Adventure Quilter
Ellen Lindner uses fabric the way a painter uses paint, with extraordinary results
I finished up my little (18 x 18) scrap quilt and I’m pretty happy with it. I’m calling it Seeking the Horizon.
Detail shot.
All the fabrics are dyed and printed by me. I think they have a lot of impact together!
Ellen Lindner
P.S. If you read about my quilting problems in the previous post, you can see that I improved upon it.
P.P.S. I made this for an exhibit called “Reflections.” It sorta has that quality, doesn’t it?
I had some interesting scraps left over from Waiting for the Lightnin’ Bugs.
As you can see, they included many skinny triangles, so I knew that would drive my design. And, because they were so skinny, I knew I’d use a collage technique, rather than piecing them.
After creating a background, I started with the brightest shapes, placing them off-center.
More trial and error.
It was taking shape. But, when I started quilting it I had a terrible time with the concentric circles I wanted to use. I’m just not good with parallel curves!
Deep breaths.
Much of the above was picked out. After drawing the desired lines I redid a lot of it and it looked much better. Thank goodness!
Ellen Lindner
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 the right portion.
My plan was to slice into it diagonally and then join the two portions back together, using a loose satin stitch. I was surprised by how easily this technique worked. Even on curved shapes! I added some skinny stripes and continued slicing and reassembling until I got something along these lines.
It definitely had more energy! I sliced into it some more.
It was obvious that the overall shape would not be rectangular. I began to think about what those edges should look like. Should I make them even more irregular? To audition this idea I used pieces of muslin to obscure and reshape the edges in places.
Yes! I was liking the spiky nature of these edges. I decided to pick out some stitching and cut new nooks and crannies.
I had to use my sharpest tools to slice away the loose zigzag without cutting the fabric.
I wasn’t sure how to finish the edges, but I decided to try the same loose zigzag I’d been using for joining, and I liked it.
In the next post I’ll show you the finished quilt. I like it.
Ellen Lindner
Whew! After LOTS of rearranging and trial and error, I’ve finally finished this piece. And I’m quite happy with it.
The finished piece is 36″ x 26″. It’s available for $695.
The yellow in this detail shot looks a little yellow-green, but it will show you the circular quilting pattern, done both on the machine and by hand.
I think it’s well named, don’t you?
Ellen Lindner
P.S. See recent posts about how I dyed the fabric for this, and in-progress construction photos.
One of the best things about my “Grow with the Flow” class is that the students get their projects completely finished during the 6 hour time frame. And that often includes facing it!
See the results of a recent small class in Arroyo Grande, CA.
Priscilla chose bright reds and pinks.
That’s Barb peeking about from behind her turquoise and yellow piece. (I think her piece was faced at this point.)
And Gayle showing off hers.
Tommie had to leave early so this photo was taken at hour #5. All she has left to do is to face it. Great colors!
And here’s Susan’s piece, all nicely faced. All it needs is a sleeve!
Aren’t these great? They each did wonderful work and accomplished a lot.
I’d love to teach this class, or a different one, for your guild.
Ellen Lindner
Here’s my latest little art quilt, And the Band Plays On.
I made it as donation for a SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates,) fundraiser which required a size of
12″ x 12″.
Fortunately, I had some leftover units from this quilt, which I used as a starting point.
Is it Hot in Here, or is It Just Me?
After that, it came together easily.
I sure have been lucky with leftover pieces lately!
Do you ever use leftover units in new pieces?
Ellen Lindner
I’ve been having fun working on my “sour dough” quilt.
First, I decided on the placement of the leftover blocks. I cut a few of them into smaller units.
I’m a believer in this quote from Sally Sellers, “It only takes a little ugly; just enough to make the other colors sing.” So, should I add a little ugly? I decided a small amount of yellow would do the trick.
A nice start. Then, I added even more.
I like it. What do you think?
Finally, I added the skinny dark teal strips. Because they’re so high contrast, they add a lot of drama, and really make the composition.
In the photo above, I started quilting it. I had lots of good suggestions about a title. But, to me, it seemed to represent some sort of social interaction. A lively, happy one. So, the name “Party Chatter” seemed to fit. Here’s the finished piece.
Check out my website for a detail shot and other information.
What do you think about adding a little bit of ugly?
Ellen Lindner
After studying my photo of a Christmas cactus, I decided to try abstracting it with one repeated shape. Maybe something like these “spike” shapes. 
Yes, I thought they worked well.
My original idea was to fill the entire space with this shape, just changing the color for background grass, brick, etc. But, when I tried that for grass I didn’t like it at all. Especially since just a few shapes were so effective.
So, I decided to depict the actual plant only.
Here it’s shown as a square. I thought it would probably be better if I cropped off some of the left area.
From there things fell together easily. Here it is, well under way.
I was loving how it was coming together and I didn’t want to over work it. Audition. Edit. Repeat.
I think I’ll have this one finished quickly. Stay tuned.
Ellen Lindner
P.S. I’m not sure how to quilt the background. I’ll have to give that a good bit of thought.
I’m really happy with my latest quilt, Water Dance.
Water Dance
I wanted a lot of energy in the piece, and I think I achieved it.
The detail shot shows how I added double black stitching for emphasis. I use this technique quite a bit and I think it’s effective. I always do it in a rather loose sketchy sort of way.
For this quilt I used exclusively fabrics that I dyed myself.
See more information about Water Dance here. And see it in progress here and here.
Ellen Lindner
After a disappointing attempt at making a quilt featuring my large-scaled hand dyed fabrics, I dramatically down sized and tried again.
This time I switched the color proportions, using turquoise as my primary color and fuchsia as the accent. I still found it hard to incorporate the leaf fabric. Maybe because it had a lighter background? As you can see, I quickly over worked it.
Have you heard the saying, “If something’s not working out (visually) remove your favorite thing?” Yeah. I slowly considered that I might need to remove the fuchsia leaf fabric and eventually did so, (reluctantly.) And, of course, things got much easier after that.
The background progressed well and I was very happy with it. It even showed off my fabrics, right?
On to a focal point. And I had the perfect specialty fabric for it.
But one strip of perfect fabric clearly couldn’t carry the whole piece. I knew I’d have to cut it into pieces to add some energy and to improve the composition.
BTW, I’m calling this “The robbing Peter to Pay Paul photo.” It shows what’s left of the original composition on the left design wall, as I reworked it on the right, using many of the previously cut fabrics.
OK, so I needed to mix things up a little. I decided to expand the color palette and to add additional smallish pieces. A quick audition confirmed this as the correct direction. Didn’t it gain a lot of energy from that?
I committed to cutting smaller shapes and I was really liking where this was going.
I was getting close. After finalizing the arrangement, I took lots of photos of the accent pieces and lifted them all off. Then I quilted the background with straight lines. At one point I put the background back on the design wall, but accidentally got it upside down (below.) I decided I liked that better.
Here’s the final arrangement pinned, and ready for gluing, then stitching/quilting.
I’ve had quite a time thinking of a name. Any suggestions? I’m leaning toward Underwater Dance, Shallow Water Dance, or just Water Dance. Do you think any of those work?
Ellen Lindner
P.S. Don’t you love my new lights on my design walls? I LOVE them!!! (See more of my recent studio revamp on my video page.)