May ATCs for CQFA

My ATC work this month didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked, but I am disavowing responsibility, because my Janome 9K is acting up again. I was able to finish them on the backup machine, but there are some differences so they don’t look as professional as I would like. I might do a special whine post later abut the &^%$* machine, but now I just don’t want to get into it.

May 2014 ATCs
May 2014 ATCs

I decided to do some more leaves, similar to last meeting’s ATCs, so I could donate one to the ATC collection for the guild show. I had enough time and enough interfacing cut, so I went for broke. There are some similarities to last month’s leaves, but some differences as well.

I used my last of a piece of thickish thread for the stems. Someone told me it was from saris, but I don’t remember where I got it and don’t know. I had to couch it on the cards.

I am really pleased that I had enough time. I didn’t start until Friday at midday. Friday is kind of last minute and I don’t know why I wait that long, but I felt like I wasn’t racing the clock. I just worked along and the cards came together well. I didn’t do any embellishment, but I also didn’t feel like the pieces needed it this time.

All May ATCs
All May ATCs

There were a lot of participants in the ATC challenge this month and I got a nice group of cards to keep.

The most unusual award goes to Sue who is experimenting with cookie decorating (lower right). The cookie decorating description doesn’t even begin to do justice those these mini-works of art. I didn’t take any because I would have just been tempted to eat them.

Angela is doing some interesting things with mixed media. Her work (cards directly to the left of my leaves) is on fabric, but she is painting or dyeing and stamping.

Bron did some renditions of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I love Maureen’s spirals as well (far right).

Everybody did a great job.

All in all it was a really great exchange and I look forward to the next one.

ATCs are 2.5″ x 3.5″. You don’t have to make them out of fabric. Some of the cards the CQFA people trade are partially paper. I like mine stiff, thus all of the interfacing.

March CQFA ATCs

March 2014 CQFA ATCs
March 2014 CQFA ATCs

It has taken me awhile to post these, because I thought I lost one and was trying to figure out what to do. It has also been kind of a crazy month and organization hasn’t been my strong suit. It turns out that it was very flat and stuck to the back of one of the others. What a relief.

I am thrilled with these. I love the creativity and the combinations of materials. The upper right hand corner ATC with the flowers (by Maureen) has paper flowers.

The lower left hand corner piece (by Nancy) has text, which adds an interesting element.

These are fun to make and I am thinking about my next group for the May meeting. You can see mine in a previous post.

CQFA ATCs

March 2014 ATCs
March 2014 ATCs

I made some ATCs for the CQFA meeting, leaving it, again, until the last minute. I worked on them on Friday in between starting the process of renewing the Young Man’s passport and some other chores. I really didn’t have an idea, but then I hit on the idea of a leaf and the design went from there. I ended up with something with which I was very happy.

The step is a piece of thick thread or yarn. I only had about a yard of it and now I have, perhaps half a yard. Maureen thought the thread was sari thread. I hadn’t heard of that before and she explained that threads from saris are wound together to make the thread. It is colorful.

I couldn’t find my couching foot, so I used a zig zag to keep the thread on the ATC. It worked pretty well, but I need to practice more.

The background is from the Infinity quilt. It is leftover from the quilter cutting off the sides of the backing. I am sure you will see a journal cover or two along the way as well. 😉

ATC guts
ATC guts

Inside the ATC, I use 2 layers of tearaway stabilizer on both sides. This allows for no wrinkling when I zig zag.

First I make the backs and put the labels on. I do this first, because it doesn’t really matter what the back looks like. It gets me in the mood and gets everything cut. In this case, I used the same fabric – or group of fabric – for the back, front and leaves. You might be thinking that you see different fabrics ont he finished ATCs and you would be right. When I say ‘fabric’ I mean that which has been cut off the sides of the backing of my quilt. Even though there are different fabric designs, technically, it is one piece of fabric to me. I used what was on the end of the leftover backing fabric.

ATC fronts in progress
ATC fronts in progress

I tried, really hard, this time to make the corners of the stitching around the labels look really nice. I had to slow down.

They are a little easier to work with when I make them in a group and then cut them apart. I had to take care when lining up the motifs for the front and the back.

ATCs are 2.5″ x 3.5″. You don’t have to make them out of fabric. Some of the ones the CQFA people trade are partially paper. I like mine stiff, thus all of the interfacing.

Serendipity Lady Starts

Serendipity Lady Start
Serendipity Lady Start

I didn’t think I would actually start with fabric, but last week was a challenging week and I did! I had about an hour before life started in again, so I stood at my cutting table, cut fabric and glued it to my pattern. Having a limited amount of time was good, because I didn’t get overwhelmed with the thought of starting.

I know she looks like a big helmet haired weirdo, but I promise she will get better. I am putting all the dark pinks on parts of the hair that are supposed to be farther away and lighter fabrics on hair that is supposed to be closer. That is what my research told me to do, so hopefully it will look ok.

