Juried Art Show 2009

Last night was my night to shine! Three of my pieces had been selected by judges for the 32nd annual juried art show in our local art gallery. And all three brought home awards: Best of Show, First and Second! Needless to say, I feel very overwhelmed, proud and very very humble. You've seen the pieces before as I made them, but here they are one more time being honored! Thanks for coming to "my show" here. ;~)











My best friend from childhood, Patty, came to see the work the day before and my brother came the night of the show to support me. It felt so good to have both at my side. Thanks Patty and Richard.

To learn more about each piece scroll down to earlier posts. They are in order of recognition: Hard Times, Desert Cactus and Snake, and Living Green.

Hard Times Art Quilt: Fabric Paper Collage and Fabric Portrait

Currently hanging at the Vacaville Art Gallery Annual Juried Art Show April 25-May 20 2009

I belong to a group called Art Quilts Around The World (formerly Around The World In 20 Quilts) The theme for the latest challenge quilt there was Brave New World.

My “Brave New World” idea struck me as we entered into a decline in our economy hitting an all time LOW. (Our home value dropped over $200,000, stocks took a nose dive, and at age 68 retirement is nowhere on the horizon). As we watched our assets plummeting and this recession leans fearfully toward a possible depression it lent to the name: “Hard Times” and the suggestion of the challenge to use recycled pieces.
It was also suggested to do something you'd not done before, learn something new. I took on the challenge of learning to make fabric paper and fabric portraits.

I learned to make fabric paper from glue, water, paper and muslin. Words and phrases cut from newspaper and magazines tell the story in collage form; fabric portrait, using multi-layers of fabrics in 3 shades with cutouts showing the various layers below gives the emotion to the piece and sets the tone. It is then top free motion sewn with various threads and designs.
Making the portrait was a labor intensive experience, and a challenge in itself, but satisfying in the end.

I also used stencils, paint, Paint Stiks, thread painting, recycled newspaper, tissue paper, embroidery floss, hand embroidery, muslin, cotton, Punchinello ribbon and old beads, all things I had on hand. Many of which were found at thrift stores and/or garage sales second hand.

My main foundation piece measures 11 ½ X 10” approximately (it’s an odd cut shape) with a few extra inches for the green Punchinello pieces I laid under it for a little added dramatic flair.

I framed the small art quilt in a black shadow box to show at our local Art Gallery show in February.

The portrait made from a photo I took of myself is approximately 4” X 5 1/2” at its largest sides (also odd shaped).

I learned how to make the fabric portrait by reading Maria Elkins contribution called "Making Portraits" in The Quilting Arts Book by Patricia Bolton on page 122-125. And I learned the “Making Fabric from Paper” from the contribution of Beryl Taylor on page 84-85 in the same book.

African Tree

I have no idea if there is a tree growing in Africa that looks like mine, but when I added the zebra I decided that is where it had to be. Artists' creative license! The top of the tree is the result of sitting at my felting machine and adding bits of dyed-green dryer sheet, threads and strings including some gold metallic, and dryer lint to a piece of green felt. The beads are from a recent garage sale find necklace sewn on orange felt on top of brown felt and trimmed with upholstery trim from the fabric store. Zebra came off a large garage sale find of cotton fabric with an African animal design, which I also used as the backing. I enjoyed the hand sewing and embroidery work after top sewing free motion on my sewing machine. The whole piece is 13" X 13" square. Click on photo to see closer up.

Cactus ATCs and Cactus Quiltlet

These cactus ATCs and Quiltlet were inspired by another bloggers art: Studio Lolo, who gifted me with a drawing of a cactus on an ATC. We also "celebrate" Cactus Monday on the other blogs and so I have been in a cactus mode of late, both drawing and quilting them. Then I was asked by Nadia in The Netherlands if I would trade ATCs with her. So I made these two for her.

And here you see the Quiltlet in the middle that I made for Lolo.

