Adventure Quilter

Check out these final projects from my “Design Your Own Nature Quilt” class in Stuart, FL.  Keep in mind:  they only had about 2 1/2 hours to work with fabric.  Look what they accomplished in those few hours!

Cathy started with a nice photo of cone flowers.

She decided to add another one, which filled out the composition well.

Scaling up is always a little tricky, but Cathy quickly got the hang of it.  Some of her “too small” petals were the perfect size for a different flower.

Look at Cathy’s inspiration photo again, and notice the great texture found in the flower centers.  Cathy will replicate that with hand stitching.  She’ll also add some shadows with colored pencils.  I can’t wait to see it!

Carol worked with a photo of a pineapple.  She was able to capture the little green rims to each section with an easy technique.  After cutting the yellow part, she placed green fabric underneath and cut again, slightly larger.  Easy and effective!

Ingrid’s photo included the beautiful body language of a (?) snowy egret.  She’ll need to make a pattern for that.

But, she got her water and mangroves almost finished.

“Jagged cutting” was perfect for water ripples.  See my demo photo below.  The idea is to purposely scrunch the fabric into the blades of your scissors while cutting.  I use it a lot!

Perlie started with an awesome photo taken in a national park.

She made good progress and really created a great sense of light and shadow.  She took my advice regarding the technical side of those small black shadows.  Rather than fiddling with little tiny black pieces, she cut a slit in the adjacent brown, creating a crevice locarion.  Then, she tucked a much bigger piece of black underneath, leaving just a tiny bit showing.

Here’s Joey’s photo, a very colorful croton.

She brought enough fabric to work twice as big as her classmates.  Which means it took her a lot longer to create the background.  She did a great job, though.  Can you see how bright green POPS against these dark reds and purples?

To create the yellow rim to her leaves she’ll use the same outlining technique Carol used on her pineapple.  And, for the central vein, she’ll use the same slit technique Perlie used on her cliff face.

This is my favorite class to teach.  Can you see why?  The students learn so much and get such an Adrenalin surge as they successfully tackle new skills!  It’s a huge kick fore me, too!  Let me know if your guild would like to join in the fun.

Ellen Lindner

Exhilarating.  That’s the best word to describe my recent class in Stuart, FL.  Students came to our “Design  Your Own Nature Quilt” class with their inspiration fabrics, lots of fabric and quite a bit of artistic courage.  After a morning learning about design and sketching their planned compositions, they got to work.  And every one of them made excellent progress!

Before I show you their results, take a look at all the fabric Theresa brought!  Yes, folks, that IS a laundry basket.  She wins the prize for “Most fabric brought to class.  Ever.”  As you might imagine, she received quite a bit of good-natured ribbing about this.

Speaking of Theresa, this was her inspiration photo.

And this was her quilt after a few hours of work.  We also spent some time selecting patterned fabrics for the center section.  She’ll add shadows with darker fabrics and it will be fantastic!

Maureen used a very interesting photo, taken in Ireland, if I remember correctly.  Because of the complexity, she cropped it quite a bit.  This is consistent with our class motto:
Be inspired by your photo, not controlled by it.

And here’s her progress.

Those shadows are very effective, aren’t they?  This is progressing very nicely!

Denise’s photo was beautiful.

And look how much of it she completed in an afternoon.

I’ll have lots more examples to show you soon.

Ellen Lindner

Meet Shay.  She’s a lovely quilter with a quick smile and lots of enthusiasm.

Shay likes to make art quilts.  The ones with the patterns provided or with patterns she makes herself.

Yet, she found herself in my Design Your Own Nature Quilt class which teaches, among other things, how to create WITHOUT a pattern.  However, the supply list included artistic courage and, thankfully, she packed hers.

This is her inspiration photo.

Very viable.  Especially since she brought a wide range of green fabrics.  Some of them printed to look like actual trees!  Hmm.  I was somewhat skeptical about that one.

And Shay set to work cutting those trees out exactly as printed on the fabric.

Hmm.  I waited to see if she’d be able to work loosely with such fabrics.

