Nedra's Communication - "Love Letters"

After a conversation, with Andrea, about the wealth of possibilities this theme presented, I began thinking of several methods of communication; but I kept focusing on one - feather tipped pens.  Images came to mind of handwritten letters with the curved feathers of a pen superimposed on them.  Hmmm, this could be interesting.  I thought of my reading of the biography of John Adams, I was moved by the correspondence of Abigail and John during their many years of separation while she remained in Massachusetts and he journeyed to Philadelphia, Paris and Amsterdam.  Their love endured the many miles between them and was so evident in their correspondence.   Feather tipped pens were used to write those letters!!!!  Aha!!  I knew this was what I wanted to do.  Screen printing seemed to be the best method for the images I imagined , and so I went to my friend most skilled in this for a lesson, Andrea!!

I found the letter (from the Massachusetts Historical Society Archives) and the pictures via a Google search.  In order to get the shape of the pen just as I wanted, I had to sketch it myself.   Black and white copies of all were made and off to Andrea's I went.  She patiently walked me through the process and we made the screens using a thermofax machine.  I learned the toner in the photocopy “etches” the special plastic screen and thus allows you to screen print the images.  Now at home on my own, I pulled the images of the letter and pictures with a black acrylic paint on gray cotton sateen.   Although, I achieved the look I wanted, it seemed dull with only the black printed onto the gray background.  I quickly realized that more contrast was needed. I purchased a black silk which I used to frame the pictures and a dark gray silk which formed the border and provided a nice frame for it all and the needed contrast.

I stitched the framed pictures onto the bordered letter.  I then ironed a fusible to the back of the sateen with the screen printed feather and then carefully cut it out to avoid snipping off any of the feather sections.  I fashioned the inkwell from black silk and ironed fusing to it and cut it out.  I then placed those on top of the letter and when satisfied with placement, I fused those down.  I covered the entire piece in a navy tulle and wrapped all to the back of the peltex batting and fused in place.  I covered the back with a fabric piece the same size. Now for some quilting.  I stitched in the ditch around the letter and pictures and carefully around the feather.  Machine quilted feathers seemed appropriate so I stitched those using a pattern I drew on golden threads paper.   For a finishing touch, a few black beads were stitched on the feather tips which you can see a little better in the picture below.

Andrea's Communication

Homage To The Typewriter

screened, discharged, cotton, linen and organza fabric

Communication - my mind immediately started dancing with images of telephones ( NOT cell

 phones! ), letters, typefaces, advertisements, cave drawings, pens, typewriters. 

Ahhhh....typewriters!  My sister owns two antique ones so I thought it would be fun to photograph them, and I was "off and running" and very happy to have settled on a subject matter so quickly.

A few weeks into the project I was looking on Pinterest ( I am addicted ) when I saw some postage stamps that shifted the way that I was planning on making my piece, into something a bit more personal  

and fun/whimsical: design and create my own postage stamp!  

The name and address, which is mostly hidden on the envelope, was enlarged and screened from a letter that my grandfather mailed to his mother and sister from Switzerland in 1910.  As the postmark on that envelope was from Luzern, and I was creating a U.S. stamp I wanted an old U.S. postmark.  The one that I used is from another letter mailed to a relative in 1905 from Boston, MA.

A little information about the history of the typewriter is screened on to organza, and unfortunately a piece of thread ( that I did not see until just a few days ago! ) is also fused between the organza and "envelope".

Close-up of "postage stamp"

Close-up of brief history of the typewriter

Music - Carol B

Communication – I thought what better way to communicate then with music? Music is the universal language and is understood by all. It communicates feelings and thoughts and brings them to everyone who listens. What better way to interpret communication, I asked myself.

So I started with the idea of Gregorian Chant. An old and not well known form of singing, and the voice is the instrument of communication. There are many forms of chant, but this one I heard at an early age and enjoyed the sound. To depict chant, I put it on an interpretation of an Illuminated Page for a manuscript, and of course used the letter “C.” It could be for the word communication or my name!

Other modern musical notes were added using fabric I have had for years and of course, circles – because everything goes around and comes back to you.

I appliqued most of the piece by hand, fused some, embroidered the heck out of it, machine stitched some and added beading too.

I also posted this for Off the Wall Fridays which I like to link to.

