Tag Archives | Design

Inspired by a Christmas Cactus

By Ellen Lindner on February 20, 2021 in Uncategorized

Once again, my Christmas cactus was beautiful this year. (Here in Florida it lives outside year round.)

I began to imagine what an abstracted version might look like in fabric. Can’t you envision some bright, spiky red shapes? I was especially enamored with the cascading blossoms on the right side.

Just to jump start some ideas, I played with the photo on my computer. This pointillist version really got my attention.

Whoa! I was pretty much blown away by these bright spots of color and the black background.

I began to ask questions and to make plans. I knew I wanted to include some black and to use shards of bright colors. I didn’t think I wanted to use little circular blobs, though.

What would be a better shape? Maybe a rectangle with a point cut off? (A shape I had just used in my most recent quilt.) Would I want to cover the entire surface with such shapes? I didn’t think so.

I bought some solid black fabric and began to audition colors and shapes. I’ll show you soon.

Ellen Lindner

Designing in Venice, FL

By Ellen Lindner on February 14, 2021 in Uncategorized

The supply list for my class, Design Your Own Nature Quilt, includes artistic couraage, and the ladies in Venice, FL brought it in spades! During our two day class they didn’t even whimper. 😉 But, they DID make some extraordinary quilts.

Let’s start with Helen, who was taking her first ever quilt class. (These images were taken at the end of class, as seen on my computer screen.)

Didn’t she do a great job? Everything is constructed onto a muslin base. Helen has decided to preserve the raggedy uneven edge of her composition, so she’ll tuck her border fabric(s) under the edge of the composition fabrics, where they’ll also be supported by the muslin.

Joan C. rearranged her flowers and cropped the composition to get a really pleasing arrangement. And, after a brief consultation, she had the skills she needed to make a second piece in the next few days. I love that!

Elaine’s poppies live up to their name, since they seem to pop off the background! Her inspiration photo had MANY more flowers in it, but she wisely edited it down to just a few. This gave her the ability to enlarge them and show them off. And what about that black stitching? Doesn’t it add wonderful detail?

Joan D. depicted the best parts of several photos of sea grape leaves. She created tiny lines by adding slits to her leaf fabrics, so the underneath vein fabric could show. Here she’s auditioning the position of the sea grapes. I think she’s about got it.

Did you notice Joan’s background fabric above? No? Good. That means it did it’s job of showing off the leaves. Brava!

Teaching via computer means I can’t easily see the student’s quilts as they’re working. There are ways for them to show me, but if they’re confidently working away, I don’t ask to see their progress. Such was the case with Nancy. Therefore, I was floored when she showed us this at the end of day one. She did a great job of playing up the contrast and adding depth.

Then, on day two, she did this. Whoa, Nancy, you’re making me look good!

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of Pat’s project. She had a lively yellow flower well underway.

I always say that this is my favorite class to teach because the students learn so much. That definitely held true with this group and I’m itching to teach it again! (Hint, hint: here’s the info if you think your guild might be interested.)

Ellen Lindner, proud teacher

Round Two

By Ellen Lindner on January 19, 2021 in Uncategorized

After a disappointing attempt at making a quilt featuring my large-scaled hand dyed fabrics, I dramatically down sized and tried again.

This time I switched the color proportions, using turquoise as my primary color and fuchsia as the accent. I still found it hard to incorporate the leaf fabric. Maybe because it had a lighter background? As you can see, I quickly over worked it.

Have you heard the saying, “If something’s not working out (visually) remove your favorite thing?” Yeah. I slowly considered that I might need to remove the fuchsia leaf fabric and eventually did so, (reluctantly.) And, of course, things got much easier after that.

The background progressed well and I was very happy with it. It even showed off my fabrics, right?

On to a focal point. And I had the perfect specialty fabric for it.

But one strip of perfect fabric clearly couldn’t carry the whole piece. I knew I’d have to cut it into pieces to add some energy and to improve the composition.

BTW, I’m calling this “The robbing Peter to Pay Paul photo.” It shows what’s left of the original composition on the left design wall, as I reworked it on the right, using many of the previously cut fabrics.

OK, so I needed to mix things up a little. I decided to expand the color palette and to add additional smallish pieces. A quick audition confirmed this as the correct direction. Didn’t it gain a lot of energy from that?

I committed to cutting smaller shapes and I was really liking where this was going.

I was getting close. After finalizing the arrangement, I took lots of photos of the accent pieces and lifted them all off. Then I quilted the background with straight lines. At one point I put the background back on the design wall, but accidentally got it upside down (below.) I decided I liked that better.

Here’s the final arrangement pinned, and ready for gluing, then stitching/quilting.

I’ve had quite a time thinking of a name. Any suggestions? I’m leaning toward Underwater Dance, Shallow Water Dance, or just Water Dance. Do you think any of those work?

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Don’t you love my new lights on my design walls? I LOVE them!!! (See more of my recent studio revamp on my video page.)

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt

By Ellen Lindner on January 14, 2021 in Uncategorized

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a specialty fabric or two can be the primary inspiration for an entire quilt. And that’s what I wanted to try.

This is sort of what I had in mind. I had intentionally dyed some large scale fabrics in order to try my hand at this. Plus, I had a few from earlier dye sessions. I thought I could do something with these, keeping the large scale pieces more or less intact, so their designs would still show.

I put my muslin support fabric up on my design wall (nearly 4′ x 5′) and started auditioning fabrics. I almost immediately removed the large circles from the mix since I thought the colors looked a little muddy.

Hmm. I could see that the light blue fabric with fuchsia leaves was standing out A LOT. What to do? (Note that all fabrics are just folded and pinned in place at this point.)

