Author Archive | Ellen Lindner

Round Two

After a disappointing attempt at making a quilt featuring my large-scaled hand dyed fabrics, I dramatically down sized and tried again.

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

This time I switched the color proportions, using turquoise as my primary color and fuchsia as the accent. I still found it hard to incorporate the leaf fabric. Maybe because it had a lighter background? As you can see, I quickly over worked it.

Round Two. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Have you heard the saying, “If something’s not working out (visually) remove your favorite thing?” Yeah. I slowly considered that I might need to remove the fuchsia leaf fabric and eventually did so, (reluctantly.) And, of course, things got much easier after that.

The background progressed well and I was very happy with it. It even showed off my fabrics, right?

Round Two. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

On to a focal point. And I had the perfect specialty fabric for it.

Round Two. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

But one strip of perfect fabric clearly couldn’t carry the whole piece. I knew I’d have to cut it into pieces to add some energy and to improve the composition.

Round Two. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

BTW, I’m calling this “The robbing Peter to Pay Paul photo.” It shows what’s left of the original composition on the left design wall, as I reworked it on the right, using many of the previously cut fabrics.

Round Two. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

OK, so I needed to mix things up a little. I decided to expand the color palette and to add additional smallish pieces. A quick audition confirmed this as the correct direction. Didn’t it gain a lot of energy from that?

Round Two. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I committed to cutting smaller shapes and I was really liking where this was going.

Round Two. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I was getting close. After finalizing the arrangement, I took lots of photos of the accent pieces and lifted them all off. Then I quilted the background with straight lines. At one point I put the background back on the design wall, but accidentally got it upside down (below.) I decided I liked that better.

Here’s the final arrangement pinned, and ready for gluing, then stitching/quilting.

Round Two. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I’ve had quite a time thinking of a name. Any suggestions? I’m leaning toward Underwater Dance, Shallow Water Dance, or just Water Dance. Do you think any of those work?

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Don’t you love my new lights on my design walls? I LOVE them!!! (See more of my recent studio revamp on my video page.)

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A Fabric-Inspired Quilt

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a specialty fabric or two can be the primary inspiration for an entire quilt. And that’s what I wanted to try.

This is sort of what I had in mind. I had intentionally dyed some large scale fabrics in order to try my hand at this. Plus, I had a few from earlier dye sessions. I thought I could do something with these, keeping the large scale pieces more or less intact, so their designs would still show.

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I put my muslin support fabric up on my design wall (nearly 4′ x 5′) and started auditioning fabrics. I almost immediately removed the large circles from the mix since I thought the colors looked a little muddy.

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Hmm. I could see that the light blue fabric with fuchsia leaves was standing out A LOT. What to do? (Note that all fabrics are just folded and pinned in place at this point.)

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I made the highlight fabric smaller. And, of course, added the circles back. (Can you say “trial and error?)

I was loving the colors, but the composition was definitely lacking. I thought it needed some variety of scale, so I made some small units with scraps. (These are just glued to one another.)

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Well, they look pretty exciting don’t they? But, how to best use them?

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Those little pieces definitely added energy, but everything was looking pretty messy at this point. I decided I needed to commit to CUTTING fabrics, so I could see it all better.

Which is when I realized I had gotten way off track.

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I was loving the colors, but I was having a terrible time using those large scale prints. Finally, I decided that my fabrics just weren’t large enough for this size quilt.

So, I started again, at about one quarter the original size.

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I could immediately see that this was much more viable. On to round two.

BTW, I don’t fret when I have to rework something. Each “detour,” as I call them, has value. I learn from them. Typically, I’m excited to use that new knowledge as I plow ahead into the next thing.

How do you react to restarts?

Ellen Lindner

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Dying Specialty Patterns

Dying specialty fabrics is a lot of fun. Having said that, I don’t think I’m that good at it. And I DEFINITELY am challenged when it comes to using them.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

During my recent dye session I tried to create some specialty fabrics that could either be used together or that could be used as “anchor” fabrics for a quilt.

Like these two.

Dying Specialty Patterns. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I was hoping to use them together. These are each 45″ high, so you can see that the scale is pretty large. I was excited about trying them.

I thought this one could be a good anchor fabric. The motifs are smaller, so it will work more like yardage – but not entirely.

