Adventure Quilter

Meet Shay.  She’s a lovely quilter with a quick smile and lots of enthusiasm.

Shay likes to make art quilts.  The ones with the patterns provided or with patterns she makes herself.

Yet, she found herself in my Design Your Own Nature Quilt class which teaches, among other things, how to create WITHOUT a pattern.  However, the supply list included artistic courage and, thankfully, she packed hers.

This is her inspiration photo.

Very viable.  Especially since she brought a wide range of green fabrics.  Some of them printed to look like actual trees!  Hmm.  I was somewhat skeptical about that one.

And Shay set to work cutting those trees out exactly as printed on the fabric.

Hmm.  I waited to see if she’d be able to work loosely with such fabrics.

And she did a good job!

But then, she was a little stumped.  The foreground of her inspiration photo is filled with rhododendron with lots of busy stems, twigs, and leaves showing.  She asked me about cutting skinny strips to represent the stems.  I said, “Don’t do that!  Find a busy fabric that will do the work for you.”

Since I had shown several examples about the value of using plaids in just such occasions, her table-mate chirped up and said, “Like plaid!” and tossed a plaid fabric onto the composition.

Did I detect a little flinch from Shay when that plaid fabric hit her quilt?  Maybe it was just my imagination.

Regardless, her classmates were fearless and they quickly started throwing more plaid onto her quilt!  Well, that was just the invitation I was looking for, so I HAD to help her arrange them so she could audition those plaids.

She was quite a good sport about it, as I took a picture for a “distance” view.

Meanwhile, several of the other classmates were egging her on.  They really wanted her to use plaid.

And, finally, she agreed.  She even seemed to like the idea.  (I sure hope so.  I certainly wouldn’t want to coerce the poor woman!)

This is the audition photo, above.  Those plaids will work well, don’t you think?

I was so proud of Shay for embracing something SO outside her comfort zone.  And I got quite a kick from her classmates who were so “pro-plaid” by the end of the day!  It was fun and exhilarating for all of us.

I’ll have more photos from this class soon.  In the meantime, I’m off to Cleveland to tape 3 segments for Quilting Arts TV.  Woohoo!

Ellen Lindner

Here are the other winners from 100% Pure Florida.

Merit Awards:

By Karen Ekonomou

By Margie McInarnay

By Kathy Smith

By James Newman

By Henry Peter

This dragonfly looked almost real, although it’s painted with acrylics.

In Third Place:

By Thom Harrell

And in Second Place:

By Nancy Hamin-Volger

To see the Best of Show and my Award of Merit, see the previous post.  This is a very nice exhibit, in Melbourne, FL, which will be up through October 1st.  I  hope you get the chance to see it.

Ellen Lindner

It was a very good night for fiber at the opening of 100% Pure Florida, in Melbourne, FL.  There were four fibers pieces in the juried show, which included 50+ pieces.

Just take a look at this beaded dragon, made by Jennifer Shibona.  Although it looks great as a sculpture, it’s also wearable.  See the metallic cuff under the dragon’s belly?  You wear that on your wrist and the dragon’s tail wraps around your arm.  Pretty cool, right?

Jennifer also had a beautiful, and very large, beaded necklace on display.

But, things got really exciting as the awards were announced.  First came six awards of merit, and I won one.  Woohoo!

The excitement was building as third place and second place were awarded, and finally it was time for Best of Show.  And the winner was…drum roll please…more fiber art!  This time, the award went to Gabriele DiTota for her piece, Foliage.

What you can’t tell in the photo is that the red buds are all stand-alone 3D objects which stick out from the quilt.  It’s a great piece! See it on her website.

Gabriele was really overwhelmed.  This was her first time entering a quilt in a mixed media show, so she was completely surprised.  What a thrilling moment!  Her piece got lots of attention, both before and after the announcement.

Her prize?  A nice cash award AND a solo show next year!  How exciting!  I’m overjoyed for my friend.

I’ll show you the other winners in the next post.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. BTW, marketing tip:  Notice how my name tag has my artwork on it?  That’s a great conversation starter.

As you’ll see, I’m still working in the same series.  I’m loving the colors and the motifs.

This is the sketch for the current piece.

And here’s the background, more or less complete.

Or so I thought.  But, after studying it for awhile, I decided it was too pastel for my liking.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exciting me.

This is the second background.  The largest shape changed from mostly orange to mostly rust, and the background pale peach changed to soft orange.  I like this much better, even though the changes are subtle.

Now what?  I auditioned the motifs I was considering.  Here you see digital versions added to the existing background.

I thought the white squares showed up well, and set to work adding them.  (This time, I remembered to stop and fuse the fabrics first.)

Ellen Lindner