I made the highlight fabric smaller. And, of course, added the circles back. (Can you say “trial and error?)

I was loving the colors, but the composition was definitely lacking. I thought it needed some variety of scale, so I made some small units with scraps. (These are just glued to one another.)

Well, they look pretty exciting don’t they? But, how to best use them?

Those little pieces definitely added energy, but everything was looking pretty messy at this point. I decided I needed to commit to CUTTING fabrics, so I could see it all better.

Which is when I realized I had gotten way off track.

I was loving the colors, but I was having a terrible time using those large scale prints. Finally, I decided that my fabrics just weren’t large enough for this size quilt.

So, I started again, at about one quarter the original size.

I could immediately see that this was much more viable. On to round two.

BTW, I don’t fret when I have to rework something. Each “detour,” as I call them, has value. I learn from them. Typically, I’m excited to use that new knowledge as I plow ahead into the next thing.

How do you react to restarts?

Ellen Lindner

Those Circles!

By Ellen Lindner on December 6, 2020 in Uncategorized

Jeepers! I feel like the poster child for trial and error! While working on my latest quilt I had quite a difficult time deciding on what color to make one of the design elements.

The issue was the white circles, as seen below. I loved their shape and placement, but I could see that they attracted too much attention. I needed to tone down the contrast.

So, I started auditioning a variety of other colors. Yellow?

No. I figured it should be a lighter or darker version of one of the colors already in the quilt. Pink?

Nope. Pale aqua?

Uh-uh. Enough of these pastels. What about something bright?

Hmm. Not too bad. (Actually, I tried brighter orange fabrics and they seemed a little too much to me.) How about dark red?

I like this well enough to cut out the shapes.

Well, they were no longer attracting attention, but now I wondered if they showed up enough!

I FINALLY went back to orange, now in more subdued versions.

Would you believe it? I now thought the orange didn’t show up enough. Maybe I should add some darker hand stitching around each one.

Maybe. Or would lighter thread provide more contrast?

Never one to make life easy for myself, I ripped out the dark stitching and redid it with yellow. I was FINALLY happy with it.

Whew! I’m giving myself a gold star!

What do you deserve a gold star for? Let me know and I’ll email you one.

Ellen Lindner

“Diversity”

By Ellen Lindner on November 16, 2020 in Uncategorized

When making Melting Pot, I was also considering whether I might have time to make a smaller quilt for another challenge. As Melting Pot grew, I decided to make it smaller and to use the remaining parts for this smaller quilt. Diversity is the result.

It was made for an exhibit called “1 x 4: Imagination.” As you can see, 1 x 4 refers to the dimensions: 1 foot wide and 4 feet tall. I modified the shape of the top and bottom, an effect I really like.

Like its sister quilt, Diversity was pieced improvisationally (with no pattern.)

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few months shifting my teaching to online. That was a BIG time commitment and I didn’t have much time for creativity. Now, things have settled down and I’m easing back into quilt designing. Surprisingly, I had a little artistic block when I came back to it. I think that’s because I was so focused on black and white tasks for so many months, and my creative muscles were out of practice. Has that every happened to you? Now, I feel those old creative juices beginning to flow and it’s so much fun!

Ellen Lindner

Floral Improv “in” Ann Arbor

By Ellen Lindner on September 26, 2020 in Uncategorized

It sure is great to be able to interact with students and teach, via Zoom, to people across the country. I recently taught “Floral Improv” to a group of students in the Ann Arbor, MI area. They all did an excellent job and these late-in-the-day screen shots are proof.

Woah, Grace got a LOT of flowers and foliage cut and placed, didn’t she? She’ll add black stitching to the flowers to add interest.

Working alongside her was her young friend, Emma. She’s only been sewing a few months, but she had no problems with a new technique.

Claudia’s colors were actually much more vibrant that this, but this gives you an idea. (Claudia, I cropped you out because your eyes were closed.)

Laura settled on her flower colors pretty quickly, but was still auditioning foliage fabrics late in the day. (The down side of having access to ALL your fabric when taking a class at home?)

Mary wanted her flowers to be the stars so she opted for very low contrast foliage. Can you see that she’s added black stitching to some of her poppies, already?

Lynne’s vibrant background fabric added another level of energy to her composition.

Showing me their work can be tricky, but Mary Beth had it figured out. She took a photograph with her phone and held it up to the web camera. Where there’s a will there’s a way!

Amy’s composition included a bird and a butterfly on her background fabric. They went well with her acid greens.

Jean is already outlining her palest flowers to add contrast. Can you see where she’s done it already? It really makes a difference.

Don’t you love how Wanda brought in a few flowers arcing down from the top right?

Nico got especially creative. She clustered her flowers and made a vase for them. A very nice option!

I had a fabulous day with these ladies and I think they’d say the same. It was SO wonderful to interact in this way after so many months of near isolation!

I strongly encourage your guild to get on the “Zoom wagon,” with me, or with some other teacher. It’s just way too much fun. If a workshop seems scary, start with just a lecture.

Information about my presentations.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. In this class students learn how to make two different types of flowers with no patterns. Then, they learn about composition and arrange their flowers. Leaves and stems are added last, and quilting begins. Students have already learned how to stitch their poppies with black thread in order to make them look more dimensional. Before you know it, it’s completely done.

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

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Tag Archives | Design

Inspired by a Christmas Cactus

Designing in Venice, FL

Round Two

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt

Those Circles!

“Diversity”

Floral Improv “in” Ann Arbor

Thinking About a New Class

Trees or Skyscrapers?

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