Winterblues

For Sky-is-the-Limit the theme for this month was Winterblues. Although winter is not my favorite season, I am happy with the quilt I could make with this theme.  I took the theme quite literally as you can see :-).
For the background I used torn strips of fabric placed at random over and next to each other. With my Cameo Silhouette I cut the text out of freezer paper. There is a learning curve with this cutter, I have to say. Have to practise a lot more to get the hang of this machine. The text was placed on top of the fabric, ironed and painted. The trees I cut out of pounded fabric. Quilting was done using a simple design.
As it is a Friday today I am posting this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday's.

Once more Life at the Beach

 A couple of months ago I made a 12"x12"quilt for Sky is the Limit group. I really liked the quilt, but I wanted to do a bit more with it. To accomplish this I painted a canvas and stitched the quilt on it. Added a few small shells to it and now it looks like this:

The canvas is 16"x20".

Cosmos

The theme for Sky-is-the-Limit this month was Cosmos. When I read this I knew I wanted to do something with nebula's. Out of my stash I picked an yellow/orang piece of fabric and used knotted as well as stitched shibori on it to create the beginning of the nebula's. Next step was to overdye it using deep navy. To make the stars in the nebula's pop I added additional beading and some sequins on it and this is the result:

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Broken Lines

Last week I showed you the beginning of this project. I added more strips to it and cut these into different lengths. After quilting I handstitched the quilt onto a painted canvas and this is how it looks now:

 Here you can see a detail:

I made this quilt in my series lines for the Free Spirit Artist group. This is the 6th quilt in this series. The canvas is 16"x20" and the title is Broken Lines. While working on this series I discovered that there are many ways in wich lines can be used. Will I continue working with this theme the coming year? I don't know yet.

new project - new group

If you follow my blog you know that I belong to several groups. This motivates me to make quilts tailored to specific themes. For one of my groups - Free-spirit-artists - I started working on a new project. The theme is lines and on the picture you can see the beginning of it. Okay, I admit you can not yet see much, but that will come later :-)Right now I am also involved in setting up a new online group which will work with a bi-monthly theme. If you are interested in joining us, please leave a comment and make certain that I can reach you. The 'noreplyblogger'  address is not very usuable :-)

Abstract Autumn

The abstract quilt I made for Sky is the Limit gave me an idea for my trees theme for Voyage as well. Same idea but looking differently:

As background I used a snow dyed piece of fabric and for the trees and the falling leaves other hand dyed scraps out of my stash.
Technically speaking my quilts for this year for Voyage are completed, but I have no idea where I put the first one. As we are having a show in France next year, I might have to make a replacement for that one.
I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday. Check out the link to see what other people did this week.

Birches

This year I am making a lot of quilts with the theme trees. There are so many ways of using this theme and creating something with it. This time I focussed on birch trees. As background I used a multi layered piece of fabric. Using my own photos and some ideas I found on Google I created a line drawing which I enlarged to the size I needed. This quilt is one for Voyage and the size this year is 12"x17". The enlargement I copied onto freezer paper and ironed this on top of the fabric. With paintstiks I colored the areas of the fabric which were not covered with the paper. After it had cured I stitched only the background area. And this is how it looks:

Okay I admit I should have ironed it before I took the picture :-).

Abstract Trees

The October theme for Sky is the Limit was abstract. After I had made the background of commercial fabric I played around a bit with paper shapes. When I had a composition which I liked I cut these shapes out of hand dyed fabrics and fused this down onto the background. My original composition was not this one, when I was quilting it it looked much more pleasing this way. And it also gave it it's name: Abstract Trees. As always size is 12"x12".
My theme for this year for Voyage is trees, so I have an idea for my 6th quilt for this group as well :-).

exhibit

I have shown this picture before, but what is new is that this quilt called Ghostflowers is included in the online exhibit Lines into Shapes 2013. Click on the link to see what else is included.
And as it is Friday, I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Change

Change was Sky's theme for last month. And yes, I am late in finishing it :-). My initial idea was to start with a hexagon and change the shape of it, turning the quilt into an art quilt. But as this is handpiecing it would have been very time consuming. Reason for me to change it into something else. I decided to focus on the changing of fabric, starting with a white piece of fabric, adding a bit of paint, and a bit more and so on. This is the finished result:

Veldhoven

The last couple of days I was in Veldhoven. I am a member of Voyage and the quilts we had made last year were exhibited as a guest collection at the show organised by the OEQC.

