It's been a long recovery!

Well, it has been a long recovery from Houston, I guess. I can't believe that I've neglected posting since November. Can I really say that I've been that busy? Maybe just that lazy?

Business - yes, very busy. Right after the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show in late October we were immersed in doing a big estate sale in Pasadena that is still in play. No Los Angeles Antiques Show for us this year, but I was again co-chair of the vetting committee for the Antiques Dealers Association of California and busy with my job as ADAC Secretary.

Our new quilt guild - Westside Quilters - is keeping me on my toes as president. We've had some wonderful workshops in the last several months and a fascinating program with Margarete Heinisch in January.

I have taken some time to finish some art quilt projects including a small journal quilt begun in a workshop with the wonderful Pam Holland in Houston. My photographs and sketches of a trip to Mt. St Michel on the Brittany coast many years ago were the inspiration for this one which includes my own sketches which were digitally printed and transferred them to the background using TAP transfer paper - my new most favorite discovery! The wine glasses made from fused sheer fabrics are leftovers from another workshop with Esterita Austin a few years ago. They finally found a home. These little quilts are a great way to freeze very happy memories.

A few days spent at Road to California and a class with Terry Waldron in
January brought about a very quick free-cut applique' quilt of my fantasy of the kelp forests of the California Coast. "Beneath the Surface" features lots of couched yarns and hand beading and was so totally fun to do. I kept humming "Under the Sea" from Disney's "Little Mermaid" .

I've also returned recently from a blissful week at Empty Spools and a fabulous class with the amazingly talented free motion quilter Diane Gaudynski. More on that soon!

It's good to be back!

Recovering From Houston quilt Festival

Well, I'm back from my first Quilt Festival in Houston. What an overwhelming experience. I flew in for four days with a friend from LA. I stayed in luxury at the Four Seasons, but walked my socks off to and from the Convention Center and around the floor. So many fabulous quilts - hundreds of vendors. It literally took me three days to cover the vendor floor - my box of purchases should be arriving in a day or so.


It was great visiting my quilts on display in the show including "Fossil Fueled" (above in the IQA Judged show) and my three in various traveling shows - "Night Flight" in In Full Bloom, "Stairway to Heaven" in Tactile Architecture and "Balancing Act" in West Coast Wonders.




I signed up for only two classes - I had been warned that I would need loads of time to cover the show - and neither was a disappointment. Susan Cleveland's class on miters was fabulous and my Saturday class with the wonderful Pam Holland doing travel journal quilts was so inspiring that I spent most of my time on the plane home with my sketchbook sorting out ideas. I can't wait to get going on it again.

My favorite quilts in the show? Well, my friend Sharon Schamber's quilt "Mystique" won a well deserved Best of Show. Pam Holland's Rhinosceros after a drawing by Albrecht Durer and her sample from her Bayeux Tapestry project keep appearing in my mind. But there were so many others, both traditional and avant garde that drew me.

Will I plan to get to Houston again? I sure hope so! It's an experience.

Three of my quilts and some smaller pieces are part of "Quilting is Art" a show sponsored by Quilts on The Wall Fiber Artists opening running October 6 - 30 at The Framery and Fine Art Gallery in Whittier. Address: 13105 Whittier Blvd., Whittier, CA 90602. The opening reception is this Saturday, October 9 from 3-6. Would love to see you there!

SAQA's Art Meets Science in NYC at Pfizer International Headquarters

Yesterday I received photos of the installation of Saqa's Art Meet Science Show now newly installed in Manhattan at the world Headquarters of Pfizer International. A big "thank you" to Jill Jensen the SAQA Coordinator for this traveling show.


The gorgeous modern building right across from the United Nations has very handsome gallery space and the show seems to display beautifully!

Unfortunately my piece "2009: A Space Odyssey" wasn't photographed, but there was quite a crowd in attendance for the opening including noted quilt collector Jack Walsh (Maybe he was there to buy? ) After Pfizer the next long term stop for the show is at the Visions Gallery in San Diego. Can't wait to see it there!.
Below are views of the Pfizer gallery and on the right is the show's Juror Dr. David Fraser who was viewing the quilts in person for the first time.

Noriko Endo Inspiration!

The other night I took this recently finished piece to the monthly meeting of the Santa Monica Quilt Guild for the Show and Tell part of the program. I received some great feedback and lots of questions about the technique used in "Autumn Aspens" - so to answer all those questions, here goes....

When the catalogue of the recent International Quilt Festival Long Beach arrived last spring I was excited to see Noriko Endo's name among the teachers and quickly jumped at the chance to take her "Confetti Naturescapes" class. She is a charming and talented, though very self-effacing, quilter and teacher from Japan. A truly lovely lady with a delicate sensibility and a talent for translating the natural world into fabric and thread, her quilts have an ethereal quality I am drawn to.

