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Super Cool UGLY Exercise

By Ellen Lindner on June 3, 2022 in Uncategorized

Yep, that’s right: ugly.

I recently did this cool exercise with my local fiber art buddies, the Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists. We used a book called “Paint Mojo” for prompts about making an UGLY painting.

The prompts included things like using a dark neutral in certain ways, painting words, using crayons as a resist, dripping paint, adding stamps, and more. Just let me say, we all achieved ugly! Just as desired.

This was mine.

See what I mean? UG. LEE!

But then, you pull out your little L-shaped pieces of cardboard and start to search for pleasing compositions.

Low and behold, when you zoom in tightly like this you actually find them!

And they’re kinda amazing.

Our plan is for each of us to choose a little cropped view as inspiration for a square art quilt. (I’m not sure the other artists were as enamored with this process as I was, so we’ll see how many still want to do it.)

Isn’t this wacky? It was great fun and the results are totally usable.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. For more fun, follow the three links below to see how this worked it out when I first tried it, six years ago.

“Prayer” Flags for Ukraine

By Ellen Lindner on May 26, 2022 in Uncategorized

Are you familiar with prayer flags? They’re Tibetan in origin and are generally strung in groups of five. The idea is that prayers and good thoughts go into the flags as the maker creates them, and then, as the flags disintegrate in the weather, those prayers and good thoughts spread into the world. Fiber artists like to use them in support of a particular cause, or just to decorate a space.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Dirty Dozen Art Quilters, (my local group,) decided to show support for Ukraine by creating an installation with such flags. At first, we wanted to be renegade and install them in a public park, without asking for permission. But, when a nearby business owner heard about our idea she invited us to display them in her store window, instead. How nice!

These are my flags.

Each one is made from rip-stock nylon, so I didn’t even have to finish the edges.

This photo shows the installation going up.

As one of our taller members, Gabriele was tasked with most of the hanging. Joan helped her and the rest of us gave them LOTS of direction. 🙂

(You can tell from the reflections that it was a beautiful sunny day.)

Here’s the whole gang (except for one member who lives in another state.)

If you’re in the Eau Gallie section of Melbourne, please check out our installation at Art Expressions. A big thank you to Jodi for inviting us to showcase our concerns and art in this way.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Check out another post about local art flags.

“Potager Garden” Finished

By Ellen Lindner on May 25, 2022 in Uncategorized

Woohoo! I’ve finally had time to sew and I finished my quilt, Potager Garden.

Potager Garden

Potager is a French word which means “for the soup pot.” Potager gardens are small kitchen garden which grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers. They were invented by monks in medieval times, who often laid out their raised beds in the shape of a cross. These led to the huge opulent gardens later seen in places like Versaille.

This quilt is made almost entirely from my own hand dyed/printed fabric, which made it extra fun.

I added a little contrasting stitching for interest.

Potager Garden - detail, an art quilt by Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com

You can see a larger image of this quilt here.

The Fabric Dictates the Design

By Ellen Lindner on May 8, 2022 in Uncategorized

Since I’m still fairly new to dyeing my own fabric, my stash is limited. As are the sizes of the pieces. Typically, when I work with these fabrics, I find their sizes and shapes often dictate a good part of the design.

See what I mean below. The height of the gold grid, the red vertical pieces, and the gold piece on the left have determined the sizes that go into the design.

The green fabric in the lower left isn’t as wide as I’d like and several gold fabrics will be needed to complete the gold shape I have in mind near bottom center.

Here’s a better look at that green fabric. At this point I had cut it and joined the pieces to make it wider.

Early on I thought some diagonal brown stripes and some orange-red circles might play into the design. I auditioned them and took photos. Then, I lifted them to work on the underlying parts.

What do you think of the brown diagonals? Probably too much, right? That’s what I was thinking after seeing them, so I knew I’d do some careful considering as things progressed.

What about the vertical red fabrics? I thought this collection looked promising. A couple of these are commercial fabrics. Also, some were too short, so I had to piece them longer.

Below, I’ve pieced the red vertical lines and I like them a lot. As you can see, I also inserted a skinny yellow line. Love that!

I didn’t have enough yellow-orange to fill the space on the left, so I had to dig into my commercial fabrics. As you can see, I’ve pieced them together with undulating lines.

I love working this way, making decisions as I go. It’s exhilarating! And it’s probably good to have limited choices. I find working abstractly to be very challenging (and therefore very fun.) Having fewer choices makes it easier.

Ellen Lindner

Color Inspiration

By Ellen Lindner on May 5, 2022 in Uncategorized

Slowly, over the course of a couple of months, I began to notice the same group of colors.

First, was a Croton plant.

What pretty oranges and greens!

Then, I noticed the mess on my table, which had the same colors.

I decided to work with green, yellow-green, and orange. I pulled out all the hand dyes I had in those colors and noticed that one dark green fabric had yellow circles. What about adding yellow-orange?

Yes! I dug a little more and selected the fabrics you see above. This was getting exciting!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Where do you find your color inspiration?

More Work from the Dirty Dozen Exhibit

By Ellen Lindner on April 3, 2022 in Uncategorized

In order to be in the Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists, you have to make a self-portrait. This has worked really well as a litmus test of how good the fit is between the prospective member and the group. Those who embrace it with minimal trepidation are likely to be a good fit, while those who are scared off are not likely to be.

We often show these self-portraits when we have our exhibits, especially if we have never members and, therefore, new quilts.

