Wednesday, November 1, 2017

October is the final reveal for the year, and it is always jam-packed with unique and beautiful quilts; this year was no exception. The challenges for this month were 'Influential Women,' 'I've Never Done This Before,' and 'Wild and Free,' along with a Show and Tell and a showing by a new member. Enough said -- enjoy!

Influential Women


"Silent Spring"
31x45
Jane Haworth
Jane was inspired by a PBS movie about Rachel Carson's life, her crusade to make the public aware of the hazards of DDT, and of her unfortunate death from breast cancer.  Jane used images printed on fabric, lettering cut with a Silhouette Cameo, raw edge appliqué, and Moda 'Grunge' fabrics.  Her biggest challenge was finding a way to combine all the images, but when she came up with the idea of a jam jar in the middle of the night, she knew she had it!

"Blanche Irene Rapp-Armstrong"
29x39
Julie Broughan
Julie was inspired by the front cover of a 1979 Sunset magazine featuring a woman who looked just like her grandmother.  Julie made this commemorative quilt using cotton fabrics, poly batting, silk ribbon embroidery and a fabric transfer of the woman.  She challenged herself to use her grandmother's 1896 Singer treadle sewing machine to put this quilt together, but she had to first restore the machine, the cabinet, and then teach herself to use it, which wasn't easy.  Treadle sewing is hard!
"Hanging Woman"
27.5x36.25
Trish Morris-Plise
Trish found her inspiration in the tarot card, "The Hanged Man," and a ballerina.  She has always admired women who see the world differently -- under water or from space are but two examples.  According to Trish, "When we allow ourselves to flip the world upside down, ideas change, visions emerge and, in my opinion, change has a better chance."  This is a whole cloth quilt featuring beading and paint, quilted with a Quilters' Dream batt.
"Gwen, Velda, and Me"
25x20
Norma Keeley
Norma's quilt is the fourth in her series of 'extreme simplicity quilts' inspired by Gwen Marston's book, Minimal Quiltmaking.  She used a technique for creating texture in a quilt that she learned in a class taught by Velda Newman, hence the quilt title.

"We Can Do It!"
42x49
Ginny Lee
The source of Ginny's inspiration was the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017.  Ginny created a list of  influential women including her mother and Boudicca, a Celtic warrior queen, who is one of Ginny's ancestors.  Ginny free-motion stitched the names of these memorable women onto her hand-painted fabric after tracing the names on Solvy, but the larger lettering is ultra-suede fused onto the background with Wonder Under.  It wasn't until the quilt was finished, sleeve and all, that Ginny decided it needed a pink pussy hat -- which she then knitted and wrangled onto the quilt by adding extra batting and hand-stitching.

"Influential Women"
Edith Gregersen
Edith based this unusual quilt on an old photo featuring women in her family back in the 1800's.  The women, her grandmother and aunties, all worked in Detroit, MI.  Edith embellished the photos with fabrics and trims matched to the clothing the women were wearing.


I've Never Done This Before


"Spin"
18x15
Carolyn Woods
Carolyn took a painting she had done, had it copied and printed on fabric, then added appliqué shapes suggested to her by the painting.  She used cotton fabrics, batting and thread and hand-quilted the finished piece.
"I've REALLY Never Done This Before!!"
28x28
Ardy Tobin
Ardy was inspired by a multi-colored, 2 yd piece of fabric from a fellow quilter; she used this fabric for everything but the circles.  For the challenge, she decided to learn to quilt with rulers -- Ardy bought the foot, bought the rulers, took an online class, took a two-day class, watched online tutorials then got up her nerve and quilted it -- almost entirely using rulers.  In addition to the fabrics, Ardy used wool batting, poly and rayon threads in various weights, Westalee acrylic rulers and a special sewing machine foot. 
"Playtime"
19x20.5
Pat Nelson
The inspiration for this quilt was Linda Waddle's rust and flour demonstration and rusty garden stakes.  Pat arranged the stakes in a circular pattern on white PFD fabric which she covered with vinegar and let sit.  Once she had achieved the rusty effect she was looking for, Pat made a flour and water paste and covered the fabric, making designs in the paste with a credit card.  When the paste dried, she crackled it and then painted over it with ink.  In creating this quilt, Pat used cotton fabrics and batting, mono filament thread, india ink, rusted garden stakes, flour and vinegar.
"Moroccan Kasbah Ait Benhaddou"
36x30
Ann Sanderson
Ann visited many kasbahs in Morocco this past April and found them fascinating.  She recreated this kasbah by painting on white cotton and found it challenging to make it look like a kasbah without being super realistic -- she wanted it to be her own interpretation.  This was painted using Golden Open paints and quilted with a bamboo batt.
"(Whispers)"
28.5x44
Joan Dyer
Joan used hand-dyed and Setacolor painted fabrics for this quilt.  The perle cotton design was hand-stitched following a technique Joan shared with us back in August.
 
