Opinions Needed

This is something new I have tried. I'm really not much of a traditionalist when it comes to patchwork. I took three coordinated patterns of decorator fabric samples and cut them like a 9 patch, but with curves. Then I put them back together trading the parts around. Below are the three sewn pieces arranged in five different ways.

Please give me your opinion on which one looks best or what else I could do to make this a better piece (other than just throwing it in the trash!). I kind of like #3 and #5. What's your pick and is there anything else I should do with this?

I do have these same three samples in navy blue, should I do the same thing with them and then put the six together into a piece? Should I have sashings of some sort and a border? Your opinions are welcomed and appreciated.
Arrangement #1


Arrangement #2


Arrangement #3


Arrangement #4


Arrangement #5














Part of the reason I did this set is to jump start a bit of creativity, waiting for the start of Fast Friday Fabric Challenge this Friday. I'm really looking forward to it.

Party!

Below are the pictures of my Tiny Textiles Challenge quilt-Party! I loved the pattern on a decorator fabric sample I had and used it with a coordinating pattern of just circles to create this piece. The original fabric reminded me of balloons floating on the wind (the black lines) and that inspired me to add the four appliqued circles from the coordinating fabric.

I had a hard time deciding how to quilt this. Originally I thought I would just do an all over stippling technique but felt it wouldn't really add to the wind blown quality I wanted. I ended up just doing a repeat of the printed lines and I think it definitely gives more sense of movement. The piece that is mottled yellow is actually the back of the quilt. I really like the way the quilting really shows up on the back.

FiberArt For A Cause

These four fabric postcards have been sent to Virginia Spiegel for the FiberArt For A Cause sale to be held at the IQA show in Houston in October. All the proceeds from the sale of donated postcards goes directly to the American Cancer Society for research. Virginia has set a goal to have 1800 postcards to sale at the show.

FFAC was started a year ago and originally the postcards were sold over the internet and then premiered at last year's Houston show. In April of this year they were also sold at the IQA show in Chicago and so far the postcards have brought in over $53,000 for The American Cancer Society. It is hoped that with the sales from the October show in Houston we will have donated $100,000 to fund research, saving many lives in the process.

My Studio

My studio is 10' x 13' and has one north facing window. It originally had a small poorly placed closet which would have made it nearly impossible to have a decent sized cutting table in the room. We tore out the closet and used the door (78" x 24") for a worktable (attached to a wall and my sewing table).
My design board is 4' x 4'. It is homosote covered in gray felt. I chose the homosote insulation because it is heat resistant. This works great because I often do fused applique in my quilts and this allows me to spot fuse the pieces to the background fabric while it's still on the design board. That's much easier than trying to pin small pieces on the design board and then move to a flat surface for fusing. Once I have my applique pieces spot fused I move the piece to a flat surface for more thorough fusing.
This is my lovely cutting table which is 56" x 53" and 36" high. I can't bend easily because of my MS and fibromyalgia so this works really well for me. The top was covered in an old thick mattress pad and then covered with plain white canvas. Since I often sew for decorators I keep a sheet over the top to keep as much cat hair off the canvas.
Though I have an ironing board hanging on the wall to the left of the cutting table, I usually just iron my fabric on the cutting table. It's much faster since I can have the fabric out full width.


This view shows more of the "door" work table. You can also see some of my stash on the shelves up above.

The low "box" on the left corner is a non-functioning scanner that my husband turned into a light box for me.








My sewing machine table has a dropped section for the machine and butts up to an intrior closet door that is attached to the wall for a work table. This work table (wood tone) is great when I am doing large pieces as it holds the weight of the fabric, making it easier to sew and quilt.


This is the view as you walk into my studio. You can see my rolling carts with my stash. The black cart is actually a wheeled tool box that I take when I go to my quilt meetings. It allows me to take a small machine and all the supplies I need to work on a project.

The white cabinet behind the cutting table is actually four pieces stacked. They are all available in the storage areas at most discount stores and home improvement stores. The top cabinet is basically a divided box with two doors. The middle cabinet has three shelves behind the two doors. The bottom is actually two, two draw units. We anchored the whole stack to the wall for safety.

My husband actually has a small corner workspace in the room as well. He is an avid fly fisherman and he joins me in the studio and ties flies as I am quilting. It's great because I don't have to feel guilty for not spending time with him when I want to work on a piece. The only problem with his hobby and my quilting is that we now are often shopping for similar products. Which means that we tend to spend a lot more when we go to the fabric stores and craft stores(he didn't use to go in with me), and the fly fishing shops (they have great things for embellishing-thread, beads, feathers, yarns-lots of neat things!)

2006 Grab Bag Challenge

The first picture is of the fabrics in the bag that I received. The part that looks like a stripe is actually the back of the the quilt I made. I pieced two of the bag's fabrics to make the 20" x 20" size required. The second picture is of the front of "Dawn's Chorus".

For the front I used some hand dyed fabric and then fuse appliqued most of the parts of the picture. The fairy's body I painted using Tsukeniko inks for the skin and fabric paint for the dress. I drew the shape of the wings on sparkle organza with a water soluble marker, stitched over the marks with clear nylon thread and then cut close to the stitching. I then went back over that with a narrow zig zag stitch.

Once I got over the immediate fear of what to do with the fabrics sent to me I had a great time with this challenge!

2006 Quilt Swap

Here are pictures of this year's quilt swap. The center panel is an old handwoven Japanese silk. The background is cotton. I used machine quilting in clear nylon on the center panel and then hand quilted and beaded the background. It now resides in an internist's office.

Above is my very first art quilt, which I made for the first QuiltArt group quilt swap. This was also my first venture into free motion quilting. The Kanji is the word love, which is appliqued in silk. The flowers are done in broderie perse.

In The Spirit of Creativity

I've wanted to create a blog for some time now and am finally ready to share my joy in creativity with everyone. Though my health keeps me from working outside the home, I keep my spirits up by being creative.

My passion is creating art quilts! I love pictorial quilts, but also desire to try my hand at abstract work. I am a member of the online group QuiltArt and the wonderful people there continually inspire me to greater creativity and higher technical standards in my art and my quilts.

I love challenges and recently took part in the Grab Bag Challenge on QuiltArt. It was fun receiving a bag of assorted fabrics and embellishments and having to create a 20 x 20 quilt for someone else, even though I didn't know who that person was. The anticipation, waiting to see what was created for me , was high and I was finally pleased to see the pictures of "Lunatic Fringe", the quilt that was created for me by Cindy Cooksey. She did such a great job the quilt was selected to travel to exhibits for the next year. Sigh, I guess I will have to be content with the pictures until it comes home to me.

I've also taken part in the last two QuiltArt quilt swaps. It was fun getting to pick choices from a bevy of absolutely beautiful quilts and then be surprised with the one that became mine.

I'm currently signed up to participate in the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge which will once a month challenge us to create a small/medium quilt, following that month's challenge topic and to complete it and post a photo, in only a week! If this doesn't cure me of my procrastination, nothing will. Seriously, I know that this challenge group will be a great help in increasing my creativity, technique and types of style.

I will try to get some photos up of my work shortly. I am new to this and it may take me a bit to get it all figured out. Thanks for visiting me!
Jean