We had our last reveal of the year! These are our favorite meetings. This one might take the record for the number of reveal quilts!
Past Reveals
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| Pumpkin Stories 15" x 18" by Cindy Loper |
Artist Statement: My granddaughter loves everything to do with pumpkins. We love reading stories together. I've included three of our favorites. The QR codes link to audio recordings of me reading these stores. I used cork fabric for the books and inktense pencils to color the main pumpkin. I always use quilting cotton whether commercial or my hand dyes. This time I tried cork fabric to break out of this mold. I need ideas for ways to add writing to my quilts.
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| L 'Etoile 28" x 42" by Sharon Sciabica |
Artist Statement: I was stretched in every way! As still a newbie to quilting, it is all a challenge. On this quilt, the flower was very challenging. I remade it 5 times to get the right look. Thread paintingon the leaves and feathers was a learning experience, beading is also a new endeavor. Probably the most difficult part was quilting it myself. My 1st try had to be undone and re-quilted (lesson learned: look at the back once in a while) - all beginner mistakes hopefully i will learn from. I used cotton fabrics, taffeta, heirloom batting, water soluble stabilizer, netting, beads, pearls and rhinestones, metallic thread.
Travel Adventures
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| Zebras on Parade 22" x 30" by Teddy Wenner |
Artist Statement: Inspiration for design: I have wanted to go to the Rose Parade for many years. This year I finally got to go and see the beautiful floats. Although it rained for the parade, the floats were lined up afterwards in front of the Pasadena high school and I got to see them all up close and personal. I used cotton fabric, poly batting and fusible. Designing a quilt is a new area for me and I'm learning to critique my work.
The Edge of Night
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| At the Edge of Night 24" x 42" by Bonnie Ellering |
Artist Statement: Inspiration for design: I took a picture when we stayed at Ruthin Castle in Whales, from outside. Through the window, I saw the enormous chandelier all lit up in the room where we had had breakfast. That room had the biggest crystal chandelier, and the most incredible fireplace carved from stone. The wall hanging was made with cotton quilt fabric, a woven polyester layer, 2080 batting, and backed with cotton quilt fabric. It was quilted with polyester embroidery thread. Using the photo I took as a guide, I made a pattern that was laid over the polyester layer. Each piece cut from the pattern was backed with fabric that corresponded to the photo that was then adhere to the polyester layer using Misty fuse. The completed picture was embellished with quilting in different colored threads, and water color paint was applied to enhance pieces to match the picture.
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| A Tribute to Artemis II 23" x 34" by Robin Hart |
Artist Statement: Inspiration for design: When I think of the theme "At the Edge of Night" the amazing voyage of the Artemis II crew to the Far side of the moon and back comes to mind and inspired me to do a portrait of all four astronauts, the spaceship they traveled in and the earth rising over the back side of the moon. This is percale whole cloth output from my digital file, batting, cotton backing, Polyester and cotton threads. Painting all those portraits of the astronauts in Photoshop was a stretch.
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| The Old Barn 18" x 30" by Joan Mosley |
Artist Statement: Inspiration for design: I was teaching my beginning quilt class how to do curved piecing. When I got home, I decided I loved the colors and wanted to make a bigger quilt. The design grew from there. I used cotton fabric, wool, pearl cotton, embroidery floss and fleece. I used new techniques for wool appliqué learned at a local guild's class.
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| Die Winter
Nacht 21" x 29" by Tracy Visher |
Artist Statement: In my quest to try to make a quilt with a strong message but fewer pieces, I began with my hand painted background. This quilt is a depiction of my Mother's Father's family migration from Germany to Oregon. Some stopped in Nebraska and stayed. I wanted to show the cold barren winter night there, but to also show the warmth of a family home. I had numerous challenges getting the "spilled light" to work from the windows. I also wanted to try the double layer quilt (a quilt backed by a quilt), that I hadn't done before. I used Hand Dyed cotton, Silk Noil, liquid acrylic, painted and fused Pelon 830, batik and commercial cotton, embroidery thread, tulle, metallic thread, metallic paint, Inktense block, monopoly thread, poly thread
Indigo
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| Wednesday Regatta 13" x 10" by Michelle Peerson |
Artist Statement: My inspiration was a piece of indigo hand-dyed fabric and my love of sailing. I used hobbs 90/10 batting, thread, steam-a-seam-lite-2. The outer edge was my stretch. I originally faced the quilt. I then added 3 narrow zig zag rows of 3 colors around the edge.
