Author Archive | Ellen Lindner

Following the Fabric

By Ellen Lindner on August 3, 2024 in Uncategorized

I’ve been working on a new quilt, using fabrics I dye-printed during my last dying session. As you can see, I made them to go together.

To get started, I pulled these out, along with every fabric I thought MIGHT go with them. As usual, this stage was a rather ugly mess. (I was toying with the idea of using some pure red bits along with the pink.)

That seemed like overkill. I removed some busy high-contrast fabrics, most of the red, and tried out a little blue-green.

Much better. I was ready to move ahead.

There was a fabric combo in this collection that was really exciting me: the pink and black polka dots and the yellow-green print top left, with the little twiggy shapes. I liked the way the sharp little twigs contrasted with the round dots. Unfortunately, the photo above shows ALL the twiggy fabric that I had. I knew I would have to use it very purposefully and that it’s limited size would also dictate the overall size of the quilt.

Here’s the entire piece of twiggy fabric plus what I thought was an appropriate amount of the polka-dot. I quickly committed to the central composition and stitched two primary seams. Everything else is shown in audition stage and is only folded and pinned.

I really liked the vertical strip of black and yellow-green stripe just right of center (above.) I made it by carefully cutting a strip from the fabric with the large yellow-green rectangles. I was very happy with that result

Below, I added more fabric on the right. The black spacer between the stripe and the dots was needed as a calming note.

I wasn’t sure about the large rectangles on the left, shown above. They seemed to be sorta taking over. I removed them and concentrated on the right side for a bit. This corner combination seemed about right.

The left side was definitely going to need some attention. At this point it needed some weight (black) and some pink.

In the next post I’ll show you my progress.

Ellen Lindner

“Mr. and Mrs.” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on July 17, 2024 in Uncategorized

My quilt, Mr. and Mrs., is finally complete.

Mr. and Mrs.

Here’s a detail shot.

Mr. and Mrs. - detail, an art quilt by Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com

This quilt is about my parents. There were married 66 years. My dad was a hard-working farmer and my mom did the book work and cared for four children. Although not prone to romantic gestures, they were devoted to one another. Their complementary roles resulted in a thriving family and a prosperous business.

I printed all the fabric (with thickened dye.) I pieced the background like a complex Tetris game. That took a LONG time, but I’m very happy with it. And with the whole quilt.

Mr. and Mrs., an art quilt by Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

This quilt is available for purchase. I think it would look really great in someone’s home!
43.5”h x 42”w, $1900

Ellen Lindner

An Exhibit by Jill Kerttula

By Ellen Lindner on July 10, 2024 in Uncategorized

Maybe you’re familiar with the fiber art of Jill Kerttula. She’s known for her realistic scenes and rich textural techniques. I recently got to meet up with her to see her exhibit in Charlottesville, VA.

We were greeted by this fabulous piece, Crowd of Strangers. And that’s Jill standing with it.
Jill Kerttula exhibit. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Most of the pavement in the piece above is actually woven to create texture. The whole piece really deserved study.

As you can tell, Jill is a people watcher. She showed us her sketchbook that she carries with her at all times. She uses it to sketch people in everyday situations, such as riding a bus or waiting in line.

Jill Kerttula exhibit. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Jill is also an extremely talented photographer with a keen eye for composition. She often photographs everyday events and uses them as inspiration for fiber art or paintings. For this exhibit, it was mostly the latter. I just love these!

Ciggy Break

Summer Reading

Dance Lessons

Fresh Daily

Aren’t they great? They’re very much in the “slice of life” genre and I really enjoyed seeing them.

Jill’s exhibit has now closed, but you can see all the pieces on her website. I encourage you to take a look.

Thanks for the tour, Jill!

Ellen Lindner

Restoring an Old Home

By Ellen Lindner on July 5, 2024 in Uncategorized

My brother has recently undertaken quite a project. He’s fixing up an old home that’s on a farm he purchased. Here it is, Mountain Glen.

We don’t know the age. We think mid-late 1800s.

It’s located in the middle of pastures and fields, with lovely views. This is the view from the front porch.

And the back. (There are cows in the pasture shown, although they’re out of view in this photo.)

There’s an aviary near the parking area. This would have been used for homing pigeons. I love the shape of it.

The foyer/hall in this house is one of the biggest I’ve ever seen. It rivals fine historic homes like Monticello and Mt. Vernon, (homes of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, respectively.) This is the view from the front door.

And this shot was taken about half way back, looking toward the front. It’s HUGE!

