Done with the ornaments! Doing a happy dance.

I don’t know if December 1 is a new record for being done, but I finished yesterday. Maybe back in 2020 when I had to mail them because we did not see our daughter due to the pandemic I got them done that early. There were plenty of years when I was working on them on December 24. I’ve always gotten them done before Christmas, however.

There were plenty of challenges with these ornaments. The small size made them really difficult to turn. I had to figure out how to make a cone hat and a cape. The tiny pieces were difficult to cut out. But they are now done except for attaching hanging cords. The largest ones are 7 inches tall. 

Here they are in the box I plan on packing them in for wrapping. Once our Christmas tree is up I will take photos of them hanging on the tree.

The Enoch King and black cat, Wert and Beatrice the talking bird, the Beast, Greg and Kitty the frog

So we are done for another year. I can’t wait to see her reaction to this collection of ornaments.

Thanks for reading. Linking to Nina-Marie. http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris

What a nice surprise

I was cleaning up the mementos from the AQS Michigan Quilt Week show this morning. I picked up the show booklet that they gave me and a piece of fabric fell out. I thought, "What's that all about?" When I examined the fabric I saw that it is a quilt label to sew onto the back of the quilt. So that's what I did today.

I had no idea they gave accepted entries a quilt label to show the quilt was in the show. How cool!

I wonder if they told me that and I forgot about it.....

"Light in Darkness" 35 in by 35 in

Soon the quilt will be on it's way to the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, NY for another exhibit.


Now I have to figure out what I will work on next. Plenty of ideas floating around in my head. Which one is crying out to be made?

Here's our cat Chowder having a delicious dinner. He is the sweetest cat ever. The basket in the background was one I made for my mother years ago.

Linking to Nina-Marie.
Thanks for reading.

Chris

Where do you get your ideas?

Midnight Stars

I have been asked that question many times. Sometimes I just shrug because I am not quite sure where the ideas come from.

When I first started quilting I got my ideas from quilt books or magazines. I would see a quilt pattern that I liked and then try to reproduce that quilt. That was back when I used to hand quilt all of my quilts. Can't do that hand quilting anymore!

Over the Sea to Skye

I was happily moving along that path until about 2004 when I started moving into art quilting. That adventure began with a class taken at the former Quilt University with Susan Brittingham. Even after this class I still pretty much relied on getting ideas from books or magazines. I did not jump fully into art quilting. That did not happen until 2014 when I took the year long master class with Elizabeth Barton. I did make some art quilts before then, but they basically were landscape quilts.

Gathering Storm

This class forced me to really begin to make original art quilts. I had joined some online challenge groups to make original 12 in by 12 in or 15 in by 15 in quilts responding to a word cue before taking this class, but the class was a major step forward. It forced me to think in a whole new way.

I have continued to make original art quilts since 2014. So where do I get my ideas now? I pretty much get my ideas from photos. I find a photo I love on a topic I love and create a quilt using that as inspiration.

I have some "themes" that I love....old buildings, industrial things like wind turbines, abstract pixelated images from photos. You can see those quilt series by clicking on the tabs at the top of the blog.

Light in Darkness

This circle quilt actually started as an image of light coming into a dark forest. The grayscale image was pixelated and then played with in an iPad app to get this design. So I guess you could say that I use technology to get some of my designs these days.

So where do the ideas come from? Again I have to shrug. They come from whatever I feel like doing at the time I guess. Seems I have about 100 ideas that I am tossing around in my brain. I will never get to all of them! When I finally want to start a quilt I just have to pick one of the ideas. My brain is always planning ahead. A psychologist would have something to say about that.




My circle quilt is back home again from AQS Michigan and now needs to be shipped to Quilts=Art=Quilts at the Schweinfurth Art Center. Yes it was accepted there. I am 5 for 5 for entering and getting accepted! I wonder how I will handle a rejection when it eventually comes....

Linking to Nina-Marie.
Thanks for reading.
Chris

Back home

Our trip to Michigan to visit my sister and go to the AQS quilt show is over. The quilts at the show were amazing.

Here's a photo of me in front of my quilt. The quilt looks distorted from this angle.