I am making the roses (perhaps some other flower, but I think of them as roses) blue and am working with the same principle.

So far all of the fabrics are from my scrap bin.

Two products you MUST try: Karen Kay Buckley Perfect scissors and Sewline Glue Pen. DH bought me the scissors for Christmas. I don’t do much hand work and thought this would be a great project on which to use them. It is! They are a fabulous tool! They are sharp and precise and you absolutely need them. I recently spoke about being interested in the Sewline Glue Pen. I came across one and bought it. Again I thought it would be good for this project and, again, it is perfect. The glue is just sticky enough to keep the pieces down. It is also very smooth, so it doesn’t pull as much as a glue stick. I feel like I got a lot done in a short amount of time and these two tools really helped.

Stay tuned as I progress.

Serendipity Quilt

Last weekend was the CQFA meeting. I mentioned this project briefly when I talked about Attack of the Hexies.

Caroline taught a workshop using Susan Carlson’s techniques from her Serendipity Quilts book.

To start we got an email with prep instructions and when I finally got a minute (work really gets in the way of my quiltmaking!) I started getting the materials I would need together. One of the items was Drawing of simple object, ( Think little kid’s coloring book.)


I have one coloring book left from when I was a kid and couldn’t find it. I did find my old stained and leaded glass pattern books. Those drawings are simple enough and I perused them. Two stuck out for me. One was in the book and one was a drawing, probably a tracing of an image from another book, I had done that was stuck in the book. No attribution on the second one, nothing. If you have an Ed Sibbett, Jr book with the image below, please send me the citation. I do want to attribute it properly.

I decided to do them both, one at a time, but both. I have been lamenting, in my head, the fact that I haven’t been doing much art quiltmaking lately, which seems kind of lame, considering the name of this blog. I tell myself that all of my other quilts are ‘color work’, but I might be fooling myself. I do work a lot on color, but….

Stained Glass image
Stained Glass image

This image shows the first piece I will work on. the idea is to use scraps to make up the image. Everyone was working on it at the meeting and I was ‘in process.’

I will use pink for the hair and blue for the roses. I will probably use one piece of fabric for the face. It will not be green, but other than that I don’t know what color it will be. I might do the eyelash in embroidery.

According to Caroline, our workshop leader, the first step was to transfer the image to fabric. My actual first step was to enlarge the image. The original was smaller than 6×6 and I wanted to do something a bit larger. It is now in the 20×16″ range. It was a painful process, but I finally figured out how to do it and went ahead to the transfer-to-fabric stage.

Design on fabric
Design on fabric

I used a piece of the linen colorway of an Art Gallery solid. I still had some left even after using bunches on the Flower Sugar Hexagon (Attack of the Hexies) quilt top. I simply traced over the printout with a Sewline pencil. It worked like a charm when I was able to keep the fabric in the right place over the printout.

My next task is to remind myself of the rules of light and dark: “if I put a light in a front piece of hair, will it look closer or farther?” and then I will get to it. I have the scraps already chosen and am eager to get to work.

I suppose I could check more thoroughly to see if I have Susan Carlson’s book, too.

 

ATCs for CQFA

January ATCs
January ATCs

ATCs are small bits of art that can be traded.

ATCs are 2.5″x3.5″ – the size of baseball or other trading cards. They are made using discarded bits and are not limited to being made from fabric. Paper artists make them from paper and other materials are suitable as well.

As you read this, CQFA is meeting (or will be if you are reading this at 6am ._. ) and part of the meeting is trading ATCs. It is fun to see what other people have made and I love it when a lot of people participate. I am always sad when I can’t one of each example of the other members’ cards.

I had a mosaic pieced fabric in turquoise already made and decided that I would use it since it was a start. I stitched out some of the stitches on the loaner machine over the seams and called it good. The flower on the right hand card is my favorite of the few decorative stitches on this machine.

CQFA Meeting

CQFA ATCs September
CQFA ATCs September

The CQFA Meeting was last Saturday and it was great. As you know, I haven’t been in awhile and I was so glad to see my art quilt pals.

Julie, Dolores and Maureen did a presentation on color. The presentation was called “Why Your Stash Needs to Be Bigger.” 😉 I am not going to rant today about the low cost of fabric compared to other stress reducing activities.

Dolores, Maureen & Julie
Dolores, Maureen & Julie

They covered the science of color, color in culture and some color exercises. I am trying to get Dolores to do a guest blog post, but I will post some of my notes for your edification. I was too fascinated by what she was saying to take really good notes.

Science of Color

Color is the reflection of ambient light on to an object. Dolores referred to the Archimedes Lab’s information on color. I just Googled and found some pages that I would like to explore later.

gamut is a term used for the range of color that can be reproduced.