It also has some pretty stairs that curve at the bottom.

As you might expect, it has rather grand rooms on each side of the hall. This is a composite shot of the “grey room.” Every room has a fireplace and the front rooms have windows that come all the way down to the floor, like those seen on the right.

This is the outside view.

My brother has quite a job before him! The home was lived in until around the 70s, so it has electricity, plumbing, etc., but he has to add air conditioning, update the bathrooms, and make MANY cosmetic changes. The plan is to use it for a vacation rental home. I think it will be awesome!

Ellen Lindner

Dirty Dozen Exhibit in Cape Canaveral, FL

By Ellen Lindner on June 29, 2024 in Uncategorized

Y’all, I am SO fortunate to be part of the Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists. This group of women is not only artistically talented, but great friends! What a blessing to each of us.

Here’s most of the gang viewing our current exhibit. Can you tell we’re having fun?

Dirty Dozen art at The Cape Center. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

L-R: Linda Geiger, Ruth Anne Parker, Gabrielle DiTota, Perlie Petrillo, Sandy Shenker, Ellen Lindner, Kathryn Robinson, Dij Pacarro, and Anne Kobus. Not shown: Jill Brown, Andrea Luliak, and Becky Stack

Our group is mostly about making art, but we also like to occasionally display our work. Right now, we have 19 pieces in an exhibit called Fiber Arts: An Ancient Local Tradition. The oldest textiles in the world have been found at an archaeological site in our county so this exhibit was curated to honor that. It’s on display at The Cape Center, in Cape Canaveral, FL. It’s a very nice venue, with most of the artwork well lit. Visiting is free and it will be up through October.

Here are just a few of the wonderful pieces on display.

Gabriele DiTota’s huge banana leaf is the largest piece in the exhibit. To make it she printed an actual banana leaf with cyanotype. The title is No Bananas Today. It was made during the pandemic, when many things were out of stock at the grocery store. She has text on the piece listing several other things that were also hard to find.

Gabriele DiTota with her piece, “No Bananas Today.”

The Cape Center was specifically looking for pieces with a local or environmental message for this exhibit, so Sandy Shenker’s piece about Red Mangroves fit right in. The title is Keystone, reflecting the importance of these plants in the ecosystem of our local river/lagoon. Can you see those BIG roots?

“Keystone” by Sandy Shenker

Anne Kobus created this wonderful quilt, Sunward.

” Sunward” by Anne Kobus

Andrea Luliak made this triptych featuring the life of a sunflower. She calls it Life Cycle.

“Life Cycle”by Andrea Luliak

“Salty Air and Sunshine” was made by Kathryn Robinson. It include sheer fabrics, computer printed ones, and hand stitching.

“Salty Air and Sunshine” by Kathryn Robinson

Hanging high, in the most prominent corner, are 3D fish made by Joan Engel. Part of an earlier work about the plight of fish in polluted water, all of these live in our local river/lagoon. Now displayed independently, they make great shadows on the wall.

*By Joan Engel

I hope you get to see these great pieces for yourself!

Ellen Lindner

Food and Flowers in Siena, Italy

By Ellen Lindner on June 18, 2024 in Uncategorized

While in Siena, we stayed in a lovely inn. This was the view (on a rainy day.)

It was very early spring and things were just beginning to bloom.

This photo is looking back at the building.

We had our fanciest meal in Siena. We think our table was located in an old wine cellar. Here’s hubby trying to decode the menu.

I’m sure the staff thought we were rather strange, since we didn’t order course after course as those near us did. I got an appetizer only and hubby got an entree only. But, we did share dessert.

It was tasty and not overly sweet. The berries were currants, something I’d never had before. We saw them in things several times.

BTW, black truffles were in season and we had them in multiple dishes. Yummy!

Here’s an interesting take on creme brulee, (from a different Siena restaurant.) They set the sugar topping on fire as they set it down before me. I had to wait for it to go out and by that time, the sugar was hardened, and still warm.

We had some very good food, but I also got adventurous enough that I encountered some things I didn’t care for. Like melty warm, soft pork fat on toast. No thank you. (It was part of a Tuscan crostini sampler.) They love their fatty pork!

I’d definitely enjoy visiting Siena again.

Ellen Lindner

Siena, Italy

By Ellen Lindner on June 13, 2024 in Uncategorized

Siena is a small medieval town in the heart of Tuscany. The city center is maintained to look the way it did in the 1300’s. It’s very picturesque (or, it would be, if seen on a sunny day. It was rainy and overcast for us.)