 

On this picture you can see my quilts, but if you check out the site of OEQC you can see a video they made of all the Voyage quilts. The shiny strip which you see on the picture is a barrier preventing people to touch the quilts.

ice cube dyeing

Many quilts I make are small, but now and then I want to create something big. Not certain exactly how big it will be, but I cut a piece of fabric of around 45". This plus a long piece of cotton rope I placed in a gutter after I soda soaked it. On top of this I put a lot of ice cubes and dye powder. Two colors of blue and two of yellow. I let this batch till the next day. After rinsing and washing it looks now like this:

 

The fabric is from P&B (a pfd), but apparently the cotton rope was not pfd. I bought this at JoAnn. The same dye bath, but the result is different. No problem in this case, because I can use it. However if you were aiming for a similar effect, it would have been an unpleasant surprise.
I am linking this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday's.

and once more SAQA auction

The annual online SAQA auction is divided into 3 weeks. This is the piece I got in the 3rd part of the auction:

Patricia used paint and free motion quilting on a whole cloth quilt.

Although this was the last part of the online auction, there are still 2 pages of quilts which will be auctioned in Houston. However there are 2 days: October 28 and 29 on which you can place an online bid either $ 750 or $ 550. The next 5 days it is in-person bidding. Here are the pages:

http://www.saqa.com/gallery-mini-detail.php?ID=2471 and

http://www.saqa.com/gallery-mini-detail.php?ID=2473

SAQA auction

I was able to buy another quilt at the SAQA auction. This time a piece created by Sharon Collins. She used fused applique and free motion quilting on it. Here is the picture:

Tomorrow the 3rd part of the online auction starts. Check out these 2 links to see which pieces you can bid on:

http://www.saqa.com/gallery-mini-detail.php?ID=2416 and

http://www.saqa.com/gallery-mini-detail.php?ID=2430

Six trees

Last week I showed you the beginning of this piece. After the piecing I quilted it, added the shadows and finally the trees:

For the trees I used mulberry bark and some black paintstick. Only the bark was too white. Am I satisfied with this piece? Not completely, but because of the thickness of the bark I cannot applique additional leaves on it, so it will have to stay like this. This quilt is my 4th piece for this year for the Voyage group.
I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

SAQA auction

Not only do I donate to the annual SAQA auction, it is also a place for me to buy small art. This is the quilt I bought with the first part of this year's auction:

Belinda used hand dyed and shibori dyed fabric for it. The leaves are raw applique and the flowers are thread painted.
Tomorrow starts the second batch of this auction. Here are the 2 links for that:
http://www.saqa.com/gallery-mini-detail.php?ID=2405 and
http://www.saqa.com/gallery-mini-detail.php?ID=2408

New quilt started

This is the background for my new quilt for Voyage. For a number of years I was a member of an online dyeing group in which we swapped samples of color wheel dyeing. Because of this swapping I literally have thousands of 2,5"x2,5" square pieces of fabric. I don not need these samples anymore for color references so I am using them - slowly by slowly - in projects. This top is made from roughly 270 strips of fabric, in total 90 different colors. As it is for Voyage, the size is only 12"x17". After I took this picture I quilted it so my next step will be adding the applique.
I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday's.

Another auction is ending in a couple of days

There is another auction going on at the moment in which one of my quilts - plus the banner - is up. This one ends on September 21. Check out this link to see what else is available: http://zaac.org/art-on-main
Prices are very reasonable. This is my quilt:

The current bid on it is US$ 30,-. No doubt one of you can do better :-)

Sold!

I just received an email from SAQA that my quilt sold for US$ 350,-. Isn't that a wonderful price :-))

SAQA auction starts today

The annual SAQA auction starts today at 02.00 PM Eastern and my quilt is in the first batch. Here are the links for the 2 pages for which the auction starts today:

http://www.saqa.com/gallery-mini-detail.php?ID=2379
http://www.saqa.com/gallery-mini-detail.php?ID=2398

Happy bidding and hopefully your bid is the winning one :-)

Landscape exhibit

This quilt of mine is included in the Landscapes Art Exhibition organised by Light, Space & Time Gallery. Click on this link to see who else is included.