"Feathered and Furred, Friends Forever"
24x31.5
Kathryn Madison
The source of Kathryn's inspiration is Tanja Brandt's stunning photography of her Belgian Mallinois, Ingo, and Poldi, her rescued owl.  In Kathryn's words, "In this world where so much seems to divide us, let's be inspired by the affection of these two spirits, animals of two different species, whose friendship defies all the rules."  Kathryn hand-painted Aida cloth to recreate a fall aspen forest.  Distant trees were machine embroidered using a new technique from Alison Holt.  The large foreground aspens were created by covering lengths of white Aida cloth with strips of cheesecloth soaked in dissolved Solvy, then wrinkled to resemble tree bark when dry.  These trees were machine and hand-embroidered to create 'eyes,' then painted for shade.  Painted satin ribbon was embroidered (another new technique) for fall leaves and the columbine in the foreground.  Ingo and Poldi were hand-embroidered in sections, then reassembled for a 3D effect.
"Universal Greeting Card"
12x16
Maria Billings
In Maria's words, "I'm not a funny person. When others tell jokes, I'm usually the one who doesn't get it.  So when the Visions Art Museum (VAM) in San Diego posted an online challenge, "That's Funny," it was a real big challenge for me: to create something intentionally funny."  Maria used whole cloth painting, machine and hand quilting and embroidery to create this card for all occasions.  Her Easter bunny in a Santa suit brings flowers, a birthday cake, a bottle of wine, gifts, good luck symbols and hearts.
"Origami Landscape"
24x24
Kari Hannickel
Kari was inspired by the work of Lisa Walton from Sydney, Australia, to create this colorful quilt.  Kari used acrylic paints on wet silk organza which she then dried and cut into 4.5 inch squares.  Those squares were folded and tucked into 3.5 inch squares and pressed to hold the pleats.  She used her Babyloc Sashiko machine to quilt over a flannel batting.

"Sticks and Stones, Roots and Cones"
17x21
Kate Grant
Kate's original inspiration was tree roots that were studded with stones in all the nooks and crannies and embedded in a trail.  This piece is her first attempt at an abstract quilt based on a natural design, and is her second mosaic quilt.  She applied Wonder Under to the background ("grout") fabrics, cut and laid out the individual pieces on the background and tacked them in place with a mini-iron, then covered the entire top with tulle and pressed it to fuse everything together.  Kate sandwiched it all together with a wool batting, then quilted between all the pieces with monofilament thread.  The fabrics in this quilt were batiks and regular weave cottons, one of which was treated with TerialMagic to reduce fraying.  


Wild and Free


"Free Bird"
13x15
Frances O'Brien
This quilt was inspired by a photo Frances' husband took while out at the lake.  Originally, this was going to be a sea turtle quilt, but the mosaic background seemed to work better with this image of a bald eagle in silhouette -- an image which reminds Frances of a stained glass window with a dove.  She created this quilt using cottons, batiks, tulle, Wonder Under, Dream Cotton batting and Aurefil thread.
  

"Man!  I Feel Like a Woman"
Jan Reed
Jan's inspiration for this quilt was a drawing by one of her granddaughters.  She fell in love with the sassy posture of this woman and her wild, free nature.  Jan colored her using Neo Color II crayons and embellished the work with beads.

