Tag Archives | Experimenting/Arting

Drastic Reconfiguration

By Ellen Lindner on November 10, 2022 in Uncategorized

I “blame” Pat Pauly. I was watching a video in which she was teaching about color. In it, she was switching fabrics on and off of her design wall, showing how different combinations might work. Or not. It was mesmerizing!

I looked across the top of my laptop toward my design wall and KNEW that my current quilt needed a big dose of what she was describing. At the end of the video, I jumped up, with Adrenalin surging, and started throwing fabrics onto my quilt in-progress.

Bam! The very first fabric added energy and excitement. Yes! This was the kind of thing that was needed!

Ooh, this next one had possibilities.

Hmm. Interesting (above.)

Of course, I knew the large circles would work, since I had just used them in the previous quilt. But, I didn’t want to mimic the first quilt, so I’d have to be careful if using this fabric. It does look good, though, doesn’t it?

More large circles, some navy, and white. Yes, possibilities.

Two blues?

Of course, I could add more than one fabric and that’s what I decided to do. To improve the quilt I knew I’d have to take apart some of the twiggy bits, but I was willing to do that.

Cuz it already looks more interesting, right?

Thanks, Pat!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. I’ve taken several classes with Pat and I’ve always gotten a lot out of them. I recommend her as a teacher and her hand dyed fabrics (which are for sale) are to “dye” for!

“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

Taking Chances, Learning New Things

By Ellen Lindner on July 1, 2022 in Uncategorized

I love to teach about art quilting and I consider my niche market to be traditional quilters who want some guidance as they move into art quilting. When I mentioned this on The Quilt Show, Alex Anderson was intrigued and we talked more about it on an episode of her podcast.

Video link. (A thirty minute video with me at about 6:30)

And since then, I’ve continued to think about it.

First, why learn new things?
– Humans are designed to learn. We enjoy learning. It’s exhilirating!
– New skills are useful, of course. But, the very act of learning enhances our creativity. We benefit from this activity even if we never actively use the new information!

(What I learned from this ugly painting)

But, what about wasting fabric, time, and money?
– It’s not a waste. You bought that fabric to enhance your quilting journey. If it ends up teaching you something, but it doesn’t end up in a masterpiece, it was still useful to you! Just in a different way than you may have imagined.
– And the same goes for your time. You’re not taking time away from making “good” quilts, just because you spend time learning something new. In fact, you will gain skill, efficiency, and confidence due to that investment of time.
– And the money? Of course, you want to invest your quilting dollars wisely. Thankfully, there are many good and inexpensive classes available online and elsewhere. (#See resources)

Individual Retreat Projects. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

My scraps at a retreat. You gotta make scraps to make a quilt! It’s not wasteful.

How do I select an appropriate class? And a skilled teacher? (#See resources)
– What is it you want to learn? Look for a teacher who’s routinely doing that.
– Ask your friends for suggestions on that topic and do some online searching. Read everything about the class, including the supply list, and the suggested skill level, if mentioned. Look for a gallery of student results.
– Email the teacher if you have any questions!
– Look for a teacher with expertise. (And if learning via Zoom, check on the teacher’s experience with this, as well.) Has she been on a prominant quilting show? These shows do their homework and will likely choose the best teachers. Is his schedule pretty full, so you know he’s in demand? Can you find the teacher on one of the group teaching sites? (#See resources?)
– What can you learn from the teacher’s website? Are there student testimonials or student galleries? Are there social media posts about teaching?
– Again, email the teacher if you have any questions.

I love Pat Pauly’s work, so jumped at the chance to take a 5 day class with her. This was my favorite fabric from the class, still wet.

Finally, EMBRACE this new experience!
– Do all the class prep required. But, don’t save it all till the last minute. Consider adding extra fabric.
– Go to class with an open mind. Remind yourself that the experience is worthwhile, not just the project you make.
– Trust the teacher. Follow her directions, even if you usually do things differently.
– Recognize that you’ll feel a little out of your comfort zone. That’s always true when learning isn’t it? It’s normal.
– Chances are good that you’ll be really happy with your class project. But if not, you’ll know that it taught you something, nevertheless. My favorite quote relates to this: “If you never fail you’re not experimenting enough.”

A recent “failure.” I didn’t waste my time or fabric. They both helped me answer my question.

I LOVE to learn! (And to teach.) I hope you’ll take an exhilirating class and enjoy it immensely. And if you do, I’d love to hear about it.

Resources:
Global Quilt Connection: This directory is geared toward guilds, but you’ll find LOTS of capable teachers, all with listings of their offerings.
Craftsy on-demand quilt classes
My own on-demand classes

Enjoy your learning adventure!
Ellen Lindner
P.S. See me on The Quilt Show, episode 3007. (You have to be a member, but there’s a free 7 day trial)
P.P.S. If you can afford a multi-day class I highly recommend it. Check out Quilt Surface Design Symposium (OH,) Quilting by the Lake (NY,) and Empty Spools Seminars (CA.)

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.

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

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.

If You Never Fail You’re Not Experimenting Enough

By Ellen Lindner on February 25, 2022 in Uncategorized

I’m not sure where I heard that quote, but I agree with it. And, I’ve been doing plenty of experimenting lately. Yes, you guessed it: I created a big ~~failure~~ rough draft.

I’ve been doing quite a few abstract quilts in a style I call “Slice and Dice.” As the name implies, I slice into fabrics and rearrange them back together in different – and hopefully more interesting – arrangements.

Like this:

A Little Bit Tart

And this:

On the Road to Home

The fabrics I’ve used have been hand dyed, which definitely add to the design of these busy quilts. So, when friends suggested that I teach the technique I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it because of the unique nature of my fabric selections.

