Tag Archives | Abstract

Lily Improv

By Ellen Lindner on August 13, 2020 in Uncategorized

Are you familiar with Linda and Laura Kemshall? They’re a mother-daughter duo who make fabulous art – in fabric and paper, and who have a weekly newsletter. Recently, they featured this photo. Isn’t it lovely?

I was enamored with the colors of the lilies and wrote to ask if I could use it for a quilt’s inspiration. Linda had taken the photo and she gave me permission to use it.

I pulled out pretty much all of my pink and green fabrics and began to make selections. I knew I’d also want to add in some grey, too.

(Yes, I have a lot of fat quarters!)

Have you ever made an improv quilt? The critical thing is to get the colors and their proportions the way you want them at the start. Then, you can sew and slash and piece to your heart’s content. (It turns out that I missed the mark, but more on that later.)

To start, I cut a bunch of fabric rectangles. For the critical pinks I cut them about the size of a piece of typing paper. The whites, greys, and greens were only about 1/4 that size. I also sorted through my scraps and pulled out the pieces that would work. Then, everything got stacked into contrasting pairs and taken to the sewing machine.

The scraps had wonky shapes, but I just trimmed them to straight lines.

Now that I think of it, I guess that’s the crux of this improv method: sew things together and then trim them.

This is what my blocks looked like, above, after that first round of piecing. Everything is large and chunky. But, I knew I’d be GREATLY modifying them so I was pretty happy with them. (Maybe too much peach, though.) Then, the fun began.

Sometimes I sliced across seams and rejoined them with mismatched alignment.

And I began to add grey to some of the oddly shaped blocks.

This was just the beginning of the fun. Watch my next post to see how things progress.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. You’ll definitely want to check in on the Kemshall’s website, Design Matters TV, and sign up for their mailing list.
P.P.S. You can see some of my other improv quilts in the links below.

Cuttin’ Up

By Ellen Lindner on June 5, 2020 in Uncategorized

I’ve you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you know that I’m not shy about cutting up a quilt. Sometimes I rearrange the pieces and create a new, more exciting composition. Other times, I use the new smaller pieces as the start of new little works of art. Such was the case with this COMPLETELY FINISHED quilt, Autumn Skyline.

There’s a lot that I like about this quilt: the colors, the fabrics, and parts of the design. But, it ultimately wasn’t exciting me. Therefore, I cut it into six different pieces.

I’m really liking this one. I think it’s begging for some hand stitching.

What if I turned it upside down?

I like all the grids in this one.
Here it is upside down.

Hmm, I’ll have to study these. They’re each about the size of a large place mat or small poster. Easily portable. So, maybe that hand stitching would be a good way to go. I seldom have a hand project at the ready, so these could be a nice change.

Here are some other examples of me cutting things up. Urban Sprawl.

Jubilation

Jubilation

Ellen Lindner

Thinking About a New Class

By Ellen Lindner on February 26, 2020 in Uncategorized

I’m thinking about turning my “Notes for a Friend” concept into a class. To try out the idea I did an informal class with two friends and it was a huge success!

Cindy had never worked abstractly before, but she jumped in and finished her note in no time flat. Didn’t she do a great job?

Although she planned on adding hand embroidery later, she decided to skip that so she could work on a second one. She got all the way through completing the composition during our time together. She left plenty of calm areas which will look great when she adds some hand stitching.

Notice that Cindy has a cardboard frame around her piece, above. This helps her visualize the final project without seams allowances, etc. Very helpful.

Jo-Ann was enamored with many hand-dyed scraps and their busy patterns. Using so many patterns can be quite challenging, so she took she took her time and came up with a great composition. She faced it once she got home and doesn’t it look wonderful?

She decided that it didn’t need any hand stitching due to the busy patterns already in the piece and I agreed.

It was great fun for me to work with these two and I’m excited about the idea of developing this into a class. Of course, I know it will be quite different working with 15-20 people. I’ll have to think about some streamlining techniques.

What do you think? Would you like a class making one of these tiny quilts (5 x 7?) I anticipate that most students will completely finish theirs, including facing, in class. I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts on such a class, positive or negative.

Ellen Lindner

Trees or Skyscrapers?

By Ellen Lindner on January 8, 2020 in Uncategorized

After trying a pastel blue sky on my piece inspired by fall trees, I tried it with dark blue instead.

I actually liked it pretty well, but I didn’t have enough bright blue to do it justice. So, I tried white. And also auditioned the idea of more twigs.

The verdict: YES to the white sky, NO to the chunky twigs.

But, what about those vertical shapes? Were they starting to imply skyscrapers, rather than trees? Yes, clearly they were. Well, that’s not really what I wanted, but I decided it could be trees in an urban setting. (Plus, I didn’t really care if the shapes read like trees, skyscrapers, or anything real.) I added a few twigs to add contrast and play up the tree idea.

After much quilting I was ready to photograph this piece.

Why use a pink backdrop, you ask? It has to do with the digital editing I’ll be doing later. I’ll “pick” the quilt away from the background and it’s easier for the computer to do that if there’s a contrast between the two. Can you see how the left side would blend into the backdrop if I left it white?

Finished photos coming soon.