"Kenyan Sunset"
26x29
Mary Scharosch
Mary was inspired by a photograph a friend took on a trip to Kenya.  She drew the giraffe then appliquéd it to the quilt, coloring it in with colored pencils.  The background is entirely from her imagination, representing a natural habitat for her giraffe and featuring a Kenyan sunset.  She used cotton fabrics, bamboo batting, paint, pencil, and a jewelry finding with the title.  She using a facing to finish the edge of her quilt, giving it a nice, clean edge.

"Under the Northern Lights"
18x16
Linda Siska
Linda was inspired both by a YouTube video of whales playing under the northern lights and by the gorgeous felted landscapes of artists such as Moy MacKay and Susan Mulcock.  She created this quilt using merino wool roving felted with Angelina fibers, then appliquéd fabric
mountains and added hand embroidery to finish the image.  This piece incorporated ArtFelt paper and was her first attempt at felting.
"House on the Hill"
18x16
Linda Siska
Linda had so much fun with the felting that she decided to do a second quilt using that technique.  Whereas the subject matter in her first quilt was the 'wild and free' part, in this quilt, it was her technique.  Instead of trying to control the roving, she just played with it -- laying out the colors in a random fashion.  When it turned out looking much like a landscape, she added a house and hand embroidery to finish the image.  In keeping with the wild and free theme, she left the edges raw.
"Rachel's Unicorn"
25.25x20
Maria Brower
Maria found an illustration of a unicorn and a princess in the book How to Draw and Paint Fairyland, and as her granddaughter, Rachel, fancies herself a princess, Maria decided to use that as inspiration for this quilt.  The quilt is mostly cottons but the unicorn and moon are made from glittery, white organza fused to white cotton. The mushrooms and frogs were cut from teabag dyed fabric, while the leaves and plants were either fussy cut or cut free-hand.  The hair of the princess was hand sewn using copper metallic thread; colored pencils and marking pens were used for the faces and hands.  Maria quilted this with flannel fabric for the batting and ARC polyester embroidery thread for the stitching.
"Wild One"
17x20.5
Jo Hathcock
Jo's design for this wild rooster is her own and she created the quilt with "normal stuff."
"Pori Bure Tembo"
17x27.5
Jan Petre
This elephant is from a photo Jan took on a trip to the Serengeti in Africa.  Jan wanted a 3D look, so she inserted floral wire in the trapunto ears, tusks and trunk and made them stand out from the body of the quilt.  Portions of the elephant were painted with Fabrico and Prismacolor markers with blenders to give shading.  Jan's fabrics were mostly batiks accented with various weight threads and quilted with 80/20 batting.
"Wild and Free"
22x18
Michelle Peerson
Michelle was also inspired by the wild, free nature of elephants.  Her quilt was influenced by a childhood friend who dropped out of school to join the circus as a trapeze artist.  After performing for many years, this friend bought the circus.  She now takes care of retired elephants who are cared for and allowed to roam freely on her estate.  In Michelle's words, "It is a sad world when animals of this exquisite majesty spent so many years abused.  In a perfect world, they would be free all their lives."  Michelle created this quilt using fabric dyed with PHEBO sun dyes and enhanced with Aquarell watercolor pencils and Superior threads.

"Summer of Love"
14x40
Mary Serpa
Mary created this quilt in remembrance of the Summer of Love.  She used commercial fabrics, "To Dye For," and quilted it with a wool batting.


Show and Tell


Liturgical Shawl
Robin Hart
Robin shared with us a river themed shawl made as a gift for her minister on the occasion of his installation into the church.  Robin made this shawl at the request of church members and had a tight deadline of a little over a week -- but she managed!  Her husband, Chuck, was kind enough to model the shawl.

New Member Showcase


Our newest member, Sue Serrano, showcased several of her quilts, beginning with this tribute to her all-time favorite band, the Beatles.  She used Lumiere paints, stamps and embellishments to represent song titles; album titles are embroidered around the edge.
These two pieces by Sue were done using a discharge technique with beads and stitching for added interest.
This last quilt by Sue, made mostly from a pattern, showcases her effective use of color, her quilting and beadwork.