It sure is great to be able to interact with students and teach, via Zoom, to people across the country. I recently taught “Floral Improv” to a group of students in the Ann Arbor, MI area. They all did an excellent job and these late-in-the-day screen shots are proof. Woah, Grace got a LOT of…
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…
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…
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,…
I recently redecorated my bedroom and I’m LOVING the results! Here’s the bed wall, with my quilt Rhythm of the City prominently displayed. More of my work moving across the window wall. This is Croton Leaves 3. Continuing to look left, a corner featuring my paper collage Three Cherries. And, to complete the artwork roundup, at the foot…
Well, after LOTS of trial and error, trouble shooting, and rearranging, I finally finished my latest abstract piece, When Fuchsia Came to Play. A detail shot of the fabrics – most of them dyed by me. I showed you my plans for rearranging in an earlier post. As part of that, I whacked 7+” off the…
After success creating Segue into Summer, I decided to use it as a loose template for some additional quilts made with hand dyed fabrics. I’m calling this my “Intersection” series. I plan to use tilted straight lines as the “skeleton” for each one. First, I pulled out the large scaled hand dyes I wanted to use,…
If you’ve been following my blog you know I’ve been learning about printing fabric with thickened dye. And, of course, I was anxious to use them! Plus, I also wanted to try larger scaled abstract pieces, as well as the idea of using a little bit of “ugly” color. All those goals came together in…
I don’t like the flavor of vinegar but I know that it adds a needed tartness to a variety of dishes. However I’m starting to like the idea of “vinegar” colors. That is, those colors that are jarring in combination with others, but which also add an interesting bit of “sour.” My interest began several…
Pat Pauly is a WEALTH of knowledge, so I really learned a lot when I took a 5 day dyeing/printing class with her. First up: colors look different when wet vs. dry. Leslie’s samples served as examples. Bigger can be better. This piece, below, is about 31″ x 45″. So, Pat finally got me to…