Still, I decided to give it a shot. I bought an ombre fabric with several colors in it and fabrics in all the colors. This was my starting point.

I cut each fabric in predetermined sizes and joined them in pairs. I took meticulous notes so I’d be able to teach exactly what to do.

Each pair was then altered, either by adding a skinny pieced line, or by cutting and rearranging the pieces.

I did that OVER and OVER. And OVER and OVER. After a while I realized that no student would want to spend this long altering the blocks. I didn’t enjoy it either. So much for teaching it.

But, I thought I could at least make it into a good sample in case I figured out the teaching angle down the road. I worked and worked, but the white fabric and the dark colors just stood out too much. I sliced into them repeatedly, trying to whittle them down to what I considered the correct proportion. But, eventually, I had such an abundance of bulky seam allowances that the whole thing was barely sewable.

I decided to cut my losses.

This is where I ended up. It was taking a lot of time and it wasn’t getting better. I just stopped.

Do I have angst or regret about tackling this project? No, just the opposite, actually. I had a question and I needed to work it through to find the answer. Now I know the answer. Plus, I recognize the time I spent problem solving and trying new things will make me more creative in the future. I didn’t waste my time and I didn’t waste my fabric. The fabric served a useful purpose, even though it wasn’t the one I imagined.

I feel strongly about the importance of experimentation, which is why I call myself the Adventure Quilter.

~~Have you “failed” at anything lately?~~ (Actually, I don’t call them failures. They’re “rough drafts,” or “experiments.”) Any recent rough drafts?

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Click the title of this blog to see it without the rest of the blog posts. This will reveal several links below which will take you to several other posts showing high levels of experimentation on my part. Beware: rabbit holes ahead!

More Dyeing Results

By Ellen Lindner on January 25, 2022 in Uncategorized

When dyeing fabric, it’s not at all unusual for me to wash out a fabric, decide it needs more, treat it (again) with soda ash, and continue on. Such was the case with this one. The eyeballs/ovals on this piece were originally pale yellow. Well, that was just creepy! It looked like a lot of animals watching you from the dark. I added a pale blue throughout, which gave me pale green and blue “eyeballs.” Much better!

Earlier, I used the dirty stencil with clear paste to get this. I think it will be very useful as a “white.”

This one is a deconstructed screen print. At the end of my previous dye session, I had drawn some orange lines onto a stencil and let them dry. Then, during my recent dye session, I used that screen with a sort of berry color. Initially, the dry lines acted as a resist and I got white stripes. But then, they began to dissolve (deconstruct) and I got orange stripes. Pretty cool, I think.

There are so many options when dyeing fabric!

Ellen Lindner

Learning about Dyeing – Still

By Ellen Lindner on January 20, 2022 in Uncategorized

I’m beginning to realize that dyeing fabric is an endless process of learning. Although I can now predict much better what my results might be, I still miss the mark pretty routinely. And, of course, I’m still trying new things, so I can always count on surprises with that.

But it sure is a heck of a lot of fun. In part for these very reasons. The unpredictability is exciting. Case in point:

I was pretty happy with this print, seen here wet.

I should have remembered that the colors would be MUCH paler once dry. Indeed that was the case and I dyed it again with stronger versions of the same colors. I also covered a little more of the white with that second round.

And, it still wasn’t dark enough so I repeated the process. This time, however, I wasn’t disciplined enough to leave the white alone. So, t his is what I got.

The colors are strong, which is what I wanted, but it would definitely be more usable if I had left some white. Maybe I’ll stamp some on.

Next, I tried using clear thickened paste as a resist.

It actually worked pretty well. This is the back, shown below. The pattern shows up better than on the front, but I’m not sure how pretty it is. I think I’ll aim for a more delicate design next time.

Still learning. And loving it.

Ellen Lindner

Slicing and Dicing: Now Where Was I?

By Ellen Lindner on December 27, 2021 in Uncategorized

After starting a new quilt at a retreat, it was time to continue at home. Now, where was I? Something like this.

I studied the arrangement and knew I wanted to change a few things. (Remember the abundance of that favorite fabric bottom left?) While that was percolating in my brain, I looked for areas that needed a little more energy. I altered a few with skinny lines.

Notice the black “horizontal” line on the left of this unit. Can you see it’s been altered to be jagged? All I did was add 2 tucks in the back. That added some character, but also made the unit 1″ skinnier.

What should go where? There never seems to be a RIGHT answer. Just interesting ones. Like this top right corner. If I were to use this piece, which way should it go?

Sometimes there’s a structural reason to do things, for instance if too many seams are coming together in one spot. But, generally, I go with whatever fits best or appeals to me most at the moment. I do study things a lot as I go! (See what I did with this piece in the last photo, top right corner.)

Remember how, at the retreat, I gathered all the brightest fabrics near the center? I liked that, but realized I’d never really considered any other alternatives. Before I got too far along I decided to audition the pieces with blue in the center.

Interesting. But not better. I stuck with what I had.

I continued altering, adding, slicing when needed, and getting things to fit. Here it is nearly complete, with four big units ready to be sewn together. I was quite happy with it.

Quilting soon!

BTW (by the way,) I generally think about names as I’m working on a piece. This one reminds me of light through spring leaves. Hmm, Canopy? Spring? Dappled Light? Your thoughts?

Ellen Lindner

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Tag Archives | Experimenting/Arting

Drastic Reconfiguration

“Toast and Jam”

Taking Chances, Learning New Things

Super Cool UGLY Exercise

My Episode on “The Quilt Show”

Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists: Live and On Stage!

If You Never Fail You’re Not Experimenting Enough

More Dyeing Results

Learning about Dyeing – Still

Slicing and Dicing: Now Where Was I?

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