Your monitor is set to use RGB colors and your printer is set to use CMYK colors, which why we sometimes have problems printing what is on our screen

No device can reproduce as many colors as our eyes can see.

ATCs
ATCs

simultaneous contrast – our eye evaluates the color in relation to what is next what we are looking at. This affects the sense of what color we see. It isn’t a function of the color, but of the perception of the color. Dolores told us that Van Gogh used this technique (?) a lot in his work. Our other senses experience this also. If you are in the hot tub, then jump into a pool, the pool seems colder than it really is. If you drink orange juice with your pancakes and maple syrup, the acidity of the juice in enhanced as is the sweetness of the syrup. Fabrics next to each other talk to each other.

Culture of Color

Maureen present culture to us and it was an eye opener how much color is involved in our culture in ways not related to actually using color such as writing with a purple pen or playing with fabric.

Language uses color in metaphors and for metaphors. This is called cognitive metaphor. Part of it is associating colors with emotions (not a comprehensive list; just some examples):

  • red- passion, anger, danger
  • green – nature, recycling
  • blue – calm
  • etc.

We have been trained to have associations with certain colors. Colors telegraph a certain message. I think this might have to do with my comments about cheerful quilts. I see certain quilts as cheerful when they have warm colors, usually. [I haven’t thought of this before, so it isn’t a fully formed thought. The idea just came together as I was writing this.]

Having emotional associations with certain colors means that we might want to look at the colors we are using in our work and ask ourselves if we are trying to telegraph a certain message through our work via color?

We also use color a lot in our language:

    • silver lining
    • feeling blue
    • green with envy

etc.

Victoria Finlay wrote a book on color called Color: A Natural History of the Palette. It is a dense book, but has a lot of interesting information.

There is also an iPad app you might want to try out called Josef Albers.

Exercise your Color Muscle

Julie reminded us that we all have our own color palette that is defined by our lives, experiences, art to which we have been exposed, etc. Julie showed us some exercises that started in a book called Playing with Color by Richard Mehl.

She used some of what Dolores and Maureen said for the exercises, such as picking a color from two that was in the center of another color.

Color Exercises
Color Exercises

One exercise (green on red) was an effort to find a color that looked the same when laid on two different fabrics in the same color family.

You’d think that this was easy, but it isn’t. There were a couple of issues to work with. 1) we are working with fabric. With paint, you can mix a bit of white in or a bit of grey. In fabric, it doesn’t work that way. 2) we were working with pattern. Julie set up the exercise and she doesn’t have many solids (remember the title of the presentation?), so she has to work with patterned fabric. Because of the contrast that often exists in a patterned fabric, it made the exercise harder. Yes, she found as many tone-on-tones as she could, but it was still a challenge. a good challenge, but a challenge. 3) we have a very limited amount of fabric handy, but even with your own stash, this would be a challenging exercise, because of the nature of fabric – it already has color. Yes, you can dye it or discharge it, but you still may not get what you expected out of the dye/discharge bath.

Color Exercises
Color Exercises

This was a great example for me of “fabrics talking to each other.” It was really, really interesting and amazing to see the same fabric paired with two different fabrics and how different they can look. The green on green examples show this really well. One makes my eyes vibrate a little. The top combination has the center square looking much darker than the bottom center square even though they are the same fabric.

It was very interesting and fun to work with the whole group. I enjoyed hearing others’ thoughts and how they saw the fabric.

 

Business

The group is working on a second show at SF Public Library. The organizing group is new, though I have offered to still act as the liaison with the library. The piece I am thinking of making is too big and will take too long. I also don’t think I have thought through the making of the whole piece yet. Not sure. I think I will consider entering Beach Town. More info about the first show can be found in earlier posts.

The Retreat was discussed. It will be at the end of January as per usual.

CQFA Color Challenge
CQFA Color Challenge

I was glad I didn’t do the color challenge. My idea was LAME compared to the gorgeousness that others brought. I am so lucky to be in this group. The CQFA people do fantastic work. I need to up my art quilt game. I might be a little discouraged, but the pieces were inspiring and made me think of my color strip in a different way. I am not out of the game. Late, yes, out: NO! The collage above was created using Ribbet.com.

We are having another challenge with shapes. Everyone cut shapes, our personal symbols or what we have been doodling,  out of black paper and trade them. Now we have to take the symbols and do something with them.

Show and Tell

Show and Tell always make me want to work harder and more to get better.

ATCs

CQFA ATCs September
CQFA ATCs September

We swapped ATCs (photos sprinkled throughout this post) and there were a lot of swappers this time, which was nice. My bridge ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) were very popular, which was nice. I took some photos as I crossed the new bridge last Sunday and may use those as the basis for my November set. It is hard to take good photos from a moving car, so we will see.