Cactus Quiltlet is 5" X 9" in size

I used a hand dyed green dryer sheet over the yellow felt, and used a shiny green metallic

material over green cotton for the cactus, brown cotton for the dirt, and purple and blue dotted cotton for the curtain on top. A wonderful sparkly purple fabric is the pot.

I then top sewed it to follow the lines of Lolo's drawing, and put French Knots in the holes of the

green fabric on the cactus and dirt.

Living Green Art Quilt

Hanging at the Vacaville Art League and Gallery
32nd Annual Juried Art Show April 25-May 20, 2009

Now in the P. Atana Collection This piece came from a desire to weave fabrics together and use recycled materials. As the woven central piece evolved a city of buildings grew. A wind blew in green leaves made from hand dyed re-purposed dryer sheets.*
The leaves were embellished with thread painting and beads sewn on by hand.
Thread painting continued to embellish the outline of the tall building skyline and down the sides and across the bottom.
Birds and beads landed on leaves and buildings re-purposed from an old found necklace.
A mixture of cotton and metallic threads were used by machine and hand alike.
And fabrics both found and new were woven together to form a unifying art quilt.
This piece measures 45” long by 27” tall.
The back is covered in a dark green satin fabric with matching hanging sleeve.


* I learned the dye process from Natalya at http://artbynatalya.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-make-leaf.html

This photo is not showing its true colors well. The outside binding is a bright shiny gold fabric that sings, but my camera (with and without flash/indoors and out) refused to show it off to it's full glory. You will just have to take my word for it.

click to enlarge photos to see details if you want to

Dancing Buttons Bangles and Beads

Click on photos to enlarge them. My friends from near and far came up with many possible names for this piece, all wonderful suggestions, so I took a few words from some and combined them with my own ideas for the title "Dancing Buttons, Bangles, and Beads".

It's free motion top sewn felt pieces over burlap, both from thrift store...cotton fat quarters,

thrift store ribbon...cotton threads...

Metal pieces thanks to Judy at Red Velvet...a gift...

Angelina fibers and wool roving from Susan Stein's Minnesota quilt shop.

Hand embroidered over stitching, wooden beads garage sale gleaned,

big buttons from a quilt show visit last year, knew I'd use them sometime on something!

;-)

A designed Grandmother's Bag for a new Grandie

My friend, Soulbrush
became a Grandmother this past month. Many of you now know her as Grandie now. Being a happy Grandma myself I got caught up in the waiting for her "Baby Bean" to be born...she had a count down on her blog marking off the days.

I appointed myself as grand-mothering tutor/mentor to SB. I told her she definitely would need a 'grandma's bag' or in her case a 'grandie's bag'. So to surprise her while I was waiting for baby to be born I designed a combination grandma's bag and baby mat for HER to use. I take a bag filled with little toys each and every time I visit my four-year- old grand children (twins) and they delight in opening the bag and finding old things that have been there from when they were little babies and new things I toss in (usually finds from the thrift store or craft store or my own crafting stash) little toys, puppets, books, and now always at least one craft project to do with them. And so the idea was born.

I remembered back to when they were babies and while I was constructing the initial bag out of a half yard of beautiful brightly colored Laural Burch fabric I decided to make this outer quilt a mat for baby to play on (pre-crawling stage). The backing became the calmer blue side for quieting baby. I added little satin ribbons for baby to grab on to, again remembering our little guys liking tags left on toys to hold.

I then added a bag with a shoulder strap and used large utility snaps to hold it inside the bag...this to hold the toys and books...It can be unsnapped to allow use of the quilted mat, which I top sewed around the pictures of cat families and some added personal photos of SB herself now and as a baby, and her dog Snuffles. I imagined baby learning to identify "grandie, baby, and doggie!" before long.

This first photo is the mat spread out for sitting or laying on.

This is the opposite side the blue calming side.

Here you see the bag for toys snapped into place.