The piazza and the town hall tower are the center of the action. Everything sits on steep hills. Can you tell how steep this street is, plunging way down over the course of one building?

The streets are very narrow, with no sidewalks. There’s just room for one way traffic and vehicular access to the city center is tightly restricted. When a vehicle comes pedestrians just ease over to the side and no one gets excited.

A Gothic church sits at the highest point in the city, made from white and dark green marble.

Traveling along the right side of the church and around to the back we encountered “the steps of death.” Or, that’s what we called them. Marble steps, wet with rain, and no handrail. Eep!

They didn’t look as scary when viewed from the bottom, but I can tell you they were pretty tricky!

Nearby we found a small grocery store. Don’t you love the way they leave the leaves on the lemons? I thought they were so pretty.

Even in the rain, it was fun to explore.

Ellen Lindner

Adding Interest to a Background

By Ellen Lindner on June 3, 2024 in Uncategorized

My current quilt is progressing along nicely, (but slowly.) I spent a LOT of time piecing the background and was quite happy with it. But, I wanted to tie the background of angular shapes into the design more. Since I planned to use large circular shapes in the foreground I thought skinny circles in the background would add interest and unity.

First, I auditioned fabrics for the background circles. I wanted them to be fairly subtle. Maybe about 5 or 6 of them. I thought these would be pretty close. But is that darkest blue too dark? We’ll see.

I drew the circles on my computer sketch and used that as a loose guide. I spent a good bit of time cutting the fused fabrics and arranging the circles. Here, 3 of my planned 6 are in place. But not attached yet! I pinned everything and studied it before fusing the circles in place.

What do you think about the dark blue circle, top left? I think it stands out a little, but I think it will work.

And this is where I am now. The background circles have been fused on and I’m working on the two foreground circles. (The colors are actually much brighter and I’m in love with them!)

OK, what about that skinny blue circle now? I think it’s okay, since the strong red foreground elements will attract more attention.

One thing that didn’t work: a wheat stencil. Actually, the stencil itself worked fine. But, it was just too large and too different from everything else. I’ll save it for something else.

I’ve been thinking about the title. This piece is about my parents. My working title was “Daddy Was a Farmer, Mama was a Southern Belle.” While that’s a great title, I don’t think it goes with the narrative of this story. I’ll simplify it and am still thinking about. Maybe I’ll use their names, the number of years they were married, or something along those lines. I can still reference farming and southern hospitality in the artist statement.

I’m getting close!

Ellen Lindner

Planning a Foreground Design

By Ellen Lindner on May 28, 2024 in Uncategorized

I’ve been wanting to do a series of quilts about my family. I made the first one, Happy Family, which used circles to represent people.

Happy Family

With that one the circles were an 11th hour addition. For the next one I wanted to be much more intentional.

After selecting green for the background of my current quilt it immediately got me thinking about my dad, a farmer. I decided to make a quilt about both my mom and my dad. My mom is a very gracious southern woman, who excels at entertaining, gardening, and cooking. I think of her as a Southern Belle, because she’s a beauty, as well. Thus, my working title became “Daddy was a Farmer, Mama was a Southern Belle.” (Note: my mom is still alive and she’s given her blessing to this title.)

So, how to depict these two with circles??? I knew I wanted to use red to contrast with the green. And it had a sort of farm feel to me, since farm equipment is often red.

I drew a sketch on the computer and began to audition my ideas on the design wall. I thought Dad (or Daddy as I often addressed him,) needed a big red sort of tear shaped oval.

But, Mom needed to be more curvy.

And slightly pinker.

I managed to find enough red fabrics for my purposes and I’m loving these colors together!

I was REALLY tempted to complete these two shapes, but I began to think about how much easier it would be to quilt the background before adding the circles, especially since I intended to add quilt a few more blue and green ones. So, I quilted the background and started auditioning fabrics for background circles.

The background circles will be MUCH skinnier than the foreground ones. Maybe pinky width. And they’ll have much lower contrast, serving as a background of ancestors.

The pace on this piece has finally quickened and I’m really enjoying it!

Ellen Lindner

Piecing a Green Background

By Ellen Lindner on May 26, 2024 in Uncategorized

For my latest quilt I envisioned an interesting green background with vibrantly colored circles in the foreground. I got to work on the background with my usual technique of auditioning fabrics and designing as I went along. I chose green, because I had A LOT of green fabric. Plus, I had a theme idea that would work well with green.