ATCs: The Chosen Ones
ATCs: The Chosen Ones

I picked a nice range of ATCs. I didn’t get one of each, because of all the swappers, but that is the nature of the beast. A couple people asked me for Bridge ATCs, so I might make some more of the historic bridge. We will see. I didn’t really enjoy the stitching I did on the photo. I felt like I had to do something in addition to just print a photo on fabric and edging it to the back to keep it together, but I wasn’t happy with the way the stitching came out. Not sure what to do.

Regardless, I need to get started on my ATCs for the next meeting. Not waiting until the last minute was fantastic.

Some of us stayed after and chatted and sewed. I started cutting out the next Petrillo Bag. Yes, I am making it with the changes I described in my previous post.

Thanks to Angela for the use of her photos of the ATCs.

ATCs

Bay Bridge Printed on Fabric
Bay Bridge Printed on Fabric

The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, a main artery between the East Bay and the City, closed on Wednesday August 28 at 8pm forever.

Well, sort of forever.

They replaced it and they had to reconfigure the onramps or interchanges or navigation whatevers.

I started ATCs months ago. I just wasn’t excited about it, but I wouldn’t face it.

Finished ATCs
Finished ATCs

Somehow, thinking about the Bay Bridge closure made me get excited about ATCs again. I found a historic photo of the Bay Bridge, adjusted the size and printed them on fabric.

I added some stitching, including testing out the Aurifil monofilament.

Voila!

While you read this, I will be at a CQFA meeting. I haven’t been able to attend a meeting in a while.

CQFA May Meeting

I went to the CQFA meeting on Saturday. I had sort of hard time getting there, but I ended up as the second person there, which is some kind of a new world’s record. I come from the farthest away and am always rushing in at the last second.

I had a hard time getting there, because I was reading a good book (an actual print book!) and just couldn’t put it down. I also had to take something to my DH, who had forgotten it and was stranded while his car got fixed. I also kept thinking the meeting started at 1pm. Of course the meeting doesn’t start at 1pm. It has never started at 1pm!

Anyway, I made it. The first order of business was a doll workshop led by Rhonda. CQFA held two doll workshops back in 2001 or 2003, I can’t remember. Out of them came my pieces, Mother Warrior and Artist Warrior. I also left those workshops with a lot of ideas, but haven’t taken the time to make more dolls. I’d still like to make Referencia, the warrior of research librarians, who appears in various forms in some of my creative prompt responses. This was a great opportunity to explore that format again.

http://pinterest.com/pin/17944098487979992/

I am still trying to catch up from my recent travels, so I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, but I looked through the materials Rhonda sent. Then I did a Google search for, something like, doll patterns and came across a picture of a mermaid. This is a much sweeter mermaid version than I made, but it gave me enough information to get myself together.

I used the same template that I used for the previous two dolls and added a tail.

Mermaid in process, 2013
Mermaid in process, 2013

I sewed body and tail together, using a batik for the tail and a tone-on-tone for the body. I didn’t want to use a flat solid for the body and that tone-on-tone was a good compromise for me. I unstitched the head at one point, then restitched some hair on to the piece. At the meeting I sewed beads on to make a bikini top and added a bead set I had that was a perfect necklace.

I need to put some more stuffing in her and I think her hair is not thick enough, so I will add more hair. I am not sure about additional embellishments, but we will see, especially along her tail.

Mermaid detail
Mermaid detail

I stayed after with Dolores, Maureen, Sonja and Rhonda and worked on the mermaid for quite awhile. Dolores loaned me her bodkin and it is a really nice wooden piece that felt good in my hand as I stuffed the mermaid. It is part of a set she bought in a class. I may get one as it was very useful.

DH kind of burst my bubble with the piece when he asked what I was going to do with it.

Sigh.

Why do people ask me that? EVER? Nothing! The answer is always nothing. I am going to make it, during which time there will be a much better chance that no acts of violence will be committed, then we will move on to the next piece and the cycle will start again.

Sigh.

Anyway. I may enter it in a show, if and, when I finish it.

There was a little business. The Olive Hyde Gallery fiber art exhibit is opening on Friday. A couple of our members have pieces in the show.

The color challenge will be due in July. I didn’t know about it in person, but only from the minutes. I am not big on challenges, but decided to take a strip and see if I could get inspired. I got a range of purples that are more on the frost/ice/blue side than the red side. I have an idea, but we’ll see if I can execute it.

We will be having another Library Show at the San Francisco Public Library as well. The show will be from October/Nov 2014 – April 2015. I’ll have the exact dates for you when they become available.

I won’t be at the July meeting, because of work, but Denise Oyama Miller, an active SAQA member and part of the Olivy Hyde Gallery will be doing a demonstration that was explained as being like Sue’s fabric paper. This is the first time in awhile that the group has paid for a speaker. I am very sorry to miss it.

We haven’t had any Between Meeting Meetings lately and Maureen, who was leading the meeting, suggested we think about those. Marie brought up the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles and there was some discussion of an out there.