Janet - Errands List

                                                       

I have to tell you this to tell you that. I was having an especially bad night during the planning of our last quilt show. It was going to be the first quilt show in history without any vendors and it was going to be my fault. Not only would they throw me out of the guild I would have to move to another town. That led me to how did I get myself into this in the first place (Judy asked me, nicely), why did I start quilting in the first place (my hands hurt too much to needlepoint) and somewhere down the trail of beating myself up I started thinking about cave drawings. Were they drawn because some woman had an overwhelming need like I do to be creative or was it a to do list for their mate because post it notes had not yet been invented. Personally I think it is a errand list. Since they had not developed numbers yet please follow the dots on the quilt:

1. Gurg, I've gone shopping
2. I saw a hat I just can't live without
3. Please pick up something for dinner
4. While you are out look at horses, ours has at least 100,000 miles on him
5. Pick up the kids at your mother's cave
6. About 5:30
7. All of you wipe your feet and wash your hands, I spent all day cleaning the cave
8. Does this make my butt look big?
   

These are all real cave drawings and I would love to hear your version of the to do list.

Now for the back of the quilt. There are caves all over the world with nothing but hand prints, some dating they think as far back as 35,000 years ago. Here are four generations of my family, my uncle Vicki who passed away recently, myself, his great nephew Justin (my son) and the youngest member of our family great great nephew Hudson Black and his chubby little baby hand. I included the hands because we communicate with them more than we realize. Think about how much you say with your hands without uttering a word.

Alice's Communication Quilt--The Lost Art of Letter Writing

The art of letter writing has, sadly,  almost disappeared.  I have a notebook filled with letters written by my parents to my dad’s younger sister Sallie in the 1930s, along with a few to his mother.  My parents were engaged, but it was during the Depression and times were hard.  Reading them, I heard my dad lamenting over the difficulty of finding a job as a journalist and worrying if they’d ever get to marry.  But then I heard my mother exulting as a new bride, listing many of the delights of marriage.  I decided to focus on this treasure-trove of letters for this quilt.

After choosing a few of the letters, I scanned them and some envelopes, resized them, and printed them on Jacquard Inkjet Fabric Sheets.   I also scanned and printed a picture of my parents taken in the early days of their marriage.

For the background of the letters and envelopes and the picture, I made a crazy quilt block.   I used some of Mother’s old, sheer handkerchiefs, as well as some old lace.  I backed these delicate fabrics with pink and blue fabric (more about these in the photo captions), fusing them together with Misty Fuse.  Once the crazy quilt pieces were fused, I sewed them together and added some decorative machine embroidery stitches to the seam lines and a bit of lace insertion with pink ribbon.

Next I arranged the photo and snippets from the letters and envelopes onto the background.  Once I had a design that pleased me and showed off the lovely embroidery on the hankies, I fused them to the background with more Misty Fuse.  Finally, I stitched around all of the fused pieces with a tiny zig-zag stitch.

I bound the quilt with one of the fabrics used behind the hankies, and I made a Cross Country block for the back, again using some of the fabrics from the front, as well as some 1930 vintage feed sack fabrics.  I chose Cross Country to symbolize how my father made so many cross-country (well, cross-state!) trips to visit Mother, during their long courtship!

The center block in the backing was also used under some of the crazy quilt pieces.  It reminds
me of my mother's "every day" china, Pink Tower by Spode.  I have a few pieces of this china, and I think of Mother every time I see them!  My father loved flowers and gardening, 
and he loved Texas, so the blue bonnets and other wild flowers in the fabric are in honor of him.  The other two fabrics in the backing are from authentic 1930s feed sacks.  Again, I chose pink for Mother and blue for Daddy.  It is likely that they would recognize these fabrics, perhaps in some garments that were made for them by their grandmothers!

I couldn't resist a close-up!  Perhaps you can read, in Daddy's distinctive back hand cursive, that he tells his sister Sallie "don't tell Mom" about losing a job he had for a short time.  And Delight #3 that Mother mentions to her sister- in-law is trying new recipes!  She projects into the future and imagines being a granny with grandchildren spending hours in her kitchen.  This is poignant to me because my late, beloved daughter was her first granddaughter, and she did, indeed, love to cook with her grandmother!

