Author Archive | Ellen Lindner

“Textile Trends” Part Two

By Ellen Lindner on August 28, 2022 in Uncategorized

The recent “Textile Trends” exhibit, in Melbourne, FL included some very interesting pieces. This “oddball” dress was made with staples. I think it’s wacky and wonderful!

"Textile Trends" in Melbourne, FL. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

It’s called A Woman Prerogative (signage spelling,) by Lydia Friedland. Just check out this detail shot!

"Textile Trends" in Melbourne, FL. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I loved the hand stitching on this small piece.
It’s called Wabi Sabi Red, by Grace Cormier.

"Textile Trends" in Melbourne, FL. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Here’s another small piece, with intentionally rusted fabric. And, again, great hand stitching. It’s called Satin Ruins by Judith Schwab.

"Textile Trends" in Melbourne, FL. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

My off-kilter photography doesn’t quite do justice to this piece. It was made by Esta Rubin and is titled The Rising of the Dark.

"Textile Trends" in Melbourne, FL. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

And, finally, my own piece – in the corner – called Miscommunication.

"Textile Trends" in Melbourne, FL. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

There were some growing pains with this first-ever-textile-show for the gallery. But, I hope they’ll offer it again. There’s clearly plenty of great art to show off!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. See a better image of my quilt.

“Textile Trends,” in Melbourne, FL: Part One

By Ellen Lindner on August 25, 2022 in Uncategorized

“Textile Trends,” and exhibit in Melbourne, FL is winding down in the next few days. (The last day is the 27th.) It was the first time Fifth Avenue Art Gallery has had an all-textile call for art, and the resulting show was pretty impressive.

This large weaving was made by Lois Mittleman.

She found LOTS of interesting things to include! Measuring tape and bundles of yarn:

Electronic cables, and an Amazon Prime mailing bag:

Nearby was this fabulous piece by Gabriele DiTota, called Bothered.

The palm is done with cyanotype. Made during the pandemic, she used a serendipitous dyeing technique for the background fabrics and included words like “Fear” and “worry,” reflecting her mindset at the time.

I also liked Moondance, by Doris Hulse.

And here’s a great mixed-media piece from Jo-Ann Jensen.

More images coming soon.

Ellen Lindner

Making Progress in Red

By Ellen Lindner on August 15, 2022 in Uncategorized

After trying several temporary background colors, I decided to make one side white and one side red.

I started with a new temporary background. The purpose of this is so I don’t have to compose against my pure white design wall. It helps me visualize.

This was first stab at a new composition. I could see that I’d be able to create lots of energy, thanks to the sharp angles and high value contrasts.

But again, it seemed like the green squares against the white were, once again, taking over.

I removed them and liked them better. (Note: most of the green shapes are just folded and pinned in place. This works well for auditioning ideas. I’ll delay cutting fabrics until I’m convinced about what needs to happen.)

I removed all the squares. That helped immensely in the top half, but I thought the bottom portion looked a little naked.

I added some squares against the red and I liked the effect.

Art quiz: why did I previously decide to remove green squares from a red background, but here I’ve just added them back? Answer in P.S.

Next it was time for actual construction. It was time to remove those temporary background fabrics and switch in the ones that I’d need. In this photo I had just finished the first few red seams in the lower section.

I’ll need to go slowly, select the right fabrics, and figure out how to “tetris” this whole thing together. I imagine it will be a little challenging, but I think it will be fun too!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Answer to art quiz: It goes back to the fact that contrasts in value always attract attention. In my last post I showed you how the green squares were taking over against the red. That’s because of the value contrast between them. But, in this post I added those greens squares right back to the red bottom. That’s because everything affects everything else. When I change the background to white I created VERY strong value contrasts between the sharp red shapes and the white background. Therefore, they attract attention. The contrast between red and green is now secondary and not as noticeable. Remember, when you make one change you often need to make another.

Tackling That Red Fabric

By Ellen Lindner on August 7, 2022 in Uncategorized

I was excited to work with the red and blue-green fabric I had recently died. I pulled out all my other dyed fabrics in those colors and began to explore my options.

This was the starting fabric.

As you can see above, it was missing a chunk on the bottom right corner. So I evened that up, giving me a nice horizontal slice from the bottom. I intermediately looked to see where I might use it. What if I joined it back into the larger fabric at an angle? I auditioned the idea, below, and liked it. (Can you see how the red areas taper together?)

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After a few more manipulations I was ready to see what happened on the design wall. Since I didn’t want to compose against a white background I put up a temporary red background and marked the proposed perimeter with tape. (The dimensions were determined by the width of my design wall, 4′, and the height of the primary fabric, about 42″.)

First “throw” at the design wall:

Then, with a little more intent:

I was liking the energy, but I thought the red was actually disappearing. To confirm my suspicions I looked at the composition in grey scale.

Yep. The blue-green squares were taking over.

So, what if I made part of the background white? I changed the temporary background in order to try out the idea.

Ah, yes. Now THAT had potential!

It was time to lose the temporary background and to start fresh with this new idea. I was excited to move forward!