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| Harmony 20" x 18" by Mary Stori |
Artist Statement: My inspiration was my goal to use only the fabrics in my stash. The material is Indigo over-dyed Japanese & ice-dyed cottons, Prisma pencils, wax pastels, raw edge fused appliqué, metallic thread, Hobb's Thermore Batting and I machine quilted it. After realizing the fussy cut motif planned for the left side was too small and despite a fairly good inventory of Japanese fabrics I spend more than a full day finding a substitute. The Kanji script is the word HARMONY. My computer isn't equipped with anything more than Apple word processing - Pages so my challenge was to enlarge and elongate this symbol.
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| Tide Pools 52" x 52" by Karin Polli |
Artist Statement: I had indigo dyed fabric in shibori designs from the last few years. I decided that I needed something else and started adding the bias tape strips in circular designs. Most of the cotton fabric is old sheets and curtains. I used cotton batting and thread and then embellished with shells and sea glass.
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| Indigo and Rust 27" x 44" by B. Lynn Tubbe |
Artist Statement: Inspiration for design: Using the rust dyed fabrics created at my friend Shelli's, and working through more of my indigo pieces and scraps from previous dyeing adventures. I also overdyed (rust dyed) some of my indigo scraps. When one of the rust dyed pieces looked like a face, this quilt was born. I used only fabrics dyed by me, except for the hanging sleeve and label. The buttons are some of the many I inherited from Mom and her mother. I had never done any rust dyeing, so that was a bit of a stretch and new experience. But Shelli is a great teacher , and the results are in the quilt. Not using any commercial fabric was also a stretch.
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| Ramona Remembered by Stephanie Bennett-Strauss, MD |
Artist Statement: Inspiration for design: My
sister Ramona died suddenly 4 months ago. She left behind both fabric and
Sashiko squares that she had not yet used for her next Sashiko quilt. I wanted
to use these in a commemorative quilt to help me with my own grief and
memories. I included all or parts of 6 of her Sashiko squares, many of her
fabrics, and pictures of her from different times in her lifespan. I included a
picture of she and I together when we were adult friends as well as sisters. I
included in the quilt many references to things that were important to her
–birds, music, all of nature (she knew the scientific names of countless birds,
flowers, insects, trees), and Native American teachings & culture. She was
a remarkable artist and a wonderful woman. I used Ramona’s
Sashiko patterns on indigo fabric, commercial Japanese fabrics, Photos on 8 x 11
paper-backed cotton sheets made for inkjet printers, cotton/poly threads. 60/40
batting. In one
sense, I stretch myself every time I begin a quilt without a particular plan,
which is something I do, each time in figure-it-out-as-you-go ways. In this
quilt working out how to sew together the irregular placement of variously
sized square & rectangle pieces was trickier than I had anticipated, and
necessitated more seam-ripping than I have ever done an any of my
previous quilts. In addition, when I had thought that I had the top finished, I
realized that I had not included references to two of the most important
passions of her life: Music & Native American culture. I rectified this by
attempting to Sashiko a piano keyboard onto the front, (Much Harder than
I realized), and added Native American imagery around her quilt label on the
back.
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| Once in a Blue Moon 21" x 31" by Tracy Visher |
Artist Statement: I have always seen indigo prints used in either improv or more traditional pieced quilts. I wanted to completely re-imagine how a shibori style fabric could be used in a landscape. I did not pre-plan or design the quilt. I let the markings speak to me about how/where they could be used to this end. The only exceptions is the dark blue line, which is a solid piece of dark blue denim that I used to delineate the mountains, as the values in the area were all so similar. I used numerous types of cotton fabric, various types and strengths of indigo dye, denim fabric, monopoly thread.
Landscape from a Photo
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| Reflections III 30" x 22" by Sophia Day |
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| Evening Glow 17" x 9" by Desiree Davila |
Artist Statement: The inspiration was a picture drawn of a landscape. I used shiva paint sticks to paint white tone on tone fabric. This is a whole cloth quilt.
