Tag Archives | Raw Edge Collage

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

“The quilt gets better looking every day.”

By Ellen Lindner on November 30, 2020 in Uncategorized

These are the words a delighted customer used after installing her purchase in her home. Take a look.

Doesn’t it look like it was made to go there?

Her beautiful kitchen has recently been remodeled and I think Vine Ripened looks great in this environment!

One of the things that convinced her to make this purchase was my 14 day audition policy. Any purchase can be returned within 14 days, no questions asked. It’s risk-free buying and I think that’s important with artwork. You need to be able to see it in your setting!

Let me know if you see something you’d like to audition.

Ellen Lindner

I Almost Forgot

By Ellen Lindner on November 28, 2020 in Uncategorized

My raw edge collage techniques involves lots of layering. Sometimes perfectly wonderful fabrics get covered by something else later. However, I don’t typically rescue those underneath fabrics. Instead, I tell myself that I bought the fabric to use and if it’s function is to support later fabrics, and to give me flexibility then it has served me in a useful way.

But, on my current quilt, there’s a large shape that landed on top of the background. See what I mean?

So, I decided to rescue the red section underneath the largest turquoise shape. Both the red and turquoise sections were built on – and glued to – muslin, so I knew I could easily separate them.

But then I forgot.

Meanwhile, I started quilting the background, even though there were still foreground elements to be added. This was a logistical decision, since it will help me avoid all the starting and stopping that would otherwise be necessary to dodge all the things I intend to add.

About halfway through I remembered my earlier plans. So, I pulled up the batting as best I could on the lower portion. Some of it was already stitched down.

As you can see, I cut away the red portion, where able.

And I found two pins still stuck into that fabric! Good thing I did. I’ve had to cut them out a few times in the past.

But, since I was cutting from the back, I didn’t judge well and I actually cut into the background in the area I wanted to keep. Gulp!

But, since I work in raw edge collage, and quick patch took care of that.

Back to quilting!

Ellen Lindner

More “Croton Story” Leaves

By Ellen Lindner on May 22, 2020 in Uncategorized

I’m apparently quite enamored with these 3D Croton Leaves. They’re all part of a larger series (or installation?) called A Croton Story. Here’s Chapter 3.

And a detail shot.

I hope you can tell that the two halves of the leaf sort of fold up around the central vein, but with quite a bit of downward curl on each side. These have wire inside to achieve that and are pretty rigid. The one above is about 24″ long.

Here’s Chapter 4.

It’s only about 20″ long.

I’m getting to be pretty speedy at making these. That’s a good thing, because I want to make several more. I have visions of them all being seen together as an installation so I MUST add the needed colors! I’m having fun!

These are quick studio shots. The official ones will take quite a bit of editing to get that shadow right. (Very tricky.) I’ll add them to my website soon.

I hope you’re finding entertainment for yourself during this very unusual time.

Ellen Lindner

“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.

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

A Fabric Book

By Ellen Lindner on September 29, 2019 in Uncategorized

My friend, Marilyn, taught our fiber art group how to make fabric books. Hers were lovely, with pale pages, lots of embellishments, and amazing contents.

I had just whacked off a good bit of an already quilted quilt and thought that piece would make a good start for the cover. This is what it looked like when freshly trimmed. (From the bottom of this quilt.)

And here it is as the book cover, front (right) and back (left.)

I added hand embroidery to both covers.

I initially planned to leave the edges unfinished, but later added hand buttonhole stitching, which I really like.

Knowing that I would probably add colorful items to my book, I chose black for the pages.

The pages are about 6″ square with one layer of batting between two pieces of fabric. The batting gives it some body. But, maybe the coolest thing about the structure of the book is that it’s made with signatures. These are groups of pages that are sewn as one into the spine of a book. In this case there are 3 signatures, creating 6 pages. The signatures are attached with a space between them, (1/2″ here,) which creates a flat spine. A very nice shape.

For my content I plan to add little samples and things I’ve done over the years, as well as ones I’ll do in the future.

This first page shows a sample I did of cording made on the machine.

Isn’t the knot cool?

The only other page I’ve done is one I did after the book was constructed. The batting layer makes it easy to slip a needle around without having stitches and knots showing on the back. A nice feature.

This little book was quick to make and I look forward to adding little things to it.

Other bookish things I’ve tried:
Mixed media book
A book using tea bags
A video about how to make an accordion book

Ellen Lindner

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Tag Archives | Raw Edge Collage

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt

Those Circles!

“The quilt gets better looking every day.”

I Almost Forgot

More “Croton Story” Leaves

“She Looked for Blessings and Found Them” Complete

Thinking About a New Class

Trees or Skyscrapers?

Retreat Project

A Fabric Book

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