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

Another year begins

Some of my Christmas gifts.

• Roll of Steam a seam, new sketching pencils, Golden fluid acrylics, marking pencils, bobbin holders, bar of lavender soap for relaxing, quilt book. A good way to begin 2015!

 

 

 

I guess this is the time of year where we look back at 2014 and what we accomplished and look forward to 2015 and what we want to accomplish in the new year.  I already blogged about the quilts I made in the master class last year here. In terms of the new year I plan on making bed and lap sized quilts. This is what I call mindless sewing. I got some inexpensive kits from Craftsy that I liked so as soon as my husband heads back to work on Monday I will start working on them. I am also making a tote bag and overnight bag from kits. So the beginning of the year is going to be a break from art quilting. I feel I need that after the intensity of the master class last year. We are moving into a new house in August and I want to have some beautiful new quilts to put on the beds. Of course while I am doing all this mindless quilting I will be thinking about what my next art quilt will be.

 

There is of course my canal house quilt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then there is the forest quilt that I have always been meaning to make. Our trip to Pittsburgh over Christmas inspired me to consider doing it. I loved seeing the mostly blue gray or green gray trees and background with the orange brown dried up oak leaves mingled in. This photo is not exactly what I have in mind except for the color.

 

 

Then there is the abstract grid quilt of the Christo gates. This was the second idea I had for my master class back in November, but did not have time to work on it. I would still like to do it.

 

So there are several ideas for art quilts in 2015 for me to work on.

 

 

 

I loved some of the things Idaho Beauty said in her current blog. If you haven’t read it you should check it out. I really liked the rules she posted. I agree with her on rule 7. That one stuck out to me even before I read her comments about the rules.

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RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

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I think I learned that last year in my master class. Creativity and great artwork comes with a lot of work. There will be “failures”, but also successes.

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Well onto to enjoy my retirement and time for lots of quilting.

Happy new year and thanks for reading.

Chris

Art is a way of life

I have been thinking a lot about what drives me to do this creative stuff over doing things like washing the kitchen floor that desperately needs it or vacuuming the bedroom that is full of dust bunnies. I am still not sure what it is.

I have been driven since I was a kid to do creative things and got to go to Carnegie Museum for free art classes for 3 years. My dad went when he was a kid, too. In fact I had the same teacher he had. That is something that we have talked about lately.  Those classes have been on my mind a lot as I am coming to the end of my career as a science teacher. Even though I taught science I never gave up doing art. My ties to those classes apparently went much deeper than I ever thought.

I think back to some of the things our teacher, Mr. Fitzpatrick said during those 3 years of classes. “Art is not just a subject. It’s a way of life. It’s the only subject you use from the time you open your eyes in the morning until you close them at night. Everything you look at has art or the lack of art.” I certainly know that I do spend a lot of time thinking about art and doing art during the day.

I do have some favorite artists. Van Gogh has always been on the top of my list. Last year I finally got to see Starry Night in person at MOMA in NYC. I was shocked how small the painting was.  The 12 in by 12 in quilt I made in tribute to this painting is not much smaller than the actual painting.

 

 

 

I call my quilt “Tribute to Van Gogh.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another favorite artist of mine is Monet. We got to see his wonderful water lily panels and his gardens while in Paris last summer.

 

 

 

 

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Picasso’s Guernica at the MOMA in NYC. I walked into a room and there it was. I could hardly believe my eyes. Now this one was a gigantic painting, but I guess that was what was needed for this subject.

 

Now Dali is an interesting character. We saw his stuff both in Bruges and in Paris. My daughter is a big fan. My husband is not really a fan at all. I am somewhere in between.

 

 

 

 

 

I have always loved this Escher print. I used to have a poster of this. I think I like it because of the science in it. One of my favorite physics topics is reflection and light.

 

 

 

 

This is a 12 in by 12 in challenge quilt that I call “Cloud Illusions.” I love the reflection of clouds in windows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After seeing the Quilts and Color exhibit at the MFA in Boston I have fallen in love with Josef Albers. There were several quotes of his around the exhibit so I looked him up when I got home. If you have not seen this quilt exhibit and get to Boston you should go to it.