Ellen Lindner

Dyeing On a Larger Scale

By Ellen Lindner on August 2, 2022 in Uncategorized

Lately, I’ve been trying to dye fabrics to a larger scale. I feel like I succeeded with the one on the right. I screened red on through some construction fencing, and then added some blue-green squares. It should be very usable.

I like the large red circles on the left one, but the design reads a little Christmasy. It will probably need further attention.

I’m drooling over the orange and blue “twiggy” fabric, below left. It will take a good bit of thought, I imagine, to figure out what to do with it while till maintaining the “twigginess.” The pink and white fabric below was made as a “ghost print” from some red screening. I think it will work with some of these, too.

I also did some deconstructed screen printing. With it you let dye dry onto a screen and then later screen a color or clear paste through it. The original dried dye initially acts as a resist and later breaks down, adding its own color to the mix. With this one, I drew on horizontal and vertical lines using all my warm dyes: yellow, orange, red, and fuchsia, and let it dry (over 2 days!) I screened clear paste through, which eventually took on t he other colors and finished to a nice peach.This is detail shot.

I don’t normally work with pastels so I’ll have to dye a few more to go with this one. I’ve got lots of fun stuff to think about!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Each of these fabrics is about 43″ on the longest side.

Composing with an Eye Toward Value

By Ellen Lindner on July 26, 2022 in Uncategorized

These were the fabrics I selected as I started on an abstract quilt with NO plan.

Although I didn’t have a plan, I did have a goal. I wanted to use the last of my favorite fabric, the navy and yellow grid, and to let it be the star of the show.

BTW, can you see how the scale of that one print greatly affects the scale of the overall piece? I wouldn’t want to cut it into tiny pieces, for instance.

I had two lengths of the favorite fabric and I wanted to cut it as little as possible. I cut one piece into about a 1/3 – 2/3 split, so I had 3 pieces.. Since this fabric has the highest value contrast (light vs. dark) of all the other fabrics, I knew it would attract a lot of attention. Which was good.

Therefore, I moved everything else out of the way and created the first part of the composition with just these 3 pieces of fabric.

Because this fabric had a diagonal aspect to its design, it created a lot of energy. Plus, as you can see, I made sure to offset the pieces. I really liked this starting point! I knew I’d have to pay attention to the value contrasts that developed throughout the rest of the design, making sure that none of them drew attention away from it.

In the photo above you can probably tell that the left fabric is folded under at the bottom. I cut that off and added it to my starting composition, (see below.) I wanted to break up the large expanse of grid on the left piece and inserted a skinny orange strip (shown in the next photo.) I liked it a lot.

I let the fabric lead my next few decisions: adding more yellow and orange in their respective areas.

As you can see in the photo above, I didn’t have large pieces of orange, so I knew I’d have to piece those together. I thought I’d probably repeat the orange in the lower right, as well. Adding navy would be tricky. It would automatically create a very high value contrast, attracting attention. I’d have to consider it very carefully.

And what about that white in the top center of the photo above? Although I liked the fabric in the mix, it was right next to the navy grid, creating exactly the problem I was hoping to avoid. I did add some navy just right of center and I thought it worked there.

Next round. Navy top left: too strong!
Navy at the bottom: maybe.
White at the bottom right: maybe

Next round. Replaced top left navy with yellow-orange: MUCH better! (Low contrast, right?)
More navy at the bottom: probably. The navy is visually weighty which gives the piece some stability.

This hodge podge of scraps pinned to the design wall evolved only slightly as I began to figure out how to piece all of this. See the finished quilt in my next post.

Do you think about value this much? I find it very helpful, although sometimes I get seduced by a color or some such and forget to pay attention to the contrast.

Ellen Lindner

Working with Dwindling Fabrics

By Ellen Lindner on July 22, 2022 in Uncategorized

I was running low on a favorite hand dyed fabric when I decided to make a quilt with it. It’s the navy and yellow grid shown below, indicated by the largest arrow.

I pulled every other hand dyed fabric that would go with it and this is the selection, shown above. Smaller arrows indicated two more fabrics that were down to fairly small pieces. I was loving the energy of these bright fabrics and excited to get started.

I pinned everything up on the design wall and began to edit. Now you get a better idea about the sizes of the pieces. Some of the fabrics had too much pattern and would draw attention away from my feature fabric.

Some fabrics removed, I continued to study the combination. Still some competing fabrics.

After deleting the “show stoppers” I thought this combination would be workable.

I’d still need to edit and carefully consider as I proceeded. What about that near-solid navy? Will it be too strong? And the brighter blue grid on the left: too bright?

This was my starting point. These fabrics went on my work table, and all the others were moved out of sight. I didn’t have a design plan. My only plan was to feature that navy/yellow gridded fabric. All my decisions would be in support of it. I knew this would be challenging, but also invigorating.

In my next post, I’ll show you how I began to compose the design. It was fun!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Do you ever work without a plan?

“Toast and Jam”

By Ellen Lindner on July 20, 2022 in Uncategorized

Remember that ugly exercise that I’ve been considering? This is the portion of my ugly painted which I selected as my inspiration for a small quilt.

