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!

Lois Schlowsky - New Member from Atlanta

 My name is Lois Romei Schlowsky and I am so thrilled to be the new member of Material Mavens. Just love your name!!! I am intrigued by your bi-monthly challenge to create marvelous fabric works of art.

I look forward to many fun projects together

I have been sewing since home economics class in the 7th grade.
In high school, I made and designed most of my clothes. Then I went to Art School (majoring in printmaking and painting) at RIT where I met Tricia Deck, who is a dear friend.  (So happy you put a good word in for me Tricia.)

Professionally, I had a career as an illustrator, doing corporate illustration and children’s  textbook book illustration for 25 plus years.

My husband and I moved to Aruba for 5 years, where I resumed gallery painting , and got reintroduced to sewing by a Quilting Group I joined on Aruba.   I had seen some of Tricia’s quilts- found the island quilting group and decided at her urging to give it a go.
The group was about 25 strong, which is amazing for such a tiny island.  I could not have been with a more supportive, diverse group of women, from age 23 to 82.
I have included a couple of quilts I made on Aruba for you to see.

I now live in Atlanta Georgia, and after several years of caring for my mother with Alzheimer’s, now have the time to get back to quilting.  I have a painter’s mindset with my fabric, and create with fabric on the fly.  I so admire the patience and skill it takes to do precise piecing.My work tends to be more fluid as  I’ve never been able to color within the lines!!!!

Newest Kid on the Block

My name is Carol Babineau and I am the newest member of the Material Mavens! YES! I am looking forward to having a fun and challenging time creating with all of you.

I have been working with fabric and making “things” all my life. I started quilting about 32 years ago, took a seven year break and then came back to it and found the whole world of quilting had changed!

I proceeded to do what most of us do – buy things to make things- and went straight into art quilting. I have enjoyed every minute of it too.

I have a couple of pieces of my work here:  

 This is/was for my son and his new wife as a wedding gift. I combined two different photos that her Dad sent to me and I finished it in time to pack it and take it personally. They really loved it and it was one of the favorite pieces when I went to jury for my fiber at the League of NH Craftsmen. (I did get in for that category, by the way)

This one is one of my favorites - why - no clue, I just like it, so I kept it :)

I already have my challenge piece planned out - now to just make it!

Andrea's Interwoven Pt. Deux!

Here are two "process" photos:

The top photo is of the white lattice strips fused on top of the flowers that had first been

fused on to the blue batik background.

The second photo is with the three interwoven flowers added. 

Day Dream and Interwoven 

The Composite of the Interwoven Quilts

Here is the composite array of all the Interwoven quilts.  Once again, Randy, Rita's husband, is the person behind the composition.  Once again, he has done a lovely job of arranging the quilts in an artistic manner.  And notice that the names appear above each quilt.

This looks as if Rita posted it, but actually I (Alice) tweaked it, because Rita and Randy are having "issues" getting images to post.

I am once again considering having a postcard made of this composite--this is such an extra special group of quilts.  Please let me (Alice) know IF you'd like some postcards of this and how many. I think they'll cost about $2.50 each.  I know I "owe" a couple or more of you some postcards, for over-paying me last time.  Let me know by email ASAP.  Thanks!

 And thanks again to Randy.

Alice

Barbara's Quilt-- Interwoven Threads

My technique inspiration is from a friend who used freezer paper as a resist and screened paint across the surface.  I ironed the fp onto my white on white print fabric and used NeocolorII watercolor crayons to paint my background.  The design appeared as I used the "rice" stitch to recess the negative space around the circles.  I accentuated the "warp & weft threads" with the "Mola Barbara" stitch from my African Folklore Embroidery book.  This stitch, which is not named after me, is a wrapped chain stitch that creates a corded effect.

I wove together a few of my favorite techniques into this piece, painting and surface embellishment, hand stitching and textiles.

Janet- Interwoven Friends

I'm very blessed to have a core group of friends some of them going back to when I moved to Texas in 1975 and some who have come into my life fairly recently. You are lucky in life to have one or two trusted friends but I have several. The kind of friends who you have gone through every experience a woman can go through in her life, childbirth, divorce, marriage, infidelity by a spouse, re-marriage, death of parents, death of siblings and close family, changes in finances, bankruptcy, moves to new homes, loss of home from fire, babysitting, chicken pox, financial loss, not knowing how to get through the next day, hospitalizations too many to count, cancer, loss of a child, exhaustion, packing and moving in the middle of the night to get away from an abusive spouse, the list could go on and on. But there has also been great joy, laughing till you snort wine out your nose, misadventures which lead to more laughing. We are blended together like ingredients in a cake, each with our own part to contribute. I know the next few years will add another experience, losing them at some point. So we overlook irritations, differences of opinion, politics, religion and we tell each other how much we love one another, just in case. The different colors of strips in the quilt represent their personalities. It is paper pieced, big surprise, and Rita there are 256 pieces so you don't have to count.