The weather was great for out visit and we did get a bit of hiking/walking in.


My husband took a photo of my sister and I at the end of a pier that we walked out on. It was of course on Lake Michigan, but I can't remember where.

Here's a selfie of all of us.

From left to right....my sister (Paula), me, my sister's husband (Tom), and my husband (Drew).


It was a great visit.

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Thanks for reading.
Chris

I'm in the program book

We were sent the electronic version of the program book for the AQS Grand Rapids show coming up in a couple of weeks. Here's my page and quilt number in the book. If you are going to the show please check it out.

We will be heading to Michigan for the show and to see my sister and her husband. It will be exciting to see my quilt hanging at the show. Should be a lot of fun. I'm sure I will not win any prizes, but it is pretty good to just get into the show. It certainly is a unique design. It's the kind of thing that happens when I play with iPad apps while watching TV at night!

Light in Darkness

I think I will finish the quilting on the Charles Bridge quilt today. My neck is hurting and I will be glad to finally be done with it!

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Thanks for reading.
Chris

"Light in Darkness" is in!!!

"Light in Darkness" 35 in by 35 in

My circle quilt was accepted into the AQS quilt show in Grand Rapids, Michigan from August 21-24, 2019. So now I am 4 for 4 in terms of entries and acceptances. That just blows me away. I never entered anything in an AQS show before. We plan on going to the show in Michigan while visiting my sister who lives there. How much fun will that be?

Here is a close up image of the quilt. This is an original design. This actually started with a photo of sunlight coming into a forest. This photo was pixelated, turned into a gray scale image, and then taken into an iPad app called Fragment to get the circle pattern. It was basically a lot of playing to get the idea for this quilt.

I keep trying to get a good image of my Charles Bridge quilt. Here it is on my design wall. This is pretty close to reality. The orientation of the bridge makes this a morning image so the title will be "Dawn on Charles Bridge." It will be about 36 in by 36 in after it is quilted.

Thanks for reading.

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Chris

The show was a big success!

Yesterday was the opening reception for my art show at the Bellefonte Art Museum. (Current exhibits). The museum is an old house in an historic Victorian town. The person that hung my show (Lori) did a great job. I was really pleased with how it looked.

It was an ego boosting experience. There were a lot of people that came through and they really, really liked my work. Of course plenty of people said I should sell my quilts. I suppose I should have put some prices on things, but am still skeptical that things would have sold. Or maybe I'm not ready to part with them yet....

Here are some photos. The first one is my friend Ellie and I in front of my most recent circle quilt.  I am the grinning fool on the left. My energy quilts got a lot of attention. I don't think people had seen anything like them before. What was also amazing is how many people got that they looked beautiful from a distance, but then when you look at them up close you see they reveal an ugly problem. A lot of people really liked the toxic barrel one....go figure!

I never took a photo of this quilt that was also in the show. This one got a lot of attention.  It is based on a Frank Lloyd Wright window.  I almost wish I had put a price on it. That price would have been $600 ($450 plus some added for the 30% commission the museum takes). Not sure people would have payed that much!

Visions Past 19 in by 26 in

Thank for reading.
Chris

Pulling my hair out!

I have never struggled so much with deciding how to quilt a quilt as with the circle quilt.

Here is the original computer generated design. Outlined in orange are the areas that should float above the design.

 Quilting idea 1

 Quilting idea 2.
Straight lines everywhere. More dense quilting for areas that should recede. Quilt some ghost circles. Sizes andpostions of ghost circles subject to change.

 Quilting idea 3
All straight lines. Less dense quilting for areas that should float.

Quilting idea 4

Echo quilt the circles. The rest in straight lines.

Any thoughts? Something that I did not think of?

I was going to quilt in medium gray, but it has been suggested to use a pale pink, yellow or blue.
Thoughts on that?

Thanks for your thoughts.
Chris

All steam (or stitch) ahead!