Rita's Communication: 33 Happy Souls and 1 Sore Head

Facial expressions are fundamental in one-on-one personal communication.  The nuances of "a look" can say volumes.  I've often been told I should NEVER play poker.  As hard as I might try, I do not, nor have I ever had a "poker" face.  It is usually very easy for others to "read" how I feel about something just by looking at my face.  It really worked to my advantage in my career as a science teacher.  One "teacher-look" could indicate I was happy, ecstatic, or excited with progress.  I could reward a student, calm a student, put a student at ease, or relax the whole class, and that is how this challenge block came to be.  My creation was inspired by a pillow top designed by Kellie Wulfsohn from Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia.  The whimsey of her design was the perfect springboard for this challenge.

The flowers are fused applique.  The stems are machine stitched with a triple reinforcement stitch.  The piece is quilted by stitching around each applique and then cross hatch stitching outside the design.  After completing the applique and quilting, the bead work was done.  Even the leaves are 'beads' purchased in the jewelry bead section of a local craft store.

Texas Mavens' Quilts at Dallas Quilt Show!

Sign outside the Special Exhibits hall

Rita's husband Randy took these photos and made a composite of them!

This is part two of the previous post!

Thanks to our wonderful Rita, one of the founding members of our group with Judy S. and me, the Material Mavens were a prominent feature at the Dallas Quilt Show!  Rita arranged it with one of the "officials" in charge of that show for those of us Mavens who live in Texas (and could thus easily get our quilts to the show and go see them on display) to choose 5 of our personal favorite quilts to be on display in their "special exhibits" area.

It took a lot of doing for Rita to achieve this, and all of us who had our quilts in Dallas are grateful to her for her hard work in making these arrangements and then in hanging the quilts herself, with the able assistance of Randy, her husband.  (Randy is the genius who makes the composites of our quilts!)

So without further ado, here are the quilts that were shown in Dallas.  I realized after posting the photos that I had left some quilts out!  I thought that I was being so very careful to get each quilt, but I must apologize to Rita, Judy, and Sara.  I think I left one each of your quilts out of my photography session! If any of you can figure out which quilt it is that is missing, and if anyone else (such as Rita or Judy?) took photos of the quilts as they hung, please email me the photos ASAP and I will add them!  One of mine and one of Carolyn's were left off this post deliberately, since we both chose our Communications quilts and I didn't want to "spill the beans" on these quilts before our official Reveal Day!  But--apologies to the three whose quilts didn't get photographed by me!

Carolyn's and Janet's travel quilts

My Surprise quilt--the only one in the
group that chose her Surprise quilt, so hanging all by
its lonesome!

Rita's and Judy S's Spiral quilts

Janet's and Rita's South quilts

Carolyn's and Rita's Mystery quilts

Kathy's and Alice's Interwoven quilts

Janet's and Sara's Interwoven quilts

Judy S's and Kathy's Harmony quilts

Sara's and Rita's Harmony quilts

Alice's and Janet's Harmony quils

The sign that hung above the quilts in the exhibit hall

Sara's and Judy S's Elements quilts

Kathy's and Carolyn's Elements quilts

Carolyn's and Judy S's Daydream quilts

This is how the display looked--it was right in the middle of the hall, easily
seen from the distance!

Sara's Spiral quilt

Kathy's and Janet's Spiral quilts

Kathy's and Alice's South quilts

Alice's Communication quilt

Carolyn's Communication quilt

Texas Mavens at Quilting Adventures!

Alice, Sara, teacher Katie PM, and Carolyn at Quilting Adventures
in New Braunfels, Texas

We Material Mavens in Texas have had some exciting times together recently that I wanted to share with our other members, our followers, and "random readers."

Last week Carolyn, Sara, and I attended Quilting Adventures in New Braunfels, Texas.  This was my 5th time to attend, and Carolyn and Sara also have gone in years past.  The three of us were in Katie Pasquini-Masopust's class for "Stitched Paintings."  

We literally painted on canvas and then cut these up (sometimes and sometimes not!) to make quilts.  Some few in our class got to the quilting stage, but mine are not yet quilted.  I will post photos of us three in front of the foam core boards on which our quilts were displayed.  

Then on Saturday following QA, Carolyn and I attended the Dallas Quilt show, where each of us Texas Mavens choose 5 of our little quilts to be displayed.  I have not moved those photos from my camera yet, but when I do, I will post the photos of that exciting happening!

Sara (in black), Carolyn, and Alice are standing in front of the MANY
quilts that Sara constructed!