Rita's Interwoven: A Zoomorphic Design

Since visiting Dublin some years ago, I have been fascinated by Celtic knots.  As a retired biology teacher I am also intrigued by animal (zoomorphic) designs.  The challenge of Interwoven was presented and I immediately had visions of Celtic design.  In exploring this idea, I found the book, The Complete Book of Celtic Designs which gave many options from which to choose.

Batiks were the first fabrics I auditioned for the design.  However, those seemed to fight with the intricacies of the interwoven lines in the design.  I then went to my collection of solid fabrics and was on my way to bringing my four silly birds to life.  The birds are done with fused applique and then zig-zag edge stitched in gold thread.  The eyes were first stitched in gold and then the white and black areas were painted.  The wings were cut from a square of machine embroidered cross stitch.

The biggest challenge was to figure out how to draw the pattern for the applique so that what was supposed to be on top did in fact lie on top and what was to be crossed over was underneath.  This image is gallery wrapped around a wooden twelve inch by twelve inch frame.

New Challenge Word!

First, please accept my apology for mistakenly posting my Interwoven quilt on the 14th instead of the 15th.  I think I'll pick the middle of the day to post from now on and I should be okay.

The majority of our glorious Interwoven challenge pieces have been submitted and once again I marvel at the diversity, skill, creative interpretation and thought provoking stories underlying each art quilt.  These stories truly enhance the viewers visual intake and understanding from the artists perspective.  Great job Maven's!

Our next challenge theme is  Communication, which can and no doubt will run the gamut of possible interpretations.    Have fun and try something totally out of your comfort zone.  I look forward to that reveal in March.

Judy S.- Interwoven Heart

Interwoven. I knew that I would be weaving fabric, but how would I be able to convey  my message by just weaving strips of fabric together? I wanted my piece to represent how our lives are touched by the things we encounter. Events, people, places, and humdrum chores are all the components that make us who we are. 

I decided that a heart would be the best shape to tell that story. I drew a heart on a square of muslin and started weaving. With the pieces of fabric that I save in a punch bowl that was my grandmothers, I was able to find wonderful strips to play with. As I wove the strips together I thought how the bright colors represent the happy, exciting times and the dark ones show some tough times. Of course there are plenty of medium colored ones.  

I was going to trim up the heart nice and neat before attaching it to a background. I even thought about turning the edges under. When I was done I just couldn’t trim things off because it made me think of how each event doesn’t start out the same way nor does it affect us the same way.  I did cut the heart away from the muslin and put it on the soft yellow fabric to make it glow and quilted swirls all around. I bet we all have beautiful hearts!

Sara's Interwoven

I started this project by brain storming the topic with my husband. I knew the first thing I thought of was warp and weft and I wanted a different approach. He suggested families since our new family trees merge in every generation creating an interwoven family. I said "Wow, Trees". His response was - you just love tree imagery (I am guilty as charged - trees speak of life, strength and endurance). I thought more about trees relative to our theme and thought of how canopies of trees weave into each other in a dense forest. Then for some reason I thought of the central prayer of Judaism that states "The Lord is One" which some like to extend to thinking all of the creations are part of the one - we are all connected. I just had to do this image.

Execution gave me fits. I have added to the challenge by trying to use different technical approaches for each quilt. For this I dragged out a collage box and started layering upholstery fabrics on muslin and a gorgeous deep blue purple silk charmeuse swatch that I dyed in some class. One of my goals is to use up some of the bits and pieces of fabric that I've accumulated this way. I cut out foliage ,  sewed it down and put it on the wall and horrors - no contrast, no image, yuch. I then backed the whole thing with black craft felt and decided to see if thread could provide image rehabilitation - no joy. I was going to scrap the effort and start again but a fiber artist friend suggested I could cut stencil like shapes into the image and add contrasting edges. I decided to cut out the bulk of the background and put everything on another dyed sample that gradated from yellow to blue to add light and life to the image. This was a big improvement. Good thing I did not wait until the last day to get the quilt together! Another one of my goals is to par the general clutter in my life. This month I started with my bureau which is a big job. One of the things that I found stored with my socks was dyed cheese cloth that I bought from Ellen Anne Eddy. There were 2 pieces; one various shades of yellow green and one dark brown/black/green/blue. I went back to the studio to finish this piece up. I planned to add the green to the foliage but instead ended up accented the bark with the dark texture of the cheese cloth. I then ironed the new background onto fusible batting with the tree elements, added a backing and much more stitch to make sure every element is attached and the piece is well quilted. I decided this one needed a traditional binding in dark brown.

The picture needs some work - Houston hasn't seen sun light in what seems like weeks so this is pinned to my design wall and I attempted straightening in Picassa