Tag Archives | Dirty Dozen

“Toast and Jam”

By Ellen Lindner on July 20, 2022 in Uncategorized

Remember that ugly exercise that I’ve been considering? This is the portion of my ugly painted which I selected as my inspiration for a small quilt.

I played around with the individual elements in the computer and, at one point, accidentally colored the background red. Which I liked!

So, I started pulling fabrics and got to work. Actually, I got to work in a hotel room. This was my set up. Construction on the coffee table and Netflix on my laptop. With the iron at the perfect height, of course.

Once home, I stitched the background and fused up a bunch of fabrics for the background squares. (I fuse very seldom.)

I noticed that some of my lovely squares were attracting a lot of attention. I knew that wouldn’t work in the end, so I had to swap them out.

Eventually, I was happy with the background and started with the part I DID want to attract attention: the wonky open squares. This is a detail shot.

I added a little hand stitching, but that was difficult through the fused fabrics.

Here’s the full quilt, Toast and Jam, 24″ x 24″.

This was fun to work on, but I think I’m ready for something other than red!

This piece is available for $195 US. Contact me if you’re interested.

Ellen Lindner

Textures and Tales in Ormond Beach

By Ellen Lindner on June 22, 2022 in Uncategorized

The “Stitched, Stamped, and Sculpted” exhibit, currently on display in the Ormond Memorial Art Museum, has some really fabulous work.

Liz Canali has several felted and highly textured pieces in the show. They are all done in neutral colors of cream and grey. This is her piece The Lore of the Stones – Granite.

And a detail shot.

Pretty cool, right?

Normajean Brevik’s embellished piece is also very intriguing. It’s called Seeing Red Again #5.

The most mixed-media and 3D piece in the show is Gertrude, by Sandy Shenker. This piece is about 5′ high, with a gourd as a head, fabric-covered PVC pipes as legs, and many more unusual and ingenious uses of materials.

Sandy has also included a photo book showing how it was all put together. It’s very informative and definitely worth perusing.

My art group, Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists, was invited to show our group work, Measure of a Woman. These are self-portraits, each the height of the maker. The museum did a fabulous job hanging them, as you can see. Being the shortest in any group, mine is the red one on the left. (See a better image)

Texture and Tales in Ormond Beach. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

L-R artists: Ellen Lindner, Marilyn Seibring, Ruth Anne Parker, Dij Pacarro, Laura Ruiz, Jill Brown, Sandy Shenker, Gabriele DiTota, Becky Stack, Kathryn Robinson

On opening night the audience was very interested in the art. Here, Regina Dunn is talking with a few admirers about her Transformation pieces.

But, this photo gives you a better idea of the energy and enthusiasm in the room. (This is one of four rooms in the exhibit space.)

The exhibit will be up through August 14th. I hope you get to see it!

Ellen Lindner

“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.

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?

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.

“She Looked for Blessings and Found Them” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on May 7, 2020 in Uncategorized

She Looked for Blessings and Found Them is the tile of my just completed self-portrait. Here’s a photo of the full quilt. It’s height matches my own, at 60″. And it’s 12″ wide.

She Looked for Blessings and Found Them
(A self-portrait)

What makes this piece special are the statements I’ve stitched in telling things I’ve done over the years. Some are cute and others are not so complimentary, but the combination gives a good insight into who I am.

I hope you’ll check out all the detail shots which show these statements and really tell the story.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. See this quilt in-progress.

A Self-Portrait in Red

By Ellen Lindner on May 2, 2020 in Uncategorized

My art quilt group, the Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists, have a really interesting challenge going on. We’re all making self-portraits, each the height of the maker. Isn’t that a cool idea? They also have to be skinny: no more than 12″ wide.

I wanted to include a lot of text in mine, stating my characteristics or attributes. I decided a composition with horizontal lines would lend itself to this. But, I also wanted to add my own head. That was surprisingly difficult, but I finally got it.

Working on my design wall, the horizontal RED stripes became my body. I used my hand dyed fabrics, paying attention to scattering in a variety of patterns and scales. But, I also aimed for a lot of quiet (near solid) areas that would show off text.

My primary design wall is only 4′ tall, so I had to work on my alternate one, above. It’s 7′ tall and I’m only 5′ so it provided plenty of room. (BTW, the bump on the top of my head will be lost in the trimming and seam allowance. I always want the design to extend into the seam allowance, so the bump acheives that.)

I initially planned to use orange in the background around my head. But, I worried that it didn’t provide enough contrast. A quick audition confirmed the problem.

I tried again with blue-green. Much better.

The height of this piece meant that I was frequently working above my head. S-T-R-E-T-C-H.

This is what it looked like with the composition complete. No stitching or text yet. I was very happy with it!

When selecting the text for my self-portrait I switched from attributes to actions. I selected some cute and complimentary things, but also some not-so-flattering confessions. I printed out everything in a variety of fonts and began to audition placement.

I transferred the text to the unquilted quilt. Then, I quilted it with horizontal lines. And finally, I started hand stitching the text.

Oh my, that took a LONG time!!! (I think I’ll use marker next time.)

Now it’s almost complete and you’ll find it on my website soon.

Ellen Lindner

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Tag Archives | Dirty Dozen

“Toast and Jam”

Textures and Tales in Ormond Beach

“Prayer” Flags for Ukraine

More Work from the Dirty Dozen Exhibit

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

Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists: Live and On Stage!

“She Looked for Blessings and Found Them” Complete

A Self-Portrait in Red

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