Dying Specialty Patterns. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I sorta love this blue/green one, below, on the left. It has the feel of yardage, but the large scale “spades” make it less so.

The one on the right looked better when it was wet. The yellow/gold background was much darker and richer. Maybe it will need some over dying down the road.

Dying Specialty Patterns. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

This fabric was made with something new to me: a mask. A mask is similar to a stencil, but the pattern doesn’t extend all the way to what would be the corners of a printing screen. Which means I didn’t want to screen print with it, because I’d get bit rectangles of color, with the delicate design masked out. Instead, I applied the dye loosely with the sponge. This allowed me to merge one color into another.

Dying Specialty Patterns. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

As you can see, I wasn’t careful about preserving the masked designs. Instead, I sponged over some of them with a later color. This gave interesting results. See what I mean in the detail shot below.

Dying Specialty Patterns. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I was delighted with the results and will definitely play around with masks some more.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Do you have tips on working with masks? I’d love to hear them.

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Artists Reception: You’re Invited

My piece, Diversity, was juried into a regional SAQA exhibit called Imagination: 1 x 4. As you might guess, all the pieces are 1 foot wide and 4 feet tall.

"Diversity", an art quilt by Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

There’s a virtual artists’ reception on January 9th, at 2 PM, and you’re invited. You’ll get to see the art and the juror will be speaking so I think it will be interesting,

The reception is free, but you do have to register, however. Click here to do so.

Hope to see you there!
Ellen Lindner

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The Basics: Dying Yardage

In my mind there are two basic types of dyed fabrics: those that can be used for yardage, and those that have specialized patterns. These are a few of my yardage pieces. They fall into this category because I could cut pieces out of them in a variety of places and still get pretty similar designs.

This navy grid is an over dye. The original stripey blue was too dull for my liking, so I added navy on top.

Dying Yardage. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

The navy, green, and rust below are also over dyes.

Dying Yardage. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog
This yellow fabric was a commercial fabric that I tried a lavender rubbing on. It DID NOT look good, but it mostly faded when I washed it. This time, I tried it with an orangey-red. I think it works and that it will be useful.

Dying Yardage. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

The navy print, above, was stenciled and the background orange was added last. I would have liked it to be a little brighter, so this one might get an over dye down the road.

I work with thickened dyes. The thickness allows me to stencil and paint with them, knowing they’ll stay where I put them, without bleeding. But, I like that bleeding effect, too, so I did an experiment to see if I could get thickened dyes to bleed effectively. I sprayed the fabric and dye painted the two sides in blue and yellow.

Ellen Lindner's fabric dying. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Then I scrunched the fabric up and left it that way to dry. I could immediately see that the two colors were, indeed, blending.

Ellen Lindner's fabric dying. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

These are the final results. It definitely shows promise. I’ll have to play with it some more.

Dying Yardage. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

As you can see, this is just a tiny swatch, but I included it in this post, since I think it will be a yardage technique in the future.

Some of these yardage fabrics aren’t that exciting, but I usually find them to be quite useful.

Ellen Lindner

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All Those Swatches!

I stopped counting when I got to 250. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY unique color swatches! More than, actually. These are the swatches showing what each of 7 different basic colors looks like when mixed with the remaining color, Turquoise.

All Those Swatches! AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Each color combination has been mixed in 3 different proportions, and 3 different strengths. Here’s Lemon Yellow. The black I’m using has a blue cast to it. Can you see how greenish they look? (Just right of the 9 yellow squares.) A good thing to know.

All Those Swatches! AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Intense Blue:All Those Swatches! AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Golden Yellow:All Those Swatches! AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Fuchsia:All Those Swatches! AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Black:  Some  of  these  are  lovely,  aren’t  they?All Those Swatches! AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Basic Red:All Those Swatches! AdventureQuilter.com/blog

There was also a combo made with Basic Brown, but I forgot to photograph it.

Can you see how useful these will be? I’m going to sort them by color and glue them to card stock, with notes about the color combination and proportion. Oh, I’ll be so organized!

Of course, I also dyed some yardage. I’ll show you that soon.

Ellen Lindner

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Win a FREE Online Class!