Oops, I almost forgot to mention that I got a Special Recognition Award for it:-)

Life at the Beach

Lately I have been neglecting my quilting and my blog because most of my time was taken by a very addicting computer game called FarmVille 2 and knitting. But the quilt I started early August is finally finished. As usual for quilts which I make for Sky-is-the-Limit.

Special Merit Award

For this quilt I received the Special Merit Award given by the Light Space & Time Gallery in their Botanicals 2013 Art Exhibition. In total 704 entries were received and as far as I could see I am the only one who won a price or award with fiber art. Check out the link to see what other people entered.
I am linking this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday's.

Life at the Beach continued

Progress on this little quilt is steady, but slow. I can blame this partly on the weather, but also on the fact that I did not know exactly how I wanted to create this. My first idea was to strip piece the sand and wavy cut blues for the water and sky so that they would go over the whole width of the quilt. But I admit I had doubts if that would look good so I changed my mind. After I had completed the sand part I created separate strips for the water/sky. The downside of doing this was that there was a very clear straight line between sand and water. Hmmm not what I wanted. I wanted a more smooth transition from sand to water. Looking through my stash of sheers and lutrador I settled upon two different blues of thin lutrador. Stitched this together with the sand and water strips and then used my heat gun on it. I have to say I like this effect. Hopefully it will not take me a whole two more weeks to complete this quilt .

Life at the Beach

The title of this blog post is where I want to be at the moment :-), but instead of that I am in my - very hot - studio working on a new quilt. The theme for August for Sky is the Limit is Life at the Beach and I decided that I want to do some strip piecing for this quilt. Here is what I have done so far:

The fabric I am using is a discharged one. I remember that I tied knots in the black kona and that it took so long to unravel those knots that the fabric was actually way to much discharged. But never throw away a fabric because it did not turn out how you wanted it. It has the perfect color and design to be fabric for a sandy beach.

Two strips are pieced, four more to go. I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Zebra

In case you have been reading my blog for a couple of years, you know that I have made a zebra quilt before. To be completely correct, a quilt of a zebra buttThis year my theme for Free Spirits is lines so to make another zebra quilt was just impossible :-). This time it shows a bit more of the zebra than just his butt. Background is white silk noir with black commercial fabric. The 3 small 'windows' are photo's of zebra's printed on silk organza. If I had the quilt upstairs here in my studio I could measure it, but it is downstairs so I will add the size later to this blog post. To give you an idea, the 2 'windows' are 6"x6". And I just measured the quilt. Size is 25"x41".
I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Fantasy trees

This morning I realised that I had not yet blogged about this quilt which I finished last month. For Voyage my theme for this year is trees and as you all know that does not mean that they have to look like real life trees :-). I think that some fantasy trees should be included as well. Size of this quilt is 12"x17" and all the fabrics used are hand dyed ones. Either done by me or by Kelly as I was with her when I made this quilt.
I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Architecture

For my most recent quilt I am combining 2 tasks: the final lesson for Katie PM and the July theme for Sky (architecture). My starting point is this picture of a light house:

 

 

 For Katie's lesson I had to combine the line drawing of my chosen subject with a grid. The combination looked like this:

I like working with the size 12"x12" so I went to FedEx to have this line drawing enlarged. Next step was to copy this onto transparant paper, give all the pieces a number - and there were lots of pieces - and choose the fabrics I wanted to use. This was not all. To give me a better chance of having all the pieces in the proper place I copied the line drawing also onto organza and numbered every part there as well.
Normally I use a glue stick when I am compiling a quilt, but this time I prefered a fusible to all the scraps.  Then the precise job of putting all those tiny pieces onto the background till it looked like this:

If you look closely you can see that I skipped some of the pieces. My patience was really challenged in creating this top. Not all the lines of the grid are where they are supposed to be, but I can live with that :-). At least the top is completed, now I can start with the much nicer part: the quilting.

