My flame vine quilt is now complete. I’ve named it Back Yard Beauty.
I’m quite happy with it. Here’s a detail shot.
You can see more about how I made it in the previous posts.
On to the next quilt, a red bud tree!
Ellen Lindner
Gabriele DiTota: Fabrications
If you’re near Melbourne, FL you’ll definitely want to stop in at Fifth Avenue Art Gallery, where “Gabriele DiTota: Fabrications” is currently on display. Gabriele is a friend and a wonderful fiber artist. She creates intriguing art quilts and amazing art dolls.
Here she is at the opening, looking poised and welcoming.
I think you can see that she use often uses black paint in her work.
Her work was very popular at the opening, but I managed to get a few photos.
The piece on the left, below, was the Best in Show in last year’s “100% Pure Florida” exhibit. In addition to a monetary prize, she won the right to have this one month solo show. Isn’t that a great prize?
Gabriele did a very good job staging her dolls with her quilts. And aren’t they intriguing?
(Yes, she dyed the fabric above, shown under the chair. She’s got skills!)
One of her most interesting dolls is one that riffs off Little Red Riding Hood.
This is the tag explaining it.
Isn’t she creative?
However, my favorite of Gabriele’s dolls is “Mosely Miner,” who just happens to be in front of my favorite quilt, “Locked in Love.”
Aren’t they wonderful? Gabriele is especially good at telling a story with her work.
Here’s a close up of Mosely. That nose!
I hope you’ll get to see this exhibit, which is on display through July 1st.
Ellen Lindner – who runs with some talented ladies!
Suzanne Sanger’s Work
Back in October, I wrote about creating torn paper collages in order to loosen up and to work more abstractly. Like this:
Original photo
Torn paper collage
Because the paper is torn, you can’t be too accurate, so you
HAVE to focus on the largest shapes.
The fabric interpretation, Ti Party.
One of my readers, Suzanne Sanger, decided to give it a try and was kind enough to share her results with me (and with you.)
Her original photo, taken in Bermuda
The paper collage, with part of the original photo overlapping.
And, her final quilt, called Dozing in Bermuda.
I think it’s great. And don’t you love the way she’s matted and framed it?
Suzanne says, “I want to thank you for inspiring me! Like you, I’ve been challenging myself to work more abstractly, and have dabbled with a range from just barely to totally non representational. Your blog post from last October about torn paper collage sent me right into the studio to tear up the only magazine I had in order to recreate a photo I took in Bermuda a few years ago. Then I did my semi-annual house switch, life intervened, I took a great abstraction class from Lisa Call, all the while leaving my torn paper start hanging on my design wall. Now I’ve switched back to my summer house, and needed a project to get myself back into the studio. Ah hah! It was time to return to my dozing man. He’s a bit more realistic than I would like, but still a move in the right direction. I LOVE this process! Hmmm. I guess I’ll have to subscribe to an image heavy magazine again, pain though that is what with changing mailing addresses twice a year. LOL. Anyway, thanks for a great idea! You always give me new things to think about.”
I love this! So much so that it makes me want to reach for my magazines again, too. It’s a FUN way to work!
Ellen Lindner
Working on My Flame Vine Quilt
The quilt I’ve been working on is inspired by a friend’s flame vine, which cascades down her back porch. In the strong Florida sun, it’s especially striking when seen against the dark porch screening.
After finishing the orange flowers, I went on to the leaves.
Next, I tackled the long skinny pieces. I’m not sure what they are, but they’re some part of the plant. Let’s call them twigs. At any rate, they were in the original photo and I liked the graphic quality they added to the abstraction. To audition sizes I started tearing fabrics and I liked the fuzzy quality I got with some of them. So, I just left them that way.
Finally, it was time to glue everything to the muslin and start stitching. I added black zigzag around each block unit.
For the petals and leaves I chose an organic quilting pattern that, in part, followed the shape of the piece. For the background, I selected parallel lines. In each case, they follow the angle of one of the twigs. I really like the effect.
After all of this, I thought some of the petals merged a little bit too much. To add definition, I drew around the edges with a Sharpie. That helped, but it was partially covered by fuzzy threads, so I looked for something more significant. I found it with a thin black cord which I hand couched on. It gave the perfect outline.
On to finishing! I faced the quilt and sprayed marked areas with water, to remove the chalk marks.
But, oops, one area bled.
I decided to hide it by adding more of the same. Like this:
I used water soluble wax pastels, adding a little yellow and orange. Plus, I think the extra water added faded the original spot. Voila! On to photo taking.
Ellen Lindner
Project Resurrected
Remember the “project that wasn’t?” After sketching it I decided not to proceed with it. My issue was that it looked too jumbled, and therefore didn’t accurately depict the plant that inspired me.
My inspiration photo:
The initial sketch:
However, I was slow to put the sketch away so it lived on my design wall for a while. That gave me time to consider it further and I thought, “Why work so hard at making it just an abstract design? Why not let it look more like the subject?” So, I rearranged my six squares a good bit and came up with this.
There. That was more like it. Definitely abstracted, but with the nice curve and drape of a few flower petals. I was happy enough to continue.
Next came a computer sketch.
Still happy. Time to audition fabrics. Starting with “black” for the six backgrounds.
