Blog – Adventure Quilter

Using Coordinating Fabrics

By Ellen Lindner on November 30, 2024 in Uncategorized

In my last dyeing session I printed these two fabrics. I loved them and couldn’t wait to use them together!

But, what to do with them? In my usual fashion I pulled out every fabric that I thought MIGHT work with them.

I tried adding some peach, as a transition color.

Then, I removed some of the busiest prints and added black and dark purple.

Now what? Should I use both bright and dull yellows?

Or maybe just dull yellow? (Which would mean I couldn’t use the yellow circles at all.)

Either way, I knew I needed a plan. Maybe something wide and short with a horizontal arrangement of purple.

No, it really was too chunky.
I finally proceeded with the selection below, still wondering what to do.

I thought I should lay out the focal point/line first. I cut up the yellow, trying not to dice up too many circles. I was pretty happy with this, but I knew I couldn’t properly audition it on a light design wall. I needed to see the purple/fuchsia around the perimeter for contrast.

I stared in with the fuchsia and liked the added contrast. But what about those yellow pieces? I began to think that they were too big and chunky.

What if I made them smaller and/or inserted fuchsia in some places? To audition the idea I did a little experimenting in the computer.

Hmm. I learned two things: 1 – Yes, the yellow looked better in smaller pieces, 2 – That’s too much fuchsia!

So, I reluctantly knew what had to be done: I needed to partially take it apart, cut some pieces smaller, and then figure out how to get everything back together again. And that’s when it turned into a giant Tetris puzzle!

Sometimes I hate it when I get a good idea! (Or was it really good? Watch for future posts so you can be the judge.)

Ellen Lindner

Splicing Fabric

By Ellen Lindner on November 2, 2024 in Uncategorized

As I was winding down on my recent dye session, I tried a very random exercise. I loosely pleated a piece of fabric and scraped on a variety of different colors, as well as some clear paste. It was a gooey mess when I finished!

But, when I washed it out I found out that the underneath folds had not received any color. I got a roughly striped fabric. Hmm. The colored parts were great, but I didn’t want a stripe.

Splicing Fabric

I decided to carefully cut away most of the white and then piece the colored parts together. Of course, I had to plan for seam allowances. I also saved the white parts, planning to piece them back together, too.

Here’s what I got. Kinda gorgeous, right? The hint of stripeyness is now appealing to me. I may need to tone down that large white blob, though.

Splicing Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Uh oh! I accidentally pieced this with wrong sides together. The side with the seams actually shows the brighter version of the fabric.

Splicing Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

There’s not a big difference, though. I think I can use either side, actually.

Now, what do do with it. Any ideas?

Ellen Lindner

Different Dying Techniques

By Ellen Lindner on October 28, 2024 in Uncategorized

Ghost printing yields pale, delicate results. Like this.

All you do is run clear printing paste through a dirty stencil. The paste picks up the color remaining in the crevices and dilutes it to a lovely pastel.

Isn’t it pretty?

Deconstructed screen printing (DSP) is quite different. Thickened print past, usually colored, is drawn onto a clean screen. (Or maybe stenciled on, or maybe applied evenly and then altered by lifting some of the paste with various textured items.) Mine was drawn on: simple black lines. This was done at the tail end of my previous dying session and allowed to dry.

Once dry the paste will act as a resist. You can pull a color of paste through and the areas with the dried paste will act as a resist and will print as white. You can see this in the photo below, looking at the left side. My first pulls were with olive colored paste.

As you continue to pull, the pulled paste will break down (“deconstruct”) the dried paste design and it will begin to color the edge of the white lines, giving them halos, see above.

And then it will break down some more and print its original color. You can see that below in the dull gold areas. The lines primarily printed as black.

These will be fun fabrics to use!

Ellen Lindner

Dying with Commercial Fabrics

By Ellen Lindner on October 23, 2024 in Uncategorized

I sure do have fun dying and printing fabric!

As you can see, I make no attempt at keeping my clothing clean. (Usually around this point my stomach begins to look quite colorful, as well.)

It all starts by soaking my fabrics in a soda ash solution. Once they’re line dried they’re ready to react with the dye.

In addition to the plain white fabric you’d expect, I also soak some previously printed/dyed fabrics that need some over dying. Sometimes they just need a little something more, but at other times they need the “completely cover this ugliness with a dark color” treatment. No worries. It all becomes useful in the end.

I did something new with this dye session: I overdyed some commercial ombre fabrics. They turned out beautifully. I’ll definitely do this again, although the commercial fabric frayed much more than I’m used to, so I probably won’t ever use it in a raw-edged application. The top fabric below is one such fabric. I like it a lot. But, I also like some intentionally messy ombre, so that’s what I aimed for with the bottom fabric. I like it just as much.

In the photo below, the purple fabric on the right is a commercial ombre. The yellow one on the left I did completely. It has a few errors, but will still be very useful. I LOVE the way these two look together! I’m thinking they’ll end up in the same quilt.