Abstract with circles

This is another quilt I made for Katie PM's class. For the background I used a red gradation and added an orange and purple fabric to it. This way I had an analogous color scheme. With a complimentary color - green - I added shapes in different sizes to it. These appliques are completely surrounded by the color of the background and this way they change the value of the compliment. I used only one color green but - depending on the background - it sometimes looks darker and sometimes it look lighter. As usual the size of this quilt is 12"x12". The working title is green circles, but I am not completely happy with that title. Any suggestions are welcome.
I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

And another one

After I posted yesterday's show I heard today that another quilt of mine made it as finalist in the Art Quils Exhibit 2013 by Infinity Art Gallery. It is a journal quilt I made in 2007 called Hidden Sun:

Most quilt show only wants to show recent work. I noticed that most art shows don't use this 'rule'. Once more proof that a good quilt stays good :-).

Show time

Five of my quilts are selected for the 15th Annual Landscape Juried Online International Art Exhibition organised by Upstream People Gallery. I tried to create a collage of them in Picasa, but for some reason Picasa did not want to do this. If you want to see the picture, click on this link.

Ghost flowers

If you read my blog on a regular base, you know that I am working on another big quilt. I completed the quilting in the last week of May and after that I spend lots of hours removing the quilting paper. Next step was to cut out the flowers and stitch these to the background. The background fabric is a whole cloth, which I dyed several years ago. The fabric for the ghost flowers is a pounded one. Another oldie :-). I have not yet measured this quilt exactly, but the size is roughly 40"x40". I am a member of the Free Spirit Artist group and my theme for this year is lines. This is another piece for that theme. I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Whimsical landscape

A couple of blog posts ago I posted a picture of a small landscape quilt I made. I liked it, but I thought it deserved more. And this is how it looks now: 

I painted a canvas and stitched the quilt on it. It looked good, but it needed a bit more. So I added a tree. I am not a very good painter, but I think it looks okay :-)
Linking this post to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Light and Dark

For Sky is the Limit this month's theme is light and dark. For me this means automatically black and white :-) and as I am exploring abstracts also a chance to create another abstract piece. This quilt is the result. The black and the white fabric are commercial ones, the grey is a pounded fabric. I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday

Bad Moon Rising

On May 26th I posted a picture of this quilt:

I like this one a lot so I decided to give it something extra. Here is how it looks now:

Still the same quilt, only now stitched onto a piece of background fabric and stretched around a canvas. I love it even more now :-)

Landscape

This little landscape I made for Katie PM's class. I was aiming for an abstract landscape, but I think it is more a whimsical one. Except the fabric for the left tree trunk, all the fabrics are hand dyed. As usual the size is 12"x12". I am addicted to this size :-). I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

line quilt

When you are quilting a big quilt, it really takes a long time before you can post progress on it :-). Finally the quilting has been done and the paper has been removed. I decided upon what I am going to applique on it. Now I have to get this design enlarged - either by Rapid Resizer or Fedex - before I can continue with it.

New line quilt

I make a lot of small quilts - love the size of 12"x12" - but the last couple of days I have been quilting a big one. Size at the moment is around 42"or 44" square. It is one of my hand dyed pieces of fabric and to be certain that my quilting at the end is the same size as at the beginning I am using Golden quilting paper as a template. It will take a couple of weeks before this quilt will be completed as in between I will be working on smaller ones as well. Stay tuned :-)

Zooming in

This painting is done by a friend of mine Joss Rossiter. I love her work and can proudly say that I am the owner of several of her pieces. This painting has been sold but there are more in her Etsy-shop. She graciously gave my permission to use this painting as an inspiration source for my recent Katie PM's class.

For this class I had to pick an inspirational photo and zoom in onto a detail. I picked a part of a skirt as detail and turned it 90 degrees. Using only black to white handdyed and commercial fabric this is the quilt I created out of it:

It was so much fun working on this piece and I love the result. No doubt I will be using this technique of zooming in more often in the future.