ATCs May 2013
ATCs May 2013

ATCs were exchanged, but I forgot mine. I did get one as Maureen had an extra and took pity on me. Rhonda made hers out of the leftovers from her A-B-C Challenge from BAMQG. Dolores made hers int he same style as the piece she worked on at the Retreat.

The sewing time after was only attended by 4 other people, but I enjoyed sitting and stitching.

CQFA Retreat Work

Rhonda's A-B-C Challenge
Rhonda’s A-B-C Challenge

The last weekend was spent at the CQFA Retreat. We go to a small town on the coast about half an hour away. It is perfect, because I don’t have to drive very far and it is beautiful.

Rhonda and Angela came to the CQFA Retreat for the first time. It was great, because they were able to get to know the other members better. As I mentioned CQFA and the BAMQG were on the same day so it was hard to stay and socialize. It was also great, because we got to spend much more time with Angela and Rhonda.

Rhonda brought her A-B-C Challenge and was able to work on it a little bit. It really looks great and the CQFAers loved her travel concept.
PICT3101smI really admire people who bring multiple projects to the Retreat and then work on them. I brought two projects for the first and was able to work on both. One of my issues is I can’t organize myself well enough to make sure that I have all of the parts necessary for multiple projects.

Julie, unlike me, has a wonderful spontaneity about her work. As a result, she worked on several different projects. The three parts of this piece are really a good aspect of this piece. Of course, she used her hand dyes.

Dolores' FabMo Piece
Dolores’ FabMo Piece

Dolores likes to plan her pieces and does gorgeous, thoughtful work. At this Retreat, however, Dolores was sitting next to Julie and, without Dolores realizing it,  some of Julie’s spontaneity wore off (infected???)  on Dolores. Dolores took a sample book of linen she got from FabMo and cut the pieces apart. She laid them out on a piece of muslin as a backing and glued them down temporarily.

Her intention was to sew them just enough to hold down the strips until she could embellish them.

The interesting thing about this piece is the texture of the fabric and the fraying of the edges. The colors are earthy with a bit of zing (see the purple?)

Angela's Table Runner
Angela’s Table Runner

Angela came with the SCVQA challenge project. They will be having a show in April and the theme is Oh My Stars!

Along with the show quilts, the organization will have a challenge exhibit and Angela brought her pieces along to work on. She brought fabric and thread and ended up with the piece on the left.

This is a miracle, because there were many, many rules to this challenge. I admire Angela for coming up with this gorgeous piece and still working within the rules of the challenge.

Angela's Table Runner
Angela’s Table Runner

She decided to use the Gwen Marston wonky stars technique. I love this piece. I love the colors (of course!!! Look at that turquoise). I love the embroidery of constellations she did as embellishments. I would love to see Angela make a similar piece but larger.

 

Sue's Flying Geese
Sue’s Flying Geese

Sue worked, again, with batiks. Her piece from last year was just as gorgeous and when you look at them together, they look like a series.

I also like the juxtaposition of the classic Flying Geese with the contemporary look of the batiks. I know it is weird to say such a thing, but it looks so interesting to me and really stands out to me.

Maureen's Plus Quilt
Maureen’s Plus Quilt

Maureen started out with this Plus type quilt.

I love the fabrics that she chose. Maureen had a Jelly Roll or strip set with these colors. Instead of using rectangles as some of the pieces Maureen used all squares. She told me that starting with this piece made for a very calming beginning to the quilt retreat.

Maureen's Fabric Map
Maureen’s Fabric Map

Maureen started to have some trouble with her sewing machine so she switched to a hand project.

This piece looked like a map. Maureen did a lot of handwork on the piece and was thinking about others. She added French knots and a lot of couching around the edges of the white and blue areas..

Dolores
Dolores
Calm Basting
Calm Basting

This is what Calm looks like during basting. Big Deal, right?

Rhonda's Hand project
Rhonda’s Hand project

Rhonda took a class on different types of handwork. In the picture above we are helping Rhonda chose the colors for the next set of borders.

Robin's Indigo Ocean Waves
Robin’s Indigo Ocean Waves

Robin had some indigo fabrics from her mother. They were from South Africa. She found some great, and perfect, contemporary companion prints to use with the indigos.

The large squares are the contemporary prints. I also like the way these blocks are a bit off. It gives the piece movement.

Sonja's Bicycle
Sonja’s Bicycle

Sonja was working on several pieces as well. She was inspired by some of the activities she does with her family. In addition to the bicycle, she had a scooter as part of the series. It was such great work; I can’t wait to see it finished.

CQFA Meeting

January ATCs
January ATCs

The CQFA Meeting was actually on January 5th, but I can’t always get to the meeting notes right away.

As usual, we traded ATCs. There were about 7 people participating in the swap this time. It was really great to see all the ATCs that people made.