I dyed this one myself. MAYBE it can be included too. (Although it may be too much of a good thing.)

I have many more results to show you in upcoming posts.

Which one of these is your favorite?

Ellen Lindner

“Heat Wave” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on September 30, 2024 in Uncategorized

My latest piece, Heat Wave, is now complete.

Heat Wave

I’m quite happy with it! The design was dictated, in part, by the triangular orange scraps I had on hand. I like the sharp points.

At 35 x 35, this piece is available for $1200. See more photos.

I used ALL of my orange and navy hand dyed fabrics in this piece. I’m looking forward to an upcoming dye session when I can make more.

Ellen Lindner

Florence: Santa Maria Novella

By Ellen Lindner on September 24, 2024 in Uncategorized

In Florence, we enjoyed visiting the church of Santa Maria Novella. It didn’t have the opulence of some churches we saw in Italy, but it also had NO CROWDS! A big plus, which gave us the opportunity to explore at our leisure.

Even a “simple” church like this had beautiful arches and high ceilings.

And a beautiful altar.

But, I think we enjoyed the outside courtyard even more.

Check out these ceilings! I think they’re gorgeous.

But, the thing that amazed me the most was an antique tapestry. This was from the 1400s! Stitched with gold thread, it was in very good condition.

Whoa! Can you believe it? This is padded embroidery, where a base layer of stitches is put in and then others are added over top. This blew my mind.

I forget what it was used for. Some sort of vestments, if I remember correctly. It was the only textile item on display. Shockingly, it had very little in the way of a protective environment. It was behind glass in an area with low light, but the nearby windows were open and unscreened. How has this held up so well?

It was very interesting exploring this church on our own.

Ellen Lindner.

Creative Whimsy Spotlight

By Ellen Lindner on September 10, 2024 in Uncategorized

As part of my spotlight on Creative Whimsy, I was asked to show several completed quilts.

Crotons served as an example of my earlier quilting style. This piece is one of my all time favorites!

Then, I showed some of my more recent abstract pieces, along with these words about my transition to this style.

My first attempts were definitely not great art, but I think they were necessary in order to develop my skills. I don’t regret the time they took or the fabric they required. The PROCESS was valuable!

This is my mindset in a nutshell. It makes me a little bit fearless because I know the process is valuable, not just the product.

Ripples and Runs is a more recent abstract piece, featuring my own hand dyed fabric.

Ripples and Runs

Ditto for Exuberance

A big thank you to Creative Whimsy for featuring me and my art! Their website has many more spotlights of very interesting artists. I hope you’ll investigate.

Ellen Lindner

Featured Spotlight on Creative Whimsy

By Ellen Lindner on September 5, 2024 in Uncategorized

Creative Whimsy, a website about artists and their endeavors has just done a spotlight on me. How nice!

They sent me a ton of questions and I answered most of them. (I mean, you didn’t want to read PAGES about me, right?)

I was glad they asked about my process. I explained how I make decisions at the design wall, since it’s the part of quilt making I really like the most. I showed this series of pictures as an example.

Easily Distracted

They also asked for a photo of my studio. So, I bravely walked in, LEFT EVERYTHING IN PLACE, and took a photo. This gives you an idea of what it looks like mid-project, although it’s usually much worse!

I hope you’ll check out the full article (and be willing to scroll past all the ads.)

Ellen Lindner

Planning as I Go

By Ellen Lindner on August 31, 2024 in Uncategorized

As usual, my current quilt started with a high contrast piece of hand dyed fabric. This is all I had of it.

What could I do to best show it off?

The additional fabrics added above provided interest, but the original fabric swatch still seemed rather straight forward.

It was kinda hard to judge against white. I knew I wanted a blue background, so I added some to the design wall to help me judge the overall look.

I split the featured print and splayed it apart. I thought this added energy, plus some interesting negative blue space.

I began to audition additional colors and fabrics. What about a mass of orange on the right and across the bottom? I placed folded fabrics to consider options.

My orange fabric was limited and I knew I’d have to work with the shapes I had: sharp triangles.

That didn’t seem objectionable. However, I did get rid of the vertical yellow point near the center.

As you might imagine, there was some fiddly stitching on this one. It was actually easier than I expected and I’ll show you some about how I did it in the next post.

My next question: what to do with the lower left.

Ellen Lindner

Famous Sights in Florence

By Ellen Lindner on August 24, 2024 in Uncategorized

I’m still organizing photos from our trip to Italy in March. Here are some noteworthy photos from Florence.

Florence is a very beautiful city and not that big. There’s no public transportation, which is no problem. It’s fun to walk and view!

Florence is known for it’s duomo (cathedral) with it’s amazing domed roof. It was the first of its type and was later copied for St. Peter’s Basillica, in the Vatican. However, it’s really hard to get a good shot since the duomo is surrounded by streets and buildings.

This is my best shot showing the front. However, it’s mostly hidden by a separate church building in the foreground. Both structures are built from white and green marble. The dome is brick.