You can win a free class, taught by me, at the upcoming Road@Home virtual quilt show!

Ellen Lindner teaching at Road@Home. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

But, you have to act quickly. The deadline to enter is January 3rd.

All you have to do is
1 – Like Road@Home Facebook page,
2 – Send me an email indicating which of my 3 classes you’d like to take. Just put the name of the desired class in the subject line, along with “Road@Home.”

See the class links below.

Floral Improv

Class sample for Ellen Lindner's "Floral Improv." AdventureQuilter.com

Double Reverse Applique

Double Reverse Applique class sample. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com

Love It and Leaf It

Love It and Leaf It, class sample. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com

Yes, you can enter for all 3 classes, but you’ll need to send me 3 different emails, each one indicating a different class. You can enter each class contest once, only.

Good luck!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Click the links below to see student work from these classes.

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“She Has a Great Personality” Complete

I finally got around to properly photographing my latest quilt, She Has a Great Personality. It’s meant to be a self-portrait in the style of a favorite artist. In this case, that artist is abstract painter Jane Davies.

"She Has a Great Personality" Complete. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I thought working abstractly would be difficult, but it wasn’t too bad. I had more trouble deciding on some of the details.

I added hand stitching in several areas to help tie it all together.

"She Has a Great Personality" Complete. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I’m very happy with it, and I think it represents me pretty well.

Ellen Lindner

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January Online Classes for YOU

Can you imagine life one month from now? After the fun (and stress) of Christmas. After the celebration of a New Year. In the midst of winter weather and a return to normalcy?

Doesn’t an online class sound about right? If so, you’re in luck. Road@Home (aka Road to California, virtual version,) will be January 20-23. I’ll be teaching three classes and there are many others to choose from, as well. See my offerings below.

Want to make a great quilt like this class sample? (Floral Improv)

Class sample for Ellen Lindner's "Floral Improv." AdventureQuilter.com

Or this one? (Double Reverse Applique)

Double Reverse Applique class sample. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com

Or this one? (Love It and Leaf It)

Love It and Leaf It, class sample. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com

I’ve been teaching these classes virtually since August and they work out really well. My students have enjoyed them and we’ve had NO technical glitches.

I think late January will be the perfect time for a change of pace! Click on each class title above to find full information.

Ellen Lindner

 

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A New Dying Process

I’ve recently changed my dying process and I’m really liking it! The impetus was the book, Colour Your Palette, by Leah Higgins.

Colour Your Palette by Leah Higgins

She mixes her print paste thinner than I’ve been doing and is, therefore, able to dispense her dyes from squirt bottles. I decided to give it a try, and boy do I like it!

At this new consistency, the dye flows out of these bottles beautifully. It’s VERY easy to control the dye and even to write and draw. Love it!

Another change is the addition of a glass mixing plate.

Ellen Lindner's fabric dying. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

The mixing plate has a couple of advantages over my previous method of mixing directly on the plastic. 1 – I can make notes on a piece of paper underneath, which keep me organized when I’m mixing very specific colors. 2 – I can easily pick it up for cleaning and scrape excess dye into my trash can.

In the book, Leah Higgins walks you through six very extensive exercises which help you to learn all about mixing colors. The first one was to simply print each of your basic (8) colors in a variety of strengths.

Ellen Lindner's fabric dying. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

That, by itself was really useful. But, Leah takes it one BRILLIANT step further. She has you make two identical samples. You wash one and leave the other one to dry and remain unprocessed. This will serve as an example of how different things look wet and dry. VERY useful!

See what I mean, below. The top colors, in the plastic bag, are completely untreated. The ones below are washed and dried. Look for the two swatches with the yellow pins in them. These are both Golden Yellow, full strength. But, notice how much the color hue and saturation changed when washed!

Ellen Lindner's fabric dying. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

And here are the other 4 colors. Again, notice the two swatches with pins in them. They’re both turquoise, at half strength.

Ellen Lindner's fabric dying. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I’ve done many more swatches following Leah’s instructions. And I’ve had fun dying a variety of fabrics. More about that coming soon.

If you want to know how to mix your print paste to this same consistency, all you have to do is follow the instructions that come on the package of thickener. (I used the SH print paste mix from Pro Chemical and Dye.)

Ellen Lindner

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