Mine weren’t my best work. I measured wrong and waited until the last minute. Everyone made the best of my blunder by saying that they were the embodiment of the resolutions of the New Year. They were skinnier than they should have been so they were the butt of a joke about weight loss in the New Year.

The meeting was great. We had the usual business meeting and show and tell after a really nice social. I finished the Garden during this social hour. It wasn’t fun, because I finished the Garden; the social part of the meeting was great because of the opportunity to chat with everyone.

I showed the Spiderweb top, mostly because I had it there and was working on ripping off the paper after I finished the Garden. I also showed The Corner Store. People were very complimentary.

1/13

There was show and tell, but I forgot my camera (typical, I know, right?). I love the group, because they do such great work. The piece above is one of Maureen’s and I liked the negative space. I was smack off of working on the Negative Space segment in the Design Series, so negative space in quilts was on my mind.

1/13
Ann brought this piece and it screamed Ruth McDowell at me. I think Ann said she took a class from Ruth at some point, but had really just gotten into working with her techniques recently. I thought the veins of this piece were great.

Good meeting. I enjoyed myself.

CQFA Meeting

I can’t remember the last time I went to a CQFA meeting, which is a very sad thing. I think it may have been May, which is forever ago. It was a great meeting – very well attended. In a way I wish BAMQG and CQFA were not on the same day, but, on the other hand, I get all the driving and being out of the house out of the way in one day.

ATCs

November 2012 ATCs
November 2012 ATCs

I made really cool ATCs. I saved the mesh wrapping from two different bags of fruit. Limes had a green mesh wrapping. The other was a red mesh bag. I opened them up to flatten them, then placed them in layers over a piece of fabric, which was of an unfortunate design. I tried not to think too much about the choices I made while I was making them. I just made the choices and worked through the design in my head.

I placed the two kinds of mesh over the fabric, pinned everything together and wove eyelash yarn through the mesh over and over using one of my book binding needles. Once I felt like I had woven enough of the eyelash yarn through the mesh, I pinned the backs to the front (which was one piece) and sewed with a straight stitch around the two parts to hold them together. To finish, I satin stitched around the outside.

There were only 4 of us swapping, so I got one of mine back, which I was happy about.

Notan

Notan Exercise #2
Notan Exercise #2

Julie, Dolores and Maureen set up a presentation on Notan. They did a great job. I learned a lot and can use some of it in my Design Series presentation on negative space in the future.

The thing to remember for me was to the think of the whole design not just the foreground.  In the photo of the exercise 2 the white is just as important as the black. The designs are whole and neither the black nor white is more important.

I borrowed Julie’s book, because I couldn’t find mine and am looking forward to reading more.

Show & Tell

I showed the Flowering Snowball, which I finished the other day. No photo yet, but look for one soon. I have to get one of the boys to hold it up so I can take a photo. I am in love with the back mostly because of the large piece of Philip Jacobs fabric I included.

Dolores Self-Portrait
Dolores Self-Portrait

Maureen, Dolores and Bron brought their self portraits (workshop from last meeting), which really turned out great.  Maureen wasn’t happy with hers, but I liked it. It didn’t look like the photo she started with, but it did look like a person.

I like Dolores’ self portrait, because it has the essence of Dolores. It has her feeling, joie de vivre and expressiveness without looking exactly like her. I have always thought that getting the feeling of the person right is more important than having the painting or quilt look exactly like a person. I love the way Dolores has used the different fabrics for different parts of her self portrait. The black on white works very well for the hair even though the fabric is numbers. I think it was an inspired choice.

Bron's piece
Bron’s piece

I am not sure that Bron’s piece is a rendition of her grandmother, but I think it is. Many people commented on the background of the piece. The two different fabrics she used for the background are inspired choices. The different scales are good. The gold of the one piece of the background brings out the skin of the figure while the stripes in the left hand background mimic the stripes in the figure’s dress/shirt.

I also really like the scarf. I never thought of adding a scarf, but it really looks great and solves a lot of neck/skin problems. I would have liked to have looked at the scarf for longer to see how it was sewn, but didn’t get the chance.

I am constantly impressed by what CQFA people make and the choices they make within their pieces.

CQFA Meeting – Saturday

Fabric Paper

My Work Area
My Work Area

The CQFA workshop for May was doing the next part of the Fabric Papermaking process that I described last week. We painted our pieces. I tried not to obscure the work I had already done, but it was very clear to me that the first step should just be done as fast as possible so that you can make a lot. The paint can obscure beautiful compositions, so I tried to use light washes. Julie was sitting next to me and we discussed using watercolors, but we weren’t sure if they would adhere.

Above (and perhaps to the left on your screen) is a picture of my workstation. I wasn’t sharing a table with Rhonda, which made me sad, but I was sharing with Friend Julie, which made me very happy.