I constructed this piece in a very non-standard way using reverse applique. That is, I cut the black fabric to the needed shapes, so other fabrics could be tucked underneath. Like this first block, bottom left.
Why use this technique? One reason: to avoid the black fabric from shadowing through the lighter ones. Putting black on top got rid of this issue.
From a technical standpoint this worked well. The only issue is that it was difficult to change my mind, since the first version would be cut before I realized I wanted a change. Thankfully, my design explorations meant that I needed only a couple of very minor changes. Whew!
Above, most of the black cuts were done. Time to audition petal fabrics.
Auditioning is extremely important. I always tell my students “everything affects every other.” Which means you can’t make a decision in isolation. You have to see how each fabric, item, or placement will work with those around it. For instance, look at the middle two fabrics above, in the left center block. Can you see that they blend together a little bit? So, I changed one of them, which you can see below.
The photo above shows the flower petals partially complete. They were pretty easy to do, since most of the shaping had already been done with the black fabric.
Here the flowers are, complete.
Green leaves and other details would happen soon. I’ll show you next time.
Ellen Lindner
“For My Own Amusement”
I’ve finished up the series of four pieces made from a stitched indigo sampler. See numbers one and two here. And numbers three and four below.
I love the art paper with the circles, above.
Piece #2 includes a bit of a dictionary page with the word “amusement” defined. Since I was doing these just for fun, I thought I could use that word as part of my title. It came to me very quickly:
“For My Own Amusement, #1-4.”
I like the way the four pieces look together. What do you think?
Ellen Lindner
Orange and Blue Collages
After deciding to use an indigo sampler as the starting point for the next set of collages, I had to decide what other colors to put with it. Maybe the complementary color, orange? But, I didn’t want the orange to take over. I wanted the indigo to be the star. So, maybe just lighter blues and whites? Or, maybe some of both? I decided on the latter and gathered my materials, both fabric and paper.
Here’s the first one, very early on.
The horizontal rust fabric is ultra suede. The shiny bit of paper is the back side of a piece of used foiling paper. I got as far as hand stitching it, but later removed it altogether.
Perhaps you can see the circular motif on the white fabric. It became the pattern for later hand stitching.
Here it is, completed.
Pretty simple, but I like it.
For the second one, I included a bit of a torn dictionary page. It shows the definition of “amusement.”
And, as with the first collage series, my great grandmother’s crocheted tablecloth also made an appearance. I love the texture it brings.
I’ve made two more in this series, which I’ll show you in the next post.
(Got any UFOs you need to cut up?)
Ellen Lindner
What Next?
After successfully cutting up a UFO (unfinished object) and using it as the starting point for some little collages, I was anxious to do it again. The question was “Which UFO do I use?” Because, well, I have more than one.
Maybe I could do something with this partially constructed prickly pear.
Or with this painted mountain scene.
This one actually intrigued me enough to experiment it with it a bit more. I used Neocolor wax pastels and Inktense blocks to kick up the color saturation.
(Boy, the Inktense has WAY more pigment than the wax pastels.)
Or, maybe I should do something with this colorful swirly collage. It’s certainly bright and appealing.
(It’s made from sewing on raw edged strips. The strips are the byproduct from cutting fat quarters. My local quilt shop sells bags of them.)
Or, here’s another use of those strips. Knitting!
A closer look:
As you can see, I have no shortage of unusual UFOs! Any one of them had lots of possibilities.
Finally, however, I decided to work with this indigo sampler.
It was given to me years ago, by the gal who made it in a class. Isn’t it wonderful? All the patterns were created with stitching. Once stitched, these tight spots resisted the dye, creating very interesting effects.
I used this piece once before, so it was was already hand stitched. (That first quilt was a dud, so I removed this part and saved it.)
Stay tuned to see what I do with this.
Ellen Lindner
P.S. Now I have a reason for saving UFOs! Have you got any weird ones?
P.P.S. I’ve lost my enthusiasm for the top two pieces: the prickly pear and the mountain scene. If you’d like one of them, just let me know and I’ll send it to you, (if you live in the US.) If you want one, I hope you’ll DO something to it!
Revamping Artificial Flowers
I have a white “silk” orchid that was very realistic looking when I purchased it several years ago. Over time, however, it has yellowed badly.
I considered several ideas about how to best revamp these pretty petals. Eventually, I decided just to paint them, with ordinary acrylic paint.
This worked well. I left the fiddly centers yellow and was happy with the results.
Not bad, right? No one’s going to think they’re real, but they’re definitely pretty.
What have you painted lately?
Ellen Lindner
P.S. What I really wanted to do was to decoupage black and white fabrics onto the petals. It only took a little experimenting to realize that would be too difficult. But if I ever create some from scratch? Who knows.
Some Eye Candy
Here are some interesting links for your enjoyment.
First, a gallery of wonderful quilts made by the Front Range Contemporary Quilters. You’ll love them!
Ova Nova, an art quilt by Louisa Smith
Next, check out the beautiful and subtle work of Cas Holmes.
Textile installation by Cas Holmes
Finally, something a little different: painted pebbles. I was intrigued by these because some of them looked almost like they were embroidered. They reminded me of fabric cookies. Wouldn’t they be fun to reproduce with some felt scraps?
And there you go: just some of the sites I’ve enjoyed recently.
Ellen Lindner