Alphabet is finished

In 2009 I started working  finally it is finished. Okay, I admit the blocks were finished by the end of 2009 and till a couple of weeks ago they were waiting (im)patiently in a box. Size of this quilt is 32"x45". Every letter is made with a technique or material which starts with that letter. Here are they:
A = Angelina
B = buttons
C = cellophane zapped
D = discharge
E = eyelets
F = foil
G = grungeboard painted
H = heatable foam painted
I = indigo
J = jewellery
K = knotted resist
L = lutrador zapped
M = metal with alcohol inks
N = netting used as template
O = over/under (rubber bands under fabric, paint rolled over the fabric)
P = punchinella used as template
Q = quilted
R = rusted
S = sealed in sizoflor
T = tyvek zapped and painted
U = utee
V = velvet embossed
W = wax resist
X = cross stitch
Y = yarn
Z = zapped organza
Working on these blocks was fun. Some of them were more easy to do than others. I am glad that I have finished another one of my oldies :-).

Alphabet continued

I had hoped to have the alphabet quilt completed by now, but that will take another 2 days I am afraid. The quilting however is completed. Black thread on black fabric is not the easiest to do :-). Here is a detail picture of the front:

 And another one from the back. It is easier to see the quilting design in this picture.

I used a triangle design and outlined the individual letters. This post is linked to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

And 2 more shows

The list gets longer and longer :-). Since my last blog post I heard from 2 other shows in which quilts of mine have been accepted. And not only that I will be able to go to these shows as well - and most of the time that is not possible.
On June 13-15 one of my quilts is part of the Minnesota Quilters 2013 show in Duluth MN and during May 22 - June 22, 3 of my quilts are on show in Elk River MN. Also in Duluth is the show of SAQA MN where another quilt of mine is present. In other words busy, busy and busy :-).
At the moment there are 6 more shows on which I do not yet know if my work is accepted or not.

Alphabet

And once more I am working on an oldie :-). Several years ago I made each letter of the alphabet using a technique or material which started with that letter. On the picture for instance the R is made from rused fabric and the T from tyvek. Some were more easy to find than others, but I managed them all. All that time the fabric was waiting patiently for when I had the time to finish it. And now that time has come. I am in the middle of quilting this one. So with a bit of luck I should be able to post the finished quilt somewhere next week.
I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

And another one.

Five of my quilts are included in the 15th Annual Contemporary Art Juried Online International Art Exhibition organised by Upstream People Gallery. Click on this link to see all the art. I did not win an award, but it is always nice to be included in a show.

Another exhibition

Today I heard that another one of my quilts has been accepted in an online exhibition. This quilt 'On the Beach' is included in the SeaScapes Art Exhibition Special Recognition. Click on this link to see what other art is included.

Soft edges

Whenever in the past I wanted to create soft edges in a quilt I either used sheers, discharge, paint or zapped some synthetic fabric. But for this lesson I decided to stick with regular cotton and thread. And I can only say that it is difficult to create this effect. For the background I wove 2 pieces of fabric - next to each other in the color wheel - so that they blended nicely. My first idea was to use other pastel colors for the applique, but they simply got lost because of lack of contrast. After some thinking I opted for an open applique. This I made more open by punching a gazillion little holes in it, so that the colors of the background showed through. This only got partly the effect I wanted. Time for drastic steps :-). Using the dark blue thread which I used for quilting the spiral I added lots of additional stitching way outside the shape of the spiral. I admit that I never have done something like this and don't know whether I will ever again do it, but I got the effect I wanted.
The empty space I had on this quilt I used for adding broken lines, 3 vertical and 2 horizontal. More time consuming, but I like how they look like. Looking at this quilt now it is finished I can say it is not the best I ever made, but I think I got the soft edges correct.

Abstract

Another abstract I made for Katie PM's class. This lesson focussed on positive/negative space. I pieced the curved square in the background and placed the green strips over it. Made the sandwich and quilted everything. Next step was to add the red/pink squares over it. This is the part I am not happy with. I am not going to change them, but if/when I make another quilt like this I will find some other way of placing something in front. Not certain yet what that might be. Time will tell :-). Size is 12"x12".

Geese are finished

And this is how the geese look now. I have to add the sleeve and than the quilt is ready to go into the mail to MN. Size is 14"x20" and the official title is 'Geese on a lake'.
I am linking this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.