This is the top folded over forming a carrying bag.

and here you see it again with the shoulder strap handle from the inner bag sticking out.

I wish you many years of joy and fun

with your little grand baby!

I had fun waiting, creating, and sending you this project!

May it get lots of wear at Grandie's house and when you go to visit!

Fabrics: Outer layer is half yard of Laural Burch designed cotton I got in MN at Colorful Quilts (Susan Stein's store, which closed this January, unfortunately); Inner blue lining is 100% cotton, I found at the thrift store; The bright orange inner bag is left over 100% fabric from my very first ever quilt made in a class at Quilted Heart in Vacaville, CA, very good quilting cotton; Orange binding is cotton from the thrift store. cotton threads. Snaps. Fusible web lines the strap. Ribbons from the thrift store.

Quiltlet for Suki

Sukipoet is a blogland friend for whom I made this quiltlet after her mother died. It's a tribute to Suki's love for her mom, made from fabrics that had belonged to her mother who was a seamstress. Suki had a give away and I was fortunate enough to win these fabrics.

I had wanted to weave some fabrics and took this opportunity to do so as the plain pink made a wonderful frame to weave the patterned floral fabric through. I then top stitched hearts and flowers and ribbons etc. to hold the weave in place. I made a small doll to represent her mother using a photo of mothers face taken at the very last days of her life and transferred it to cloth. I even left a bit of batting sticking out around her head to match her lovely white hair. I stitched the doll to the mat and gave her a red heart necklace that matched the one Suki had given her mother.
I added green grass for her to stand in as if she is standing in a garden. The white fabric for the backing and binding was part of the giveaway too.

I received wonderful kudos of appreciation from Suki and other blog friends who saw this quilt on her blog today.

In Honor of Suki's Mom

Curly Haired Girl

Little Curly Haired Girl

Colors her world

Creatively

This is #4 in a series of fabric portraits.

(Maria Elkin's directions showed me the way!)

Fabrics are from 2 fat quarters; and wavey scraps from a found stash somewhere
(yard sale probably)
Threads are all 100% cottons in red, yellow, green, light and dark blues

The Boy With Red Lips

Boy with Red Lips is hanging in the Vacaville Art Gallery for the month of February! He enjoys the wall he is on along with Hard Times.
His head was full of thoughts of
catching butterflies
His heart was filled with gold



I am continuing to learn to make fabric portraits. This from a photo of my grandson.
I am the first to admit that the fabric portrait does not do his photo justice. However, I am very pleased with his butterfly skin, and his blue hair and red, red lips. The red was a last minute decision and I think makes the quilt complete.

I continue to use Maria Elkins directions in the book mentioned in earlier post with a twist of my own.

Size 4" X 7"
100% cotton fabrics
one purchased fat quarter,
some thrift store finds (butterflies,
blue spirals,
& red hearts)

threads a mix of rayon and cottons
in blues, white and red.
free motion top stitching

Portraits in Fabric

I love learning new techniques. I've been impressed with others turning out fabric portraits and was amazed that although it is a tedious process that took a lot of time (part of Saturday and all day Sunday) to complete these two 4" X 6" portraits of my best friend and myself it was also fun and exciting to see them come to life.

I learned how by reading an article by Maria Elkins called "Making Portraits" in The Quilting Arts Book by Patricia Bolton, that I bought this past Friday!

Erika's World

My sister in law asked me this summer if I would make her an art quilt wall hanging for her den. She asked that it be about her mom. Thus Erika's World was born. Erika is my ma-in-law, and she has been in my life for 30+ years now. We have quite a history...we used to write to each other weekly for MANY years (and she saved all those letters)... we have visited twice a year for many years summer and winter sometimes spring between California where I am and Minnesota where she is now. (Earlier she lived in Cambridge, MA near Harvard Square).
But in her latter years in MN she was pretty home bound in her daughters home in MN where she lived with her grandson from the time he was 6 months old until she was placed in a nursing home this past summer. Grandson is now a senior at the University of MN in the drama dept.
Erika loved to feed the birds and squirrels in their backyard and did so sun or snow on a daily basis.

