As I started a new quilt, I looked to my hand dyed fabrics for inspiration. I pulled out a few that I thought might spark some interest. Uh, no. It all seemed pretty ugly. But, I was intrigued by the large scale black and white piece. Could I work with something like that? It was…
For the first time I worked on two quilts at the same time, finishing them up very close together. Here’s the latest, Twigs. I’m very happy with it. And here’s a detail shot. The dark twigs were done in the dyeing stage. The white ones were added after piecing, with acrylic paint. As you can see,…
I’m SO happy with my latest quilt, Fragrant Canopy. It started as one piece of fabric which I dyed/printed. That fabric makes up the left two-thirds of the completed quilt. I had great fun working on the details, especially adding some black hand stitching. I love everything about this quilt! Not only the results, but also…
I recently enjoyed a visit to Harrisonburg, VA, to see the “Let the Sun Shine In” exhibit. The artists in this exhibit are all members of Studio Art Quilt Associates, and I am one of them. Here I am with my piece, Florida Native #2. It was made with commercial fabrics and one that I…
I’ve been working on incorporating a variety of motifs and colors into one piece of dyed fabric and I finally got one I really love. I rotated it 90 degrees and put it up on the design wall. Now what? I had a lot of fabrics with the right colors, so I pulled them all…
In my last post I showed you several fabrics that changed dramatically when washed and dried. Thankfully, that’s not the norm. I thought you’d like some assurance that things DO usually turn out as I want them. A few examples: Fat black and brown lines on white (which stayed white, I’m happy to say.) I…
For me, the hardest thing about dyeing fabric is predicting the final color. I think maybe I need a crystal ball! Case in point: I spent a lot of time getting this fabric just the way I wanted it. This is what it looked like wet. I was concerned that the delicate tone-on-tone area in…
After considering radical changes to my quilt in-progress, I was excited to implement new ideas! This was my initial trial and error placement. The twigs were part of the original version, along with the rust fabrics, but all the blue and black was new. I liked the arrangement and it changed very little. But, it…
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…
I enjoyed my last quilt so much that I decided to use the scraps from that one to start the next. With a little editing, I selected these fabrics as my starting point. Of course, I didn’t want this new quilt to look like the previous one, so I sorta shied away from the large…