"Light in Darkness" 36 in by 36 in

Here's the feedback from EB (Elizabeth Barton) on my quilt. EB: I’m back in New York for a couple of days and have a decent signal here so can see the piece correctly and I think it looks just right!! You got it!!!  A nice balance, very interesting...love the play of light..and the illusions created by it...the Sense of lost and found...you’ve done an amazing job...
So stitch away!!  I’ll go back to your previous post with the other image....very well done...I love it!  E 

 Here's the other design. This is the quilt that I will work on next. She suggested that I rotate the image and shift the dark parts to the bottom. Also to simplify things and make sure I have some negative space for the eye to rest.

Here is the image rotated 90 degrees and it does seem to be better. What do you think? I know this will be a challenge, but I am mentally ready for it!

Thanks for reading. I am busy making a birthday cake for my husband today so I probably won't get to do any sewing.

Besides I'm still basking in the praise from EB!!!!!

Chris

Am I finally there?

Boy this last circle on this design has been quite a challenge. The lower right circle was not in the original composition that I started with. This design started as a pixelated image of a photo that I turned into gray scale and put into a fragment app on my iPad. This happened while playing around watching TV.

So you might ask what was so hard about drawing a circle? Nothing if it is a perfect circle. These circles are not even close to being perfect circles. So I had to try to draw an oval shaped circle. I kept looking at it and I think it was too oval. I kept cutting off the sides and I think it is better now. It is still oval, but looks more circular than before. It bothered me so I had to change it. I am teaching a class on making an art quilt from a photo in April 2019 and one of the things I tell them is to change anything that bothers you. If it bothers you now it will bother you once the quilt is done.

I also moved the smallest circle down and near the center since it was looking like the circles were only on the right side and left side of the quilt. Something had to move toward the center. I will sew the circles down next week once I get the final feedback from EB (Elizabeth Barton), my teacher. She has been away. Any thoughts????

"Light in Darkness" 36 in by 36 in

Well then it will be time to think about my next project. It will be another pixel quilt design. I have pulled Cherrywood purple fabrics to make it. This design is also original. It is created by layering a pixel image with an abstract image. Both of them I created. It will be a challenge. The values will be extremely important. This is almost like doing one of those transparency quilts.

The Cherrywood fabrics (I might need some white)

Linking to Nina-Marie. Thanks for reading.
Chris

Trying out embroidery

As I mentioned in my last blog I am not much of an embroidery person. Before I turned into a quilter I was a cross stitcher. Once I found quilting the cross stitch fell by the wayside. I am pretty happy on how the circles are going so far. I need to get some milliners needles for some of the stitches I want to do. The only needles I have that will accommodate pearl cottons have a wide eye area. I need some straight needles for wrap stitches such as bullion knots. The wide eye will not go through the wrapped stitches. See what I learned this week? So far I have done fly stitches, knotted fly stitches, crested chain, French knots, and Pekingese stitches. Love how these edge stitches round out my not so perfect circles!

We finally hung some quilts this week. We hung 2 of my pixel quilts. The red one is called "Broken" and was made last November. The blue green one is called "Sunlight in the Forest." I don't think I ever posted many images of "Broken."

Well now these 2 quilts are off of the floor in my sewing room. I caught my cat sleeping on them more than once.  Linking to Nina-Marie at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Circles sewn down

I have finished handstitching the circles on the hand dyed wool for the kit that my daughter gave me for Christmas. I am not much of a hand appliqué person so they are not perfect. I was surprised how some of the fabrics shrink up more than others making some of the circles smaller. The embroidery stitches that I will do around them will certainly compensate for that. I have picked out some threads for the embroidery as you can see in the second photo. Maybe that's too many? Should I leave out the blues? 

Did I mention that I am not much of an embroidery person either? I guess I will be learning some new skills!

Linking to Nina-Marie at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Circles

Linking to Nina-Marie at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

I have all the circles for the kit my daughter gave me for Christmas turned under. I have arranged them on the hand dyed wool and will begin stitching them down. After they are stitched I will add fancy embroidery around the edges. They will look like pebbles when they are done. I wanted something with a lot of handwork to take to meetings in our development.

I decided that the place to hang my blue and orange quilt is over the railing in our loft. I still have to sew binding on and wash it.

Thanks for reading.

Chris