You can see my high tech palette (the paper plate) filled with aqua, pink and lime. I also found some Sparkle Glaze in my cabinet of wonder in the fabric closet. I brought that along and all of my pieces have a slight glittery look to them, which I like.

The piece next to the palette is one in which I used a blue fabric. I wanted to tone it down a bit and, I think, if you look at the edges, you can see that I succeeded.

The lime paint wasn’t so successful. It made my pieces look yellow, so I added some aqua to it to get rid of the yellow cast.

Julie's piece
Julie's piece

Julie was not able to join us for the Between Meeting Meeting at Sue’s to make paper, so she made some at home on her own. She has an excellent collection of stamps and brought a bunch. I just painted my pieces and didn’t use any textures on them. When I saw this piece I wished I had. She used a Duplo (the big Lego version they make for toddlers) to make the dots. I think it looks fabulous!

Julie's dots - detail
Julie's dots - detail

The reason I only painted my pieces is I wanted to do the simplest steps so I could see how they worked. I don’t know if I will do this again, but I like to have a good foundation. I think to use stamps successfully, I will need to make much simpler foundation paper/fabric.

I may ask Julie if I can print out her fabric paper on TAP or on fabric and use it that way.

Sue's Orange Piece
Sue's Orange Piece
Another Pretty Piece
Another Pretty Piece

The pink/green/netting piece (below) was out in the hallway drying, so I don’t know who made it, but it was another really good one.

This is a technique with so many opportunities for creativity, because of all the layers.

I look forward to making more of it. I think I will try to convince Angela and Rhonda to get together with me at A Work of Heart one day and work on a bunch of new pieces. I suggested to Sue that she should propose a class to Andrea. Once I figure out whether this fabric-paper works for the Remains of the Day type journals, that might be another draw. Sue has a full-time job, so there may not be time in her busy life for such an endeavor.

Show & Tell
There were some ‘Tells’, which was interesting and a lot of Shows. I showed the Food Quilt as it will be firmly ensconced on the Young Man’s bed by the next meeting. 😉 I hope I can drag it away to show at the next BAMQG meeting.

Angela showed her Travel journal, which is similar to my Red Journal, but a new class iteration by Andrea. I took very few photos of show & tell.

ATCs

Bron & Jaye ATCs
Bron & Jaye ATCs

Thanks again to Maureen who organized us to make more ATCs. I haven’t gotten back on my series of inspiration cards, but perhaps I will again?

Mine were more using TAP. I did 8 or 9 last time and finished up the last 4 for this meeting. I should have done something new, but didn’t make the time. I won’t be at the next meeting, which means I have 4 months to come up with some spectacular. Perhaps I’ll use some bits of silk to really make them sparkle?

More ATCs
More ATCs

I really love the different looks that come together when we put our ATCs down on the table. Look how vibrant and bright and crisp Mel’s ATCs look compared to the rest of ours? I think I need to play around with color a bit more on my next ATCs.

Under the Sea Challenge

Mel's Under the Sea Challenge
Mel's Under the Sea Challenge

I didn’t do this challenge even though I took the pieces. My excuse is that I couldn’t find them. Truly, I didn’t have time, though I do appreciate the organization that went into the challenge.

Mel’s piece (above) was inspired by the paintings of dogs playing poker. She has fish playing poker. Not only do I love the humor, but the workmanship looks wonderful, too.

I was so impressed with the quality of work that people showed. I am kind of glad I lost the pieces (they will turn up, I am sure), because I am not sure I could have come up with something to rival what others did. I know I shouldn’t compare my work to others, but it is hard when I am in the company of greatness. You know now why I drive to the back of beyond to hang out with these wonderful women.

Maureen's pouch
Maureen's pouch

Maureen made a zippered pouch. She used some of the vinyl for the front. Remember my clear tote? She said she wanted to see how her new machine handled the vinyl. I didn’t hear the details on that, but will have to ask her.

There was a lot of discussion of creating depth using fabric and I was interested in the different ways that people achieved that look.

Sonja (piece on the left) created depth by using different layers of tulle and adhering the fish and other critters to the different layers. You can see that some look more obscured than the others. I really like this look and it made me think of the undersea piece I did in Pamela Allen’s class and whether tulle would be appropriate.

Ann’s piece is on the right. I noticed that she is attracted to plants (the motifs seem to show up frequently in her work), so I wasn’t surprised to see a lot of plants in her piece. She had a piece in the Olive Hyde Gallery recently.

Rhonda's Pillow
Rhonda's Pillow

I was shocked SHOCKED! to learn that this was the first time Rhonda had used fusible. I have not yet begun to plumb the depths of Rhonda, that is for sure. She really did a nice job on her pillow. A number of the motifs looked painted to me, but I didn’t have a chance to explore further with her. I’ll have to ask her.

