Archive | May, 2022

“Prayer” Flags for Ukraine

By Ellen Lindner on May 26, 2022 in Uncategorized

Are you familiar with prayer flags? They’re Tibetan in origin and are generally strung in groups of five. The idea is that prayers and good thoughts go into the flags as the maker creates them, and then, as the flags disintegrate in the weather, those prayers and good thoughts spread into the world. Fiber artists like to use them in support of a particular cause, or just to decorate a space.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Dirty Dozen Art Quilters, (my local group,) decided to show support for Ukraine by creating an installation with such flags. At first, we wanted to be renegade and install them in a public park, without asking for permission. But, when a nearby business owner heard about our idea she invited us to display them in her store window, instead. How nice!

These are my flags.

Each one is made from rip-stock nylon, so I didn’t even have to finish the edges.

This photo shows the installation going up.

As one of our taller members, Gabriele was tasked with most of the hanging. Joan helped her and the rest of us gave them LOTS of direction. 🙂

(You can tell from the reflections that it was a beautiful sunny day.)

Here’s the whole gang (except for one member who lives in another state.)

If you’re in the Eau Gallie section of Melbourne, please check out our installation at Art Expressions. A big thank you to Jodi for inviting us to showcase our concerns and art in this way.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Check out another post about local art flags.

“Potager Garden” Finished

By Ellen Lindner on May 25, 2022 in Uncategorized

Woohoo! I’ve finally had time to sew and I finished my quilt, Potager Garden.

Potager Garden

Potager is a French word which means “for the soup pot.” Potager gardens are small kitchen garden which grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers. They were invented by monks in medieval times, who often laid out their raised beds in the shape of a cross. These led to the huge opulent gardens later seen in places like Versaille.

This quilt is made almost entirely from my own hand dyed/printed fabric, which made it extra fun.

I added a little contrasting stitching for interest.

Potager Garden - detail, an art quilt by Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com

You can see a larger image of this quilt here.

The Fabric Dictates the Design

By Ellen Lindner on May 8, 2022 in Uncategorized

Since I’m still fairly new to dyeing my own fabric, my stash is limited. As are the sizes of the pieces. Typically, when I work with these fabrics, I find their sizes and shapes often dictate a good part of the design.

See what I mean below. The height of the gold grid, the red vertical pieces, and the gold piece on the left have determined the sizes that go into the design.

The green fabric in the lower left isn’t as wide as I’d like and several gold fabrics will be needed to complete the gold shape I have in mind near bottom center.

Here’s a better look at that green fabric. At this point I had cut it and joined the pieces to make it wider.

Early on I thought some diagonal brown stripes and some orange-red circles might play into the design. I auditioned them and took photos. Then, I lifted them to work on the underlying parts.

What do you think of the brown diagonals? Probably too much, right? That’s what I was thinking after seeing them, so I knew I’d do some careful considering as things progressed.

What about the vertical red fabrics? I thought this collection looked promising. A couple of these are commercial fabrics. Also, some were too short, so I had to piece them longer.

Below, I’ve pieced the red vertical lines and I like them a lot. As you can see, I also inserted a skinny yellow line. Love that!

I didn’t have enough yellow-orange to fill the space on the left, so I had to dig into my commercial fabrics. As you can see, I’ve pieced them together with undulating lines.

I love working this way, making decisions as I go. It’s exhilarating! And it’s probably good to have limited choices. I find working abstractly to be very challenging (and therefore very fun.) Having fewer choices makes it easier.

Ellen Lindner

Color Inspiration

By Ellen Lindner on May 5, 2022 in Uncategorized

Slowly, over the course of a couple of months, I began to notice the same group of colors.

First, was a Croton plant.

What pretty oranges and greens!

Then, I noticed the mess on my table, which had the same colors.

I decided to work with green, yellow-green, and orange. I pulled out all the hand dyes I had in those colors and noticed that one dark green fabric had yellow circles. What about adding yellow-orange?