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| Bell Rock Recharge 19" x 43" by Tracy Visher |
Artist Statement: On my list of stretch goals this year was my continued wrestling with improv. This is a real place, Bell Rock, just outside of Sedona, AZ. A place I have always felt highly connected to. At the bottom of the quilt are two small rock cairns. I actually left one of these for each of my parents after they passed. I set out to depict this place in a softer, but still complex representation of these amazing rock forms. So much light and shadow. My one nod to my normal "representational" depiction was the plant at the bottom. I cut the leaves from double sided fusible stabilizer, fused fabric to each side and painted the edges. The branches of the plant were thread painted onto 2 layers of wash away stabilizer. I didn't wash it out completely, allowing some of the texture and stiffness to remain. Materials (fabrics, batting, threads, embellishments, etc.): I used commercial cotton, linen, batik, embroidery thread, stiff fusible interfacing, acrylic paint, decorative threads. Monopoly thread, poly thread.
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| Dreams of Yosemite 21" x 23" by Mariah Bath |
Artist Statement: Inspiration for design: Our local guild challenge provided a small scrap of yellow/gold fabric we were all challenged to use in our quilt. I used silks, cottons (batiks, cotton prints, hand dyes) hand appliqué, fusible appliqué, embroidery threads, cotton threads, eyelash yarn, sequins, beads, cotton batting, muslin backing. My stretch was I tried hand appliquéing the mountains to the pieced background, then quilted over it with machine quilting, thread painting, match-stick quilting. I added sequins and beads as embellishments, something I had never done before and I learned a lot. I also used polyester batting on the surface to form the clouds.
Adobe by the Sea 17" x 15"
by Mary Stori
Artist Statement: The inspiration was creating an Art Quilt inspired by a friend's watercolor painting.I used artist’s altered white cottons by ice-dyeing, grunge gelli printing, hand-dyeing, Prisma colored pencils, wax pastels, distress inks, thread drawing, appliqué & machine quilting. Inspired by a watercolor painted by Sandy Smith, used with permission. Faced edges with handing sleeve attached. This was a huge stretch as nearly all of the fabric began as plain white cotton. Depending upon pencils, inks, wax pastels to develop the building's color and shadows. Those techniques are not typically in my wheelhouse.
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| Pink Lily 17" x 23" by Holly Miner |
Artist Statement: Inspiration for design was a photograph of an Orienpet lily in my garden. I used various quilting cottons plus a few woven fabrics, Quilting thread: Superior Threads Microquilter. I learned a new technique from Katie Pasquini Masopust: Artful Logcabins.
Wildcard Challenge: Into the Woods
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| Regeneration 36" x 46" by Sara Lamb |
Artist Statement: My inspiration was new growth and regeneration after a devastating fire. I used commercial cotton, Spoonflower printed fabrics, hand dyed fabrics, cotton batting, threads. I used entirely commercial fabrics, which, for me, is a stretch.
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| Sequoia Magic 18" x 24" by Michelle Peerson |
Artist Statement: Inspiration for the design was a photograph of winter in the Sequoia National forest. I have spent many summers at Lake Sequoia with my family. It is a 90 acre lake, which is man made. It is located near the entrance to the National Forest and run by the YMCA. Many of the staff have the privilege of living there year around. The winter must be pure magic as you can see. I used an image painted on fabric, hobbs 90/10 batting and 9 different color threads. Thread painting was a stretch for me.
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| Shinrin-Yoku: Forest Bathing 20" x 24" by Karla Rogers |
Artist Statement: The inspiration was Shinrin-Yoku: Forest Bathing and a photo by Dr. Charles Stanley. I used cotton and batik fabrics, wool batting, DMC floss, superior magnifico thread, french knots and glass beads. My stretch was not to allow the negative self-talk to stop me from completing the project.
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| Fantasy Flowers 36" x 34" by Michelle Peerson |
Artist Statement: My inspiration was fused fabrics. I used cotton fabric, hobbs 90/10 batting and steam-a-seam-2 lite. This is one of those projects that you feel happy to work on. I enjoyed the entire time and it brought me so much joy. I took this project to work on at our recent MAQ retreat in Tahoe. I had a box full of fused fabrics and the background ready. I asked all of the other ladies to make a 'fantasy flower". I received some really fun contributions, including some 'dead' fabric from Sara Lamb.
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| Sly Park Lake 12" x 14" by Susan Dunmore |
Artist Statement: This is my favorite spot. I used cotton fabric, and thread painting, with a very thin binding. Thread painting was a stretch on the small trees and the tiny binding.