Although somewhat out of focus, you can see the diversity, above. These were made by:
Top row, L-R: Sandy Shenker, Andrea Luliak, Ruth Anne Parker, Perlie (Phyllis) Petrillo, Jill Brown
Bottom row, L-R: Joan Engel, Becky Stack, Kathryn Robinson, Marilyn Seibring, Gabriele DiTota, and me.

Continuing onto the next panel are two more. Top: Dij Pacarro, Bottom: Laura Ruiz.

We also provided “How To” information about cyanotype, ice dyeing, and weaving.

The final two panels of our exhibit featured some of our favorites.
They were made by, Top Row, L-R: Jill Brown, Gabriele DiTota, Kathryn Robinson, Dij Pacarro
Bottom row, L-R: Sandy Shenker, (Gabriele DiTota,) Marilyn Seibring, Joan Engel

These were made by, Top Row, L-R: Andrea Luliak, Perlie Petrillo, Becky Stack
Bottom row, L-R: (Andrea Luliak,) Ruth Anne Parker, and me

In addition to our quilts, we also had a table of 3D work. I’m sorry I don’t know exactly who made what. However, I think all these pieces were made by Gabriele DiTota, Marilyn Seibring, and Jill Brown.

What a creative group we have! We were very happy with our exhibit which included 47 quilts and about 10 3D items. We greatly appreciate the Seaside Piecemakers for offering us this opportunity.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. We’ll be offering our “Measure of a Woman” and “In the Style of” challenges as traveling exhibits. Need something special for your quilt show?

My Episode on “The Quilt Show”

By Ellen Lindner on March 29, 2022 in Uncategorized

I have to admit: it’s pretty exhilarating to be on an episode of The Quilt Show! It went live a few days ago and I’m really happy with the results!

Check out the trailer:
Ellen Lindner on The Quilt Show. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

In this episode I teach three different segments.
1 – Drawing inspiration from a photo. (But not reproducing it perfectly.)
2 – Design basics: focal point and balance
3 – A glued collage technique I call “Sticky Fingers.” It uses fabric, but there’s no stitching. Super easy!

The Quilt Show has an online membership format. If you’re a member you can view all the videos and other content at any time. If you’re not already a member you can sign up for a free 7 day trial. Either option will get you access to the episode.

Watching the episode I was reminded of how much fun we had that day. I hope you’ll get to enjoy it!

Ellen Lindner

Working on a New Class: Sticky Fingers

By Ellen Lindner on March 24, 2022 in Uncategorized

I’ve been BUSY getting a new online class ready to go. It’s called Sticky Fingers and it’s a glued collage technique. This is the class sample:

I really love it.

For the purposes of the course I needed to make another one, so I could record it. And I chose pastel colors. VERY unusual for me, but I really like these bright and happy hues just as much.

Here it is, in-progress.

Along with a very wet in-progress detail shot.

And here’s the final result:

Ooh, me likey! What do you think?
Which do you prefer?

This was really fun to make! (I have such a great job.) ~~I’ll have the class published in a few days.~~ Update: the class is now ready to en joy.

Full class details

I think you’ll really like it.

I’m getting excited!
Ellen Lindner
P.S. In case it’s not obvious: this is a non-sewing project. Anyone can do it!

Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists: “In the Style of…”

By Ellen Lindner on March 12, 2022 in Uncategorized

For our second self-portrait challenge, the Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists made quilts in the style of their favorite artists. These included abstract, pop, impressionist, and whimsical styles, to name a few.

These were made by Marilyn Seibring and Andrea Luliak.

These were made by me, (Ellen Lindner,) Sandy Shenker, and Becky Stack.

Jill Brown, Dij Pacarro, and Laura Ruiz created these quilts.

Gabriele DiTota, Kathryn Robinson, and Ruth Anne Parker made these pieces.

Can you find pieces inspired by “Whistler’s Mother,” the work of Peter Max, and Andrew Wyeth?

Ellen Lindner
P.S. See the associated posts about our other self-portrait challenges.

Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists: Live and On Stage!

By Ellen Lindner on March 8, 2022 in Uncategorized

I’m very fortunate to belong to a small art quilt group called “Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists.” The group consists of twelve very skilled and VERY creative fiber artists who don’t mind trying new things and taking risks. We LOVE to get together and share our passion for art quilting (and other fiber media!) We always have fun when we’re together.

Occasionally we give ourselves challenges, primarily so we can show our work to others in a cohesive way. This really worked to our advantage, recently, when the Seaside Piecemakers, of Melbourne, FL, invited us to take over the entire stage as part of their biennial quilt show. We had multiple challenges to show off and it made for an excellent exhibit! See what I mean, below.

Check out the quilts on the two left panels. They’re our self-portrait challenge called “The Measure of a Woman.” Each one is the height of the maker and no more than 12″ wide. They’re arranged by height. Isn’t that neat?

Here’s the left panel. L-R the quilts were made by me (Ellen Lindner,) Marilyn Seibring, Ruth Anne Parker, and Dij Pacarro.
(I’m always the shortest in any group.)

And the right panel. These were made by Laura Ruiz, Jill Brown, Sandy Shenker, Gabriele DiTota, Becky Stack, and Kathryn Robinson.

I just love this idea and so did our viewers. We got lots of comments and questions. It was fun to interact with quilt lovers and tell them about this challenge.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. I have many more photos to show you from this exhibit. Stay tuned.

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