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.