My friend, Gabriele DiTota, and I are having a two-person exhibit in Raleigh, NC, and we’re very excited about it We’re calling it “Fabric, Dye, and Serendipity” because that’s pretty much how we work. Both of us dye our own fabrics, and then compose them with minimal planning, (although Gabriele does more planning than I…
In November I got to see a trunk show of Valerie Goodwin’s work up close and personal. And I love it! Pieces were laid across a table for us to inspect, but that made it tricky to take photos. I think you’ll enjoy them anyway. This piece was my favorite. As is typical with much…
As I was winding down on my recent dye session, I tried a very random exercise. I loosely pleated a piece of fabric and scraped on a variety of different colors, as well as some clear paste. It was a gooey mess when I finished! But, when I washed it out I found out that…
As usual, my current quilt started with a high contrast piece of hand dyed fabric. This is all I had of it. What could I do to best show it off? The additional fabrics added above provided interest, but the original fabric swatch still seemed rather straight forward. It was kinda hard to judge against…
I’m just back from teaching Design Your Own Nature Quilt at Empty Spools Seminar, in Pacific Grove, CA. It was fabulous!!! The beach side setting was lovely, complete with historical architecture, wind-swept trees, and the sound of the surf. But, of course, the real excitement was occurring in the classrooms. I had nine fantastic students who…
All quilters and textile artists face the question of what to do with their scraps. I mean, they MIGHT come in handy one day, so it would be good to keep them, right? But, that requires not only space, but some sort of organizational system so the scraps can be seen and used. And what…
Do you ever hit a creative stumbling block? Or just don’t have the mental stamina to take on something major? How about a quick little collage with magazine pages. I especially like doing this with calendar images. Since the images already relate to one another, it makes for easier going. Here’s one I did with…
I dyed this fabric last year and it’s one of my favorites. I was really happy with the way I had a viable design without doing anything more to it, but HOW do you design with that? I had a false start last year and am now trying again. These are the collection of “featured”…
Here it is, Petal Drop. If you’ve been following along, you know it started as part of a quilted (but not faced) quilt. After lots of slicing rearranging and stitching, this is what I ended up with. I stitched the sections back together with a loose zigzag. And used the same stitching on the edge. The statement:…
Once again, I decided to cut something up. This is where I started, with an already quilted quilt. I liked it, but realized I liked the left side better than the right. So, after some folding and auditioning, I cut this quilt into two pieces. I set the left portion aside. And started work on…