Blog – Page 41 of 63 – Adventure Quilter

“Crotons with Attitude”

By Ellen Lindner on May 23, 2018 in Uncategorized

I belong to SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) which has an auction each fall as a fund raiser. Members are asked to donate 12″ x 12″ quilts which are auctioned off online. I wanted to participate but was a little pressed for time. Therefore, I decided to revisit an earlier quilt idea.

I decided to loosely mimic this quilt, When Crotons Cut Loose.

The quilt above came about quite easily. I had some fused scraps and I wondered if they could be used for croton leaves. When I placed them along an imaginary stem line, I loved their wacky shapes, so I decided to use them “as is,” with very little modification. I did something very similar as I put together my new composition.

I really like the irregular edges. Don’t they have lots of energy?

Once the composition was fused in place, I quilted the background in a grid (made easy by the background fabric.) Then, I pondered adding some hand stitching and decided to do so.

I’m very happy with this little quilt. These crotons really do look like they have some sassy attitudes, don’t they?

There will be hundreds of awesome quilts in the upcoming auction. Check out the early ones and learn more about the auction process here. I’ll let you know when it actually starts.

Ellen Lindner

“Initial Response” is Settled into its New Home

By Ellen Lindner on May 17, 2018 in Uncategorized

Remember this quilt, which I completed recently?

Initial Response

It sold almost right away to an artist friend of mine. She says it “nagged” at her for several weeks after first seeing it, so she knew she had to have it. And also that it would fit their new home very well.

And boy does it.

Isn’t it perfect with the lively pops of color?

I love their eclectic and colorful decor, including the lively chameleon painting to the left of the quilt. (It was done by the home owner.) Isn’t this room joyful and fun?

I’m so delighted to see this quilt in its new home! I feel like this sale is a win-win for everyone. As any sale should be.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Would you like to see more quilts in their final environments?

Pink Stitching on Blue Indigo

By Ellen Lindner on May 15, 2018 in Uncategorized

I’ve really enjoyed adding hand stitching to my indigo piece. I selected three colors of embroidery floss and used them alternately. I started with a simple running stitch in the chevron area, later backed up with a stem stitch. Machine quilting was later added to play up the chevron pattern.

I also used stem stitching to play up the undulating ripples in one of the shibori areas.

The other shibori area got stitching in the “base” area only. Back stitch this time.

Then it was time for French knots sprinkled in a random area. I love these!

And my favorite: rows of blanket stitching. This creates a look similar to netting, which I think is very effective.

Don’t you like the way it undulates? I wish I had done more of that. Combining rows like this was new to me. Have you seen it before?

All this slow stitching gave me plenty of time to think about what should come next, and I ended up taking a fairly radical turn which I’ll show you soon.

Ellen Lindner

Planning a New Class Sample

By Ellen Lindner on May 8, 2018 in Uncategorized

I really enjoy teaching my class “Design Your Own Nature Quilt!” In it, students learn about design and composition, then use their own photos to create a quilt. The results are always great and the process is exhilarating. (Actually, the process can also be a little intimidating but the students are told to pack their artistic courage, so it works out well.)

The only downside to this class is that I keep selling the class samples. Finding myself in that situation, once again, I’m about to make a new one. I thought you’d like to see a little about my process, so I’ll be posting about it here on my blog.

This is my inspiration photo.

Don’t you love the bright colors and back lighting? It’s great, but is this the best composition for a small quilt? Since the flowers are vertical, would a vertical composition be better? And, do I really want to create ALL those flowers in a small scale? Maybe I’d prefer something like this.

Look closely. This is more than just a crop. Things have been moved around a little. When doing so, I thought about focal points, sweet spots, balance, weight, and contrast, all things students learn in this class.

And this is my loose sketch. (copyrighted)

I like it. Soon, I’ll be composing the background with a variety of green and blue-green fabrics. Keep watching and send me your questions.

Also, I’ll be teaching this class online soon. See full details.

Ellen Lindner

Composing with Indigo

By Ellen Lindner on May 5, 2018 in Uncategorized

Being blessed with a bunch of indigo fabrics, I was ready to make an art piece with them. I knew I’d like to add an accent color, but which one? After some auditioning, I decided on the pink/orange family.

But, how to best use these wonderful designs? I didn’t really want to cut into them, and several were in squarish proportions. I decided on a gridded composition with three vertical columns. This shows an early arrangement, incomplete.

I added in some dull pink. (Dull, because I didn’t want it to shine more than the indigo fabrics.)

And the almost-finished composition, pinned. I was happy with it. But, maybe the pink had too many dull spots?

I auditioned a brighter pink.

I liked it much better EXCEPT I thought it probably needed to be thinner. I auditioned the idea.

Yep. Much better. But, I had a problem. Most of this was already glued, so I couldn’t easily rearrange things. How could I make the pink stripes thinner? I decided to sew a tuck in the back of each, through the muslin support and all. Can you see the seam below?

That worked. As you can see, I also added some hand embroidery. I’ll have more detail shots of that in the next post.

Ellen Lindner

Fragrance-Free Flowers

By Ellen Lindner on April 29, 2018 in Uncategorized

What an unexpedted delight. My sewing group meets in a local library and when we walked in today we were greeted with this new art installation.

Aren’t they great? There was a recent class about making these flowers and I guess this was the collective result.

They’re made from paper and each one is about the size of a dinner plate.

I’m thinking there must be a way to do something similar with fabric. You could stiffen the fabric, right? Or maybe use something already fairly sturdy. Felt, maybe? Perhaps I’ll investigate.

Ellen Lindner

“Mid-October” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on April 25, 2018 in Uncategorized

Well, here it is, version two now complete: Mid-October.

"Mid-October" complete. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

After completely finishing AND photographing version one, I began to think it was too dark. It just didn’t remind me of the bright fall colors I was going for.

See what I mean? (Actually, the two quilts photographed slightly differently, but I think you can see the duller patches throughout.)

Leaf Quilt Complete - Maybe. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com

What do do at this stage? I “painted” over several spots with Inktense color blocks. (See the detail shot.) To my eye it’s much better.

Have you ever painted over a completed quilt? This is not my first time around that particular block.

Ellen Lindner

Leaf Quilt Complete – Maybe

By Ellen Lindner on April 23, 2018 in Uncategorized

Working on this quilt inspired by fall foliage, I added many more little orange bits.

Hmm, maybe I got carried away there. I removed a few and it looked better.

And here it is finished, called Mid-October.

I liked it. But something was bothering me.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Have you ever had that nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right?

That Fabric Again

By Ellen Lindner on April 18, 2018 in Uncategorized

Remember the great fabric I used in my quilt Initial Response? I still had half of it, ready to use on the next project. This portion made me think of fall leaves, with the twigs and branches of trees peeking through. Can you see it?

That was enough to get me started. From there I cut it into 9 pieces. (Not square, of course.) If you look closely, you can see the cuts, above.

I decided the feature fabric should be about 1/4 of the quilt design, which helped me determine the size.

I put 4 of my 9 pieces in the corners and scattered the others throughout. Then I started filling in with fabrics from my stash, both commercial and hand dyed.

Soon, I had this. “Not bad,” I thought.

I added a little more interest with some small snippets of plaids and stripes. And then began to audition twig fabrics and widths. I decided most of them would need to be pretty skinny.

I added QUITE A FEW twigs and was happy with the results.

As I thought more about fall leaves I realized I should probably add some color variations. I tried several fabrics in the orange family. Some were very bright and sort of took over. Maybe I could still use them in small pieces. Others were too dull and were removed from consideration.