The quilt depicts as best I could her love of nature and her love of music. You can see her in the upper right hand corner playing the piano in the nursing home where she lives. Dementia plays an active role in her life today. So I am hoping this quilt will bring back pleasant memories for her of those things and family members she loves so much and who love her in return.

This first section in her bird houses, birds and flowers in the back yard of their home. And she and I taken last summer when we visited.

And this is the reverse side of the same section of the quilt. I love how the bobbin threads transfer the picture so nicely again.

Here is the whole thing...birds, trees, ducks, squirrels, music, grandson hanging from center tree, son and ma, daughter being playful bottom left, early photos of Erika and her husband,

Erika and her young children, later photos of Erika and her grown children and grandchild, young Erika, old Erika...the music she loves still, i.e. "Erika's World".

It was a joy to make and I look forward giving it to them this Christmas holiday when we go to visit. I'll report back her reactions and perhaps add some photos of Erika with the quilt.

At the bottom right are photos of ducks that represent a duck family that came back each year to the yard to be fed by Erika. She gave them a pond to swim in too. ;-)

There is a strip of German ribbon across the bottom of this that represents Erika's German heritage. She was born in Berlin. And she came to the US as the war bride of my DH's father.

You can see more of them in an earlier quilt below: 1940's quilt "War, Love and Liberation".

This is the label I made on cloth and hand sewed to the back of the quilt:

And a close up of sunflower with beads added for embellishment sake~

December 2008 by Lynn

Special thanks to Cris, Artist in Oregon, who sent me photos of live birds and squirrels and ducks from her yard that closely matched those in Erika's yard to use in this quilt.

A Star is Born

Update: "A Star is Born" is hanging in a show at the Vacaville Art Gallery until Jan. 24, 2009. I put her in a black shadow box and with the light shining on her and reflecting of the Angelia fibers she stands out and shines beautifully!

I belong to an art quilt group called Around The World In Twenty Quilts, which can be accessed via my sidebar "other blogs". We have a quarterly challenge to make a small approximately 8" X 11" size or A4 as the Netherlands/Australian and UK folks call it. One member picks a challenge theme and we have a few months to produce it. The first challenge was Trees seen below this post, and this one is Stellar. Be sure to go to the ATWI20Q site to see all of quilts. You will be glad you did.

I enjoyed making this small quiltlet using Angelina fibers which I hand felted using a four needle hand punch I bought last summer. This was my first time felting using it and the fibers. The black background fabric is fleece. I free motion top stitched and hand embroidered french knots. I sewed on tiny red beads and some larger circular flat beads that I picked up at the bead store for the adjoining stars. The binding is a black satin ribbon. It is within the challenge size of A4.






I based my quilt on this information and photo found on line: Emission nebula NGC 604 lies in a spiral arm of galaxy M33, 2.7 million light-years away in the constellation Triangulum. This is a site where stars are being born. Though such nebulae are common in galaxies, this one is particularly large, nearly 1,500 light-years across. At the heart of NGC 604 are over 200 hot stars, much more massive than our Sun (15 to 60 solar masses). They heat the gaseous walls of the nebula making the gas fluoresce. Their light also highlights the nebula's three-dimensional shape, like a lantern in a cavern. The image was taken on January 17, 1995 with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
CREDIT: Hubble Space Telescope, photo PR96-27B
SOURCE: http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/BROWSE/gallaxies_3.html
COPYRIGHT: This photo is not copyright.

Remember "Night Owl"? She's to be Shown!

My tree quilt done for the Around The World in 20 Quilts first challenge, which I named "Night Owl", will be shown at the Vacaville Art's League Art Gallery starting tomorrow. The show called "Nature's Bounty" runs for a month and a half.