I had first seen her technique on Simply Quilts and had followed her work since. She has recently published her book Confetti Naturescapes which is published by Dragon Threads Publishing and is available on the Dragon Threads site. My painfully inept attempt at her technique is woefully lacking in the "je ne sais quoi" so visible in hers, but take a look online at her magnificent quilts and I will attempt to describe the process.

First we started with a photo - I chose a photos of a grove of aspen turning to autumn color on the edge of a Sierra Nevada meadow. Looking now at that photo, I realize I should have added more detail in the trunks and branches, but ah...hindsight...

From the colors in the photo we chose fabrics to match (hand dyes and batiks work the best because they are two sided) and chopped strips up into small confetti like pieces. Literally 1/4 to 1/8 inch in size. Lots of slice and dice with the rotary cutter. Following our photos these confetti pieces were piled on to batting and backing the size of our intended quilt to suggest areas of color along with larger pieces of sky to suggest sky or water.

Next, we laid down a piece of fine black tulle over the whole piece and pinned with straight pins every inch or so to keep the whole thing together to get it under the sewing machine. Invisible polyester thread was used to squiggle around the whole surface to apply the tulle and hold the little bits in place. On the next layer free cut pieces of fabric were laid down to suggest trees, branches, and any large foreground details. At this point more confetti was laid on to give an illusion of depth and shading. Noriko went around the room adding very tiny pieces of black and purple confetti fabric which she calls the "magic" of her quilts. Adding these dark bits truly makes the scene look like an impressionist painting.

A final layer of black tulle is laid on and pinned again. More invisible thread is added to secure the layer as well as any free motion stitching in colored threads to add shading, highlights, etc. On my piece I added some gray and white textile paint and some light gray thread to suggest the sun slanting over the tree trunks from one side.

At home I finished my aspen piece by trimming it, and mounting it on a quilt sandwich with thin batting to add to the size and provide a frame which I free motion quilted with silk thread.

I have ordered Noriko's book and look forward to spending many hours appreciating her beautiful work.

Chaco I - A Journey

I've spent a good part of this summer working on a challenge quilt for Quilts on the Wall - a group of fiber artists here in southern California. The theme of this show which will travel to various venues around the country for up to two years is "Discovery".

A photo taken years ago on a trip to the mysterious and impressive prehistoric religious and cultural center at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico's four Corners area seemed made for this challenge. I always tell myself I will document the progress of a quilt from inspiration to finished work, but I seldom remember to do it. This time I photographed all the stages and thought I'd lay them out for those who like me sometimes have a vision, but don't know where to start.

First, I cropped my photo and manipulated the size and to some extent the color of my original snap. After printing out the photo at 8 1/2 X 11 , I traced it on to an acrylic transparency sheet the same size. From there I photocopied the transparency film and blew it up (using Poster Pro) to the required size of 28" X 38". After gluing together all those pages i had my full size cartoon.


Then I began auditioning fabrics and colors, later fusing my choices on to a cloth foundation. I used some absolutely stunning hand dyed sateen from Judy Bianchi of Sebastopol, California for the masonry. When the large pieces were all fused I added more color, depth, shadows and highlights with various fabric paints including Jacquard and Tsukineko. I drew all the shadows between the stones with Fabrico markers using my cartoon as a guide.


Free motion quilting using several passes of silk thread gave texture to the ones and more depth as you look from door to door, to door. As you can see the piece needed trimming and when the quilting was finished i realized that the trimmed size was smaller than the required 28 X 38. I fused a narrow border in a purple stripe that is my new favorite print right now , did some decorative stitching on the join between the border and the image and then added a facing for a clean edge.

I'm happy with the the finished quilt above on the right , in fact my other photos of this wonderfully evocative place may inspire more - perhaps Chaco II?

SAQA - Art Meets Science

I was so sorry not to be able to see my quilt in the SAQA Art Meets Science exhibit at the Festival of Quilts in the UK this weekend, but I've had many reports that it was a great show and very well received.


I received a message today from Jill Jensen who spearheaded the show that Alex Veronelli of AURIfil Threads posted a video of the exhibition at Festival of Quilts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU1NBKzvGDM

Jill said the exhibit was very well received and SAQA is getting very positive feedback. It is on its way back to Houston so that it can be checked in, then repackaged for shipping to Pfizer headquarters in New York for its next gig. ..

The catalog is now on sale online on the SAQA site and the quilts for sale are also pictured at http://www.saqa.com/store.php?cat=22 Be sure to check it out!