Alice, Carolyn, and Sara with Alice's three quilts

Carolyn (in the middle) in front of her quilts with Alice and Sara

Alice, Carolyn, teacher Katie PM, and Sara in our classroom

Janet's Quilts

Janet's Harmony

Janet decided, after we invited to join our group, that she would love to go back and make quilts for all of the past themes!  Of course, I was delighted.  She asked me recently if I would mind posting her photos and her brief explanations of the quilts, since she is just learning the ins and outs of posting and blogging.  I told her I would be happy to do this.  You are going to love not only seeing her wonderfully creative and beautifully constructed quilts, but her sense of humor comes through loud and clear!

So above is Jane't Harmony.  Since her "narratives" are so brief, I will be posting all the quilts and all the explanations of them in this one post.  Here is what Janet has to say about her Harmony quilt:


While researching pain control I came upon a site for cancer patients who color mandalas while receiving chemo.    I had never heard of a mandala so I went into research mode more than a little skeptical.   Mandalas have been around for centuries and show up in nearly every culture.  I downloaded a few from a free site and on an especially bad pain day I gave it a try.   When I finished coloring it I was surprised to see how many hours had gone by.  Not only had I not felt any pain but a sense of calm and peace came over me.  For the Harmony quilt I chose my favorite mandala to color and then had to figure out how to convert that to fabric.  I had to do it in layers with heat and bond, making it too difficult to sew through so I placed tulle over the front.

Janet's South

South did not make me think of a direction or region but what it was like growing up in the south.  I made notes for weeks and edited and re-edited.  Some things cannot be explained unless you grew up deep in the Bible belt in the fifties.  My husband is from Texas and considers me a Yankee and I'm from Oklahoma.  This is only my second time to quilt something and first time to color with pigment pens.  I lightly glued the pattern onto the quilt to sew the flowers and forgot about the lettering done with transparency paper.  I ironed it so set the glue and ruined the print which I did not know till I went to pull off the paper.  So it is patched here and there.  This quilt was many new lessons learned, the hard way.

Janet' Daydream

This one was especially hard for me.  I really don't have daydreams, I have to live with the reality of my situation and to sit and dream of something different would be futile.  So this quilt is a representation of what I wish my life was like.  Bright, orderly, structured, balanced. Ok, so I do daydream just a little about George Clooney and chocolate.  Geroge Clooney in chocolate, me with George Clooney in the chocolate......sigh.

Janet's Mystery

the back of Janet's Mystery quilt

This one was easy.  I have loved all the reincarnations of Sherlock Holmes over the past 112 years but my all time absolute favorite was Basil Rathbone.  We did not have a television in our home growing up for religious reasons so I loved going to slumber parties so I could watch the late night movies.  While the rest of them were making prank calls (Is your refrigerator running? Do you have Prince Albert in a can?) and rolling each others hair  I just wanted to watch movies. On the back you can read a listing of all of  his movies and the year they were released.

Janet's Elements

Several years ago on a trip to Austin to take our son to the airport we stopped behind a man driving a Honda Element.  I said, “Look, there's a man in his element.”  From the front seat I get silence.  So I said it louder just in case they did not hear me.  Nothing.  We have levels of puns in our family, good ones, groaners, and not worth acknowledging.   So this quilt is for my husband David and my son Justin who I have been torturing for years with this pun.  Until they at least acknowledge it I will not surrender even though they have both asked me to give the car pun a brake.

Below, one I almost left off, Janet's Surprise quilt.  

Janet's Surprise

For a long time all I could think of for surprise was Gomer Pyle, surprise, surprise, surprise.  I did not want to look at that on my wall every day.  On a trip to Tyler to see husband David's family, his sister gave him some baby clothes and items she had found in their mother's cedar chest.  Among the items were two shirts for her baby shower, hand embroidered with names of her friends.  One was baby blue and the other was pink.  I started thinking about what, if anything, is a surprise anymore.  With the technology we now have and the ability to tell everyone everything, the moment you hear it, this surprise no longer exists.  I think my son's generation is the last one where parents didn't know what you were going to have.  I know everyone wants to have their color-coordinated baby "suites", as they now call them, ready, but there is nothing like the joy of the doctor telling you it's a boy or it's a girl.  I was asleep at the time and so groggy afterward, when I did see our son, it didn't sink in.  Everyone who came by the first day said I asked them over and over what I had.  They could have stuck me with someone else's baby.  No, I know he is mine, because we laugh at the same time in movies when nobody else laughs!