motifs you may already be using can be scaled down and re-created as micro stitching. The ones shown here I call square stipple, leaves, double clamshell, round stipple, pebbles,…

fabric foiling has been around for some time in many art quilters’ repertoires, including mine. Recently, it has been hard to find the foils in a variety of colors and patterns. Imagine my delight when finding this new product line with options for several quick-drying adhesives! Therm O Web’s iCraft adhesives and broad array of decorative foils fills a void for those of us who like to embellish with bling, and gives us a wide variety of options. As a busy quilter, I am always looking for techniques that are fast but high impact. Foiling with these products provides a quick-and-easy method to add shine to my art quilts. Add color and shine with foil Deco Foil transfer sheets are simply metallic color applied to the back of a thin…

every artist finds a source for their raw materials and supplies. Some art quilters prefer to work primarily in commercial prints, and others might hand dye or overdye their fabrics. However, if you work exclusively with commercial fabrics, you might find their range and scope limited to the trends of the day. I prefer the freedom to create my own fabric through paint and other surface embellishments. Making custom fabric allows me to extend my creativity, build meaning into the media, and tell my story better. These fabrics become the backgrounds of my art quilts. MATERIALS • PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric • Transparent or semitransparent fabric paints, 2–3 colors (I used Jacquard® Dye-na-Flow®.) • Opaque fabric paints, 2–3 colors (I used Jacquard Lumiere®.) • Foam brushes • Spray bottle…