More SAQA Auction Quilts

Last week I shared three quilts that will be auctioned off this fall to benefit SAQA. See post here. I thought I'd share three more quilts with you this week. These are three more that I find very attractive.

Breaking Out

Made by Sherryl Buchler

Found on Page 1B

The Gift

Made by Carol Tamasiunas

Found on Page 2A

Queue
Made by Elaine Quehl
Found on Page 3B

Quilts & Fabric

I've got the Indian Orange Peel quilt done...YAY! Here it is pinned to my design wall. I am in the process of blocking it and it will be up on the wall for a few days. I have the hanging sleeve on it already and then all that's left is to stitch a label on the back.

I had three quilts sitting around needing hanging sleeves, the one above was one and then this one....Three Catmigos. I got a sleeve and label on the back and now it can hang in my dining room. Doesn't it look grand?

I had a quilt hanging in my dining room in this location before, but it was the first wall quilt I had ever made, which was around the mid 90s and you know how those first quilts look....pretty wonky and wavy. It really was time to retire it.

Lately I've been doing a lot of overdyeing. What is overdyeing you ask? It is dyeing another layer of color on a piece of fabric that has already been dyed. I haven't done overdyeing before and I keep asking myself why I haven't. I am loving the results I'm getting, well most of the time. It can be difficult to know what will happen sometimes, depending on the color choices.

Here are a couple of my recent overdyed favorites.

The fabric I have dyed here was a white on white print. That is why you see the swirly, flowery design on it. Have a great weekend!

Feathery Goodness

I have completed all the quilting on the Indian Orange Peel quilt. Yay!

Here is how I quilted the borders. The inner border was stitched with a free-form continuous swirly thingy, and the outer border is a loose feather shape.

I had not quilted feathers before, that I can remember anyway! I wanted to give them a try as I've seen so many fabulous feather quilting done by other quilters. My first attempt was not good. I started on one side of the quilt and marked some spine lines and tried a feather shape that was a bit more "formal". Well I didn't like how it was turning out at all. So I ripped out the stitches. I then Googled "feather quilting" and looked at images of feather quilting. I found a "look" that seemed more loose, fun and me. So I tried it out on a scrap quilt sandwich and was quite pleased at how easy it seemed to be.

I got brave and started on the quilt border and wow! I am very happy with the results. I am now binding the quilt and am about half way around.

Fun Weekend

I was able to do a lot of creative work this weekend. I quilted and I painted. I continued my free-motion quilting on the Indian Orange Peel quilt and if you remember a few days ago, I shared with you how I quilted the center area of each of the 25 blocks. Here is a photo of how I did all the arcs on the blocks.

I now have all 25 blocks quilted. Now I need to quilt the two borders, one is narrow and the other wider. As I write this post, I have no clues as to the design I will quilt, so I need to start thinking.

When I wasn't quilting this weekend I was having fun painting kitties....my favorite thing to paint. Up first is a small painting I did on a canvas panel.

Fred

6" x 6" Canvas Panel

And this next painting is the second one in the Squinty Cat series. I loved how the first one turned out so thought I'd do another. I'm hoping to paint up a whole family of Squinty Cats.

Squinty Cat 2

10" x 10" Gallery Wrapped Canvas

I've put these two kitty paintings in my Etsy Shop along with a couple of other paintings I finished recently.

SAQA Auction Starting Soon

The 2010 SAQA Benefit Auction is approaching quickly, with the first part of the auction scheduled to start September 20. There a so many beautiful art quilts and they are all donated by the artists to help raise funds for Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc (SAQA), a non-profit international organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development and documentation.

The three quilts below, are ones I find I'm very attracted to and would enjoy having in my collection. There are many more I like as well, and plan to share more with you here on my blog next week.

Woman of the Year

Made by Bodil Gardner

Found on Page 1B

Poppy Fields

Made by Desiree Dianne Habicht

Found on Page 2A

Roses at Dusk

Made by Denise Linet

Found on Page 3B

If you'd like to read more on how the auction works and more about the dates and times, click here.

Squinty Cat

Squinty Cat

10" x 10" gallery wrapped canvas

I was in a painting mood this evening. I had quilted quite a bit on the Orange Peel quilt today and my upper back/shoulders/neck were getting a little sore....yes I guess I must be tensing up while trying to wrestle that quilt sandwich under the presser foot.

I had been drawing some funky kitties in my sketchbook lately and I wanted to try one on a painting.

Light

The Creative Cue this week is light. My first thoughts were of a light bulb...then the idea came to me of something light on a scale.

I'm quilting away on the Indian Orange Peel quilt. Maybe I'll have all the quilting done by the end of the weekend, dare I hope.

Let the Quilting Begin

I got the Indian Orange Peel quilt all sandwiched and pin basted. Here is how I decided to quilt the center of each block. I need to do this quilting design in 25 blocks and so far I have 14 done. Once that part is done I'll work on the points.