Ellen Lindner

Retreat Project

By Ellen Lindner on December 8, 2019 in Uncategorized

What do you get when you add a beautiful setting, great friends, and time to make quilts? Well, fun productivity, of course!

At a recent SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) retreat I took my portable design wall, my easel, and ALL of my hand dyed fabrics. I didn’t have an idea when I left home, but I got one along the way. I decided to be inspired by the colors of fall trees (which we miss here in Florida,) and to use tall vertical shapes.

First, I auditioned A BUNCH of fabric to see if I had what I needed.

Well, um, yes I did. Too many fabrics, as a matter of fact. (Or as Tim Gunn might say, “That’s a whole lot of look.”)

I quickly edited and started putting fabrics in place.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted for the “sky,” but I put some light fabrics there as place holders.

Next, I auditioned some yellow. Would one piece stand out too much? Did I need more? Could I use yellow in the sky too?

I settled on the arrangement below. In this photo many of the fabrics are still folded. I don’t cut until I’m pretty sure. (But, by the end of the 2 day retreat I had all these shapes cut, pinned in place, and a few glued.)

I knew I’d need some black to break up the bright colors, so vertical trunks and branches filled the bill nicely. And you can also see that I added more yellow/yellow-orange.

I also began to consider that sky. Someone at the retreat suggested a pale sky, so I tried it out. It didn’t excite me, though.

In future posts I’ll show you other options I auditioned and where I ended up.

Ellen Lindner

Bedroom Redo

By Ellen Lindner on November 25, 2019 in Uncategorized

I recently redecorated my bedroom and I’m LOVING the results!

Here’s the bed wall, with my quilt Rhythm of the City prominently displayed.

More of my work moving across the window wall. This is Croton Leaves 3.

Continuing to look left, a corner featuring my paper collage Three Cherries.

And, to complete the artwork roundup, at the foot of the bed I have Brainstorm.

My tilt mirror was originally painted gold but I switched it up to “dark steel.” Although my technique was lacking it still looks good at first glance.

I wanted a taupe bed skirt, but I couldn’t find one to fit my tall bed. White was the only color available in that length. So, my friend suggested combining the two and I think it works.

It was fun to use a variety of surfaces and textures. Shiny and dull, smooth and rough, modern and vintage. I love the tufted look of the bedspread.

And these fuzzy white pom-pom flowers are the perfect contrast to my grandmother’s vintage water pitcher.

It sure was fun to put this all together and I’m SO delighted with the vibrant colors throughout!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. How do you like the way I’ve presented Croton Leaves 3, above? (2nd photo.) I bought a frame with glass and a white mat and I mounted the little quilt right on to the FRONT of the glass. I love presenting small pieces this way. They need something to give them more substance, but I don’t want to cover the texture of the piece. Lots of double-sided tape does the trick.

“When Fuchsia Came to Play” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on September 9, 2019 in Uncategorized

Well, after LOTS of trial and error, trouble shooting, and rearranging, I finally finished my latest abstract piece, When Fuchsia Came to Play.

When Fuchsia Came to Play

A detail shot of the fabrics – most of them dyed by me.

I showed you my plans for rearranging in an earlier post. As part of that, I whacked 7+” off the bottom! It’s okay. It needed it, and I’ve already found another use for that extra part.

When Fuchsia Came to Play is available for purchase.

My friends joke that I’m the queen of cropping, and it’s pretty true. Need me to bring my rotary cutter over?

Ellen Lindner

Another “Intersection” Abstract

By Ellen Lindner on August 4, 2019 in Uncategorized

After success creating Segue into Summer, I decided to use it as a loose template for some additional quilts made with hand dyed fabrics.

I’m calling this my “Intersection” series. I plan to use tilted straight lines as the “skeleton” for each one.

First, I pulled out the large scaled hand dyes I wanted to use, plus pretty much everything hand dyed that matched them. What a collection!

Clearly, some editing was called for, so I pared it down somewhat.

And, since I’ve been “learning to like vinegar” (colors, that is,) I added in a few “ugly” colors. I knew they’d add quite a bit of pop, but would need to be used carefully. Can you see them?

These are the two fabrics I expected to be the stars of this piece. I dyed and painted them to go together. I knew I’d need to add additional colors, as well as lights and darks.

I started in my usual fashion: creating a muslin base for my composition. I drew on the perimeter lines, as well as the proposed skeletal lines for the design. I’ve make them darker here, so you can see.

As you can see, I got my two star fabrics in there right away, using them in the largest sections where they would fit.

Right away, I had to redesign the size of the top right piece, to accommodate the fabric size. The line shows the size I intended that shape to be, but the fabric wasn’t large enough, so that design line got moved higher. That would be change #1 of about 100!

I was off and running. I’ll show you LOTS of trial and error in the next post.

Ellen Lindner

“Segue Into Summer” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on July 30, 2019 in Uncategorized

If you’ve been following my blog you know I’ve been learning about printing fabric with thickened dye. And, of course, I was anxious to use them! Plus, I also wanted to try larger scaled abstract pieces, as well as the idea of using a little bit of “ugly” color. All those goals came together in this quilt and I love the result!

Here it is: Segue Into Summer