And she did a good job!

But then, she was a little stumped.  The foreground of her inspiration photo is filled with rhododendron with lots of busy stems, twigs, and leaves showing.  She asked me about cutting skinny strips to represent the stems.  I said, “Don’t do that!  Find a busy fabric that will do the work for you.”

Since I had shown several examples about the value of using plaids in just such occasions, her table-mate chirped up and said, “Like plaid!” and tossed a plaid fabric onto the composition.

Did I detect a little flinch from Shay when that plaid fabric hit her quilt?  Maybe it was just my imagination.

Regardless, her classmates were fearless and they quickly started throwing more plaid onto her quilt!  Well, that was just the invitation I was looking for, so I HAD to help her arrange them so she could audition those plaids.

She was quite a good sport about it, as I took a picture for a “distance” view.

Meanwhile, several of the other classmates were egging her on.  They really wanted her to use plaid.

And, finally, she agreed.  She even seemed to like the idea.  (I sure hope so.  I certainly wouldn’t want to coerce the poor woman!)

This is the audition photo, above.  Those plaids will work well, don’t you think?

I was so proud of Shay for embracing something SO outside her comfort zone.  And I got quite a kick from her classmates who were so “pro-plaid” by the end of the day!  It was fun and exhilarating for all of us.

I’ll have more photos from this class soon.  In the meantime, I’m off to Cleveland to tape 3 segments for Quilting Arts TV.  Woohoo!

Ellen Lindner

Here are the other winners from 100% Pure Florida.

Merit Awards:

By Karen Ekonomou

By Margie McInarnay

By Kathy Smith

By James Newman

By Henry Peter

This dragonfly looked almost real, although it’s painted with acrylics.

In Third Place:

By Thom Harrell

And in Second Place:

By Nancy Hamin-Volger

To see the Best of Show and my Award of Merit, see the previous post.  This is a very nice exhibit, in Melbourne, FL, which will be up through October 1st.  I  hope you get the chance to see it.

Ellen Lindner

It was a very good night for fiber at the opening of 100% Pure Florida, in Melbourne, FL.  There were four fibers pieces in the juried show, which included 50+ pieces.

Just take a look at this beaded dragon, made by Jennifer Shibona.  Although it looks great as a sculpture, it’s also wearable.  See the metallic cuff under the dragon’s belly?  You wear that on your wrist and the dragon’s tail wraps around your arm.  Pretty cool, right?

Jennifer also had a beautiful, and very large, beaded necklace on display.

But, things got really exciting as the awards were announced.  First came six awards of merit, and I won one.  Woohoo!

The excitement was building as third place and second place were awarded, and finally it was time for Best of Show.  And the winner was…drum roll please…more fiber art!  This time, the award went to Gabriele DiTota for her piece, Foliage.

What you can’t tell in the photo is that the red buds are all stand-alone 3D objects which stick out from the quilt.  It’s a great piece! See it on her website.

Gabriele was really overwhelmed.  This was her first time entering a quilt in a mixed media show, so she was completely surprised.  What a thrilling moment!  Her piece got lots of attention, both before and after the announcement.

Her prize?  A nice cash award AND a solo show next year!  How exciting!  I’m overjoyed for my friend.

I’ll show you the other winners in the next post.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. BTW, marketing tip:  Notice how my name tag has my artwork on it?  That’s a great conversation starter.

As you’ll see, I’m still working in the same series.  I’m loving the colors and the motifs.

This is the sketch for the current piece.

And here’s the background, more or less complete.

Or so I thought.  But, after studying it for awhile, I decided it was too pastel for my liking.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exciting me.

This is the second background.  The largest shape changed from mostly orange to mostly rust, and the background pale peach changed to soft orange.  I like this much better, even though the changes are subtle.

Now what?  I auditioned the motifs I was considering.  Here you see digital versions added to the existing background.

I thought the white squares showed up well, and set to work adding them.  (This time, I remembered to stop and fuse the fabrics first.)

Ellen Lindner