I've been wanting to try my hand at painted floorcloths and I have finally made a start. Here is the first attempt. This measures 24" x 36". I still need to add the sealer coats to this.

Border and PhotoShop Play

In my previous post, I shared my latest quilt in progress with you. I had mentioned that I wasn't happy with the bottom border and asked for your thoughts. Many of you gave me some input and a lot of you mentioned the same thing I was thinking. The border was too light and needed some darker fabrics. Well here is my border now. I took out the white fabric and added the dark fabric. I like this better, but still want to think about it a bit more.

While I was getting the photo above ready for sharing here on the blog, I decided to manipulate it a bit in PhotoShop to see if another possible layout would be better. Here is my mock up of that layout.

I'm going to set this aside for the time being and think on it. I need to get quilting on another quilt, don't know if you remember the Indian Orange Peel I did recently in blues and greens, but I need to get that one quilted so that it can go on a trip to its new home with my auntie.

I want to thank all of you who commented in the last post, I had so much fun reading the suggestions/ideas you gave me.

In other news, over at Three Creative Studios, we released a couple of new free projects today. Vicki created both of the projects, one on making paper and the other on creating a keepsakes quilt. Check them out here.

Border Uncertainty

Here is where I'm at with the latest quilt on my design wall. I am liking it, but I'm not sure I like the sequence of colors in the bottom piano key border. Any thoughts?

In the past (a couple years ago?), I made an attempt to do a regular newsletter, but unfortunately it fell by the wayside. I'm going to make a concerted effort to do it again, and have set up the sign-up form. If you are interested in subscribing to my newsletter, click on over to this page, or the link is also in the left-hand column on the blog.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend. It's windy here but our temps have finally cooled a bit and are more bearable.

Oops I Forgot

Remember back in July I had made some new screens for screen printing? I shared the original images in this post. I had made these screens with the PhotoEZ sheets. Well I had meant to test out these new screens but evidently they got set aside and quite forgotten. This morning I pulled them out and tested the screens on white paper. Here are my results and it looks like they all work great.

If you like to screen print but don't want to make your own screens, you can visit the FibraArtysta Etsy shop and they will create them for you. You can even get them customized with your own design. How easy is that?

And here's a peek at what's currently on my design wall.

I still have a bit of the green gradient fabric left and was able to create these three panels. So this quilt will be a variation of the previous one. Speaking of gradient fabric...the green gradient that I used here and in the last quilt is hand dyed by Vicki Welsh. She sells her fabulous hand dyes in her Etsy shop. The name of the gradient I used here is called Gold to Pine.

Sketching and Dyeing

I sat down and did a little sketching last night. Last week's cue word for Three Creative Studios Creative Cue was dream. Here is my vision:

And this week's cue word is wreck. Doesn't she look a wreck? Probably just got out of bed.

I've been doing some fabric dyeing lately. Ever since Sue shared her lovely fabrics that she made in the workshop she took with Jane Dunnewold, I've had the dyeing bug. Especially overdyeing. I had never done any overdyeing and now I am wondering why. I think that I've been converted.

I've even been going through my previously dyed fabrics and pulling out ones that I'm not totally pleased with. What a difference another layer of dye makes.

I've also been working on my next Twelve by Twelve quilt. It is due for reveal on September 1. I am happy to say that at this point, all I have left is the binding. Yay!

Quilting: Done!

I think anyway!  I didn't quilt the main flower stems and I don't think I will as I think it helps them stand out a bit.  Especially since there isn't a lot of contrast between the stems and the background.  What do you think?  Next up....binding.

Creative Outlets

I'm still busy with the free-motion quilting on the panel quilt. I've got four panels just about completed.

Meanwhile, I'm finding that I need other creative outlets from the quilting. I have many other things I like to do, such as painting and dyeing. Both of which I have been sneaking in lately.

Last evening I painted this kitty.

Here he is checking out the flowers on my deck.

And here is some dyeing I started. Ahhhhh, lovely turquoise. This is a five-step gradation. They are soaking in water here.

How about you? Do you have more than one creative outlet?

Free-Motion Quilting

I've started quilting on my latest quilt. I keep referring to this quilt as the panel quilt because I created five panels which were then stitched together. Originally I had envisioned creating the panels and quilting each panel separately before attaching together, but for some reason I changed my mind. I've never created a quilt in sections like that before.

Anyway I have gotten the entire center panel section quilted now and today have moved onto another section. Here are a couple of detail shots of how I'm quilting it.

This morning I felt like painting. So I did! Here is what came out of that painting session. This is a canvas panel, about 8" x 8". I had been building up the background on this panel over time as I like to use up leftover paint from my palette. Last evening I took some black paint and painted in the outline shapes. And then this morning I gave her some color. This method and look is a bit different from what I've painted in the past....but I sort of like how it turned out.