Another thing I think worked very well is that people did not feel the urge to use all the pieces they selected. There were a lot of minimalist pieces. I know I felt overwhelmed trying to think of how I could make a cohesive piece out of all of the different styles and colors. Why didn’t I think to select certain ones? I guess it is a good day when I learn something.

Virginia's Two-fer
Virginia's Two-fer

Virginia, always clever, was even more clever this time. The blocks were from a previous challenge that she has stashed away. She remembered them and pulled them out for this challenge. They really make a perfect ocean looking background.

I know Virginia is working on finishing up some of her UFOs. this seems to be to be the perfect confluence of such an endeavor.

 

 

 

FabMo

FabMo Buttons
FabMo Buttons

As I may have mentioned, we meet in FabMo’s classroom space. Bron, is on the FabMo Board and will sometimes open up the fabric space for us to gather supplies.

She said they had received some donations of buttons, so I went to look and picked out a few (left). I have an idea to make a fabric card holder (as opposed to felt like the ones I made in 2010) and I need a few more buttons to replenish my stock. I thought these would work for what I want to do and they are larger than the ones that TFQ bought for me as a gift, so I am not duplicating efforts. We’ll see if I actually do it.

The red buttons just appealed to me. I am sure I can find something to do with them.

I also plan to use them to continue embellishing the Christmas stockings. I started on it last year as a sort of in between project with no real deadline. I think there is a lot I can do to make those stockings look prettier. If I were to do them over, I would definitely use wool felt.

CQFA Retreat: My Work

As usual, I started my Fabric of the Year 2011. I made good progress, but I did not finish.

Before I left for the Retreat, I spent time organizing the patches into color families and then from light to dark. Normally, I figure out the size of the finished piece and do more organizational stuff. No time this year and it was fine.

Once at the Retreat, I spent a lot of time – all day Friday – arranging the color gradations. I got opinions from others about the placement of certain patches. I used my camera to look at the patches in a different way and it was a useful tool in my arsenal of work. Above you can see the progression. The top left is pretty soon after I put all the patches on the wall. The last photo, bottom left, is, basically, what I took home.

I had to pin and wrap the pieces in the portable design wall. I set it up in my workroom and am working on it.

I am glad of the progress I made it on it at the Retreat, but I prefer to work in my workroom. As I started work on Monday, I felt an ease come over me and the work began to go very well. I hope to be done sooner rather than later. Stay tuned.

 

 

CQFA Retreat Work

The CQFA Retreat was over the weekend. It was a relatively quiet retreat. Several people had to cancel at the last moment, which was a shame. Still, we had a good time and people made good progress on their various progress.

My spot with Julie
My spot with Julie

We were in the same location as last year, which has a separate building in which we are able to sew.

Other sewing space
Other sewing space

This was my view as I sewed. Reva does wonderful work and it was wonderful to watch her, Sue and Robin’s work evolve.

Reva's Black & White Piece
Reva’s Black & White Piece

The black and white piece is made from the fat quarter bundle Reva won from the prizes we got from Fabricworm.

Robin's Blooming 9 Patch
Robin’s Blooming 9 Patch

Robin’s Blooming 9 Patch was made from Kaffe Fassett fabrics. I liked looking at it. I like the pink.

Robin's Blooming 9 Patch 2
Robin’s Blooming 9 Patch 2

Robin added some 4 patches on the ends to make the piece a bit longer.

Sue's Scrap Quilt
Sue’s Scrap Quilt

Sue half square triangle scrap quilt is the kind of project I like to do on the Retreat. Sue had the blocks done and thought to do the rest at home. We encouraged her to use Robin’s design wall to finish the piece. She did so and made good progress. She wanted to use up as many scraps as she could and I think that she did well. Sue is making this quilt for her bed.

Maureen's work
Maureen’s work

I think the pink fabric in the middle left looks like the leaves a tree with the trunk being the piece right below. I mentioned it and Maureen said that we all see what we want to see.

Julie's work
Julie’s work
Julie's Calendar Piece
Julie’s Calendar Piece
Julie's Baggo Piece
Julie’s Baggo Piece

Julie made a lot of progress on various pieces. She started some and made progress on others. I was very impressed with her progress.

The Baggo piece is from a challenge where each person receives a bag of supplies from another and makes something out of it. I was particularly taken with the Baggo piece’s eye stamps. I was even more impressed when Julie told me she carved them herself. I really like the images and encouraged her to make more and sell them. I would be first in line for a set although I don’t do much stamping.

She quilted and bound this piece. She was irritated at the binding, which tinkled every time she worked on it, because of the bells she had added. I told her to stop and do something else in between. By the end of the weekend, the binding was done and Julie was not gnashing her teeth.

Julie
Julie

We went out to dinner on Saturday night together, which was fun. We had the most wonderful waiter who was kind, didn’t complain about any special requests and gave us each individual bills.