I played around with the individual elements in the computer and, at one point, accidentally colored the background red. Which I liked!

So, I started pulling fabrics and got to work. Actually, I got to work in a hotel room. This was my set up. Construction on the coffee table and Netflix on my laptop. With the iron at the perfect height, of course.

Once home, I stitched the background and fused up a bunch of fabrics for the background squares. (I fuse very seldom.)

I noticed that some of my lovely squares were attracting a lot of attention. I knew that wouldn’t work in the end, so I had to swap them out.

Eventually, I was happy with the background and started with the part I DID want to attract attention: the wonky open squares. This is a detail shot.

I added a little hand stitching, but that was difficult through the fused fabrics.

Here’s the full quilt, Toast and Jam, 24″ x 24″.

This was fun to work on, but I think I’m ready for something other than red!

This piece is available for $195 US. Contact me if you’re interested.

Ellen Lindner

Taking Chances, Learning New Things

By Ellen Lindner on July 1, 2022 in Uncategorized

I love to teach about art quilting and I consider my niche market to be traditional quilters who want some guidance as they move into art quilting. When I mentioned this on The Quilt Show, Alex Anderson was intrigued and we talked more about it on an episode of her podcast.

Video link. (A thirty minute video with me at about 6:30)

And since then, I’ve continued to think about it.

First, why learn new things?
– Humans are designed to learn. We enjoy learning. It’s exhilirating!
– New skills are useful, of course. But, the very act of learning enhances our creativity. We benefit from this activity even if we never actively use the new information!

(What I learned from this ugly painting)

But, what about wasting fabric, time, and money?
– It’s not a waste. You bought that fabric to enhance your quilting journey. If it ends up teaching you something, but it doesn’t end up in a masterpiece, it was still useful to you! Just in a different way than you may have imagined.
– And the same goes for your time. You’re not taking time away from making “good” quilts, just because you spend time learning something new. In fact, you will gain skill, efficiency, and confidence due to that investment of time.
– And the money? Of course, you want to invest your quilting dollars wisely. Thankfully, there are many good and inexpensive classes available online and elsewhere. (#See resources)

Individual Retreat Projects. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

My scraps at a retreat. You gotta make scraps to make a quilt! It’s not wasteful.

How do I select an appropriate class? And a skilled teacher? (#See resources)
– What is it you want to learn? Look for a teacher who’s routinely doing that.
– Ask your friends for suggestions on that topic and do some online searching. Read everything about the class, including the supply list, and the suggested skill level, if mentioned. Look for a gallery of student results.
– Email the teacher if you have any questions!
– Look for a teacher with expertise. (And if learning via Zoom, check on the teacher’s experience with this, as well.) Has she been on a prominant quilting show? These shows do their homework and will likely choose the best teachers. Is his schedule pretty full, so you know he’s in demand? Can you find the teacher on one of the group teaching sites? (#See resources?)
– What can you learn from the teacher’s website? Are there student testimonials or student galleries? Are there social media posts about teaching?
– Again, email the teacher if you have any questions.

I love Pat Pauly’s work, so jumped at the chance to take a 5 day class with her. This was my favorite fabric from the class, still wet.

Finally, EMBRACE this new experience!
– Do all the class prep required. But, don’t save it all till the last minute. Consider adding extra fabric.
– Go to class with an open mind. Remind yourself that the experience is worthwhile, not just the project you make.
– Trust the teacher. Follow her directions, even if you usually do things differently.
– Recognize that you’ll feel a little out of your comfort zone. That’s always true when learning isn’t it? It’s normal.
– Chances are good that you’ll be really happy with your class project. But if not, you’ll know that it taught you something, nevertheless. My favorite quote relates to this: “If you never fail you’re not experimenting enough.”

A recent “failure.” I didn’t waste my time or fabric. They both helped me answer my question.

I LOVE to learn! (And to teach.) I hope you’ll take an exhilirating class and enjoy it immensely. And if you do, I’d love to hear about it.

Resources:
Global Quilt Connection: This directory is geared toward guilds, but you’ll find LOTS of capable teachers, all with listings of their offerings.
Craftsy on-demand quilt classes
My own on-demand classes

Enjoy your learning adventure!
Ellen Lindner
P.S. See me on The Quilt Show, episode 3007. (You have to be a member, but there’s a free 7 day trial)
P.P.S. If you can afford a multi-day class I highly recommend it. Check out Quilt Surface Design Symposium (OH,) Quilting by the Lake (NY,) and Empty Spools Seminars (CA.)

Turning Leftovers Into a Meal

By Ellen Lindner on July 1, 2022 in Uncategorized

After making Potager Garden, I had quite a few scraps left over, so I decided to use them to make a small quilt. This is what I had to work with.

I began to move them around to see how they might fit together. I didn’t like this first version, though. I thought it needed more yellow, if I could find some in my stash.

Plus, the colors in the first version (above) were pretty evenly scattered about. That works for wallpaper, but not always for art. I remembered what I had recently learned about massing a color and switched things to this.