This picture by Albers makes me want to make a quilt using all of those solids I have stashed away. It reminds me of some of the Amish quilts that I made early on in my quilting career.

 

 

One of my favorite ones was “Midnight Stars.” I loved the 4 different grays that were used in this plus my really wonderful cables and feathers hand quilting.

 

 

 

 

 

There are plenty more artists that I love and some that I cannot remember the name of right now. I am that way with remembering actor’s names as well. I recognize them, but don’t know their names. Hard to believe I can learn 100 plus students names each semester!

So what is your take on art as a way of life? Do you think about it as much as I do? What are some of your favorite artists?

If you love color you will love seeing this color explosion exhibit by Kaffe Fassett.

As always thanks for stopping by.

Chris

T.Rex and Others Too

Now that I am getting ready to hand quilt a wall hanging for my husband I have been thinking about all of the quilts I have hand quilted in the past.  In fact when I first started quilting that is the only way I quilted.

This dinosaur wall hanging quilt I made for my daughter when she was very young and was into dinosaurs.  It was a based on a pattern by Debora Konchinsky. She has tons of patterns.  Go here if you would like to see them. Critter Pattern Works.

I picked my daughters favorite dinosaurs of all the choices that were offered.  This was one of the first times I used fusible web in a quilt. In fact I used a fusible web made by Aleene’s.   I sure miss seeing that craft show on TV. Plus I learned to do satin stitch for this quilt and sure knew how to satin stitch by the time this quilt was done!

I echo quilted quilted around the dinosaurs with mostly pink thread and quilted the names of the dinosaurs in the border.  I  made the most elaborate label I ever made for a quilt for this one.  My daughter named the quilt.

Chris

Wedding Rings and White Roses

I have been meaning to blog about this quilt for a while.  I finished this queen size double wedding ring about 10 years ago.  It is machine pieced and hand quilted.  I think the time invested from beginning to end was around 800 hours which took about 5 years.  This was my last hand quilted quilt!

I picked out fairly pale fabrics because I wanted an antique look. I think most of the fabrics were not bought in quilt stores! In fact they were bought all over the place including Joann’s Fabrics as well as other fabric stores that no longer exist. I had to use poly batting because they did not have batting that large in cotton back then. 

I quilted roses in the off white spaces because I wore white roses in my hair when we got married.  I can’t believe how thin I was back then!  I made my own dress.  Cost about $50 back then.

My daughter wants me to give it to her when she gets married.  I told her it depends on who she marries. Actually she is pretty much a slob and that has me more concerned than what boy she might marry.

I remember she used to love the back of it because it looked like a white on white quilt from the back.

I have shown the quilt from the front and the back so you can see all the quilting in it.  I won viewer’s choice for this quilt at a quilt show about 10 years ago.

 

 

 

 

Chris

Panda Quilt Quilted, Bound and Washed

I did not do too much quilting on this quilt since I am not that crazy about it. I mainly quilted in the ditch. I meandered around the pandas in the borders. This was a mystery and since you don't know how it is going to come out, it is not easy to pick fabrics for it. Had I known what the pattern was I would have picked a different pink fabric.

At any rate it is done and ready to give to my daughter. I think it will make a good table topper. It did kill my neck and shoulders and made me really envious of all those folks out there with a long arm machine!

Chris

Get the Muscle Relaxants Ready!!!

Well I have the panda mystery quilt ready to be quilted. It was killing my back and neck just to pin it...can't wait to start the quilting...ouch. My daughter is coming home next week so I want to make sure it is done. She turned 20 yesterday and this will be one of her gifts for her birthday. I sent her an Hello Kitty watch and a carrot cake. Yes even a 20 year old loves Hello Kitty. Her big gift was her MIT class ring. I guess the class rings are a big deal at MIT. They bused them from Cambridge to Boston for the ring ceremony.

She will be glad when the semester is done because it has been a lot of work. I am looking forward to her coming home. Hopefully she will want to help me create some rust dyed fabrics.

Chris

Maple Leaf Blocks From Swap

These are some of the maple leaf blocks I received from my block exchange for spark people. I think they are wonderful. The colors are fantastic and they will make a wonderful lap quilt. I only had room to put some of them on my design wall since they are 12 inch blocks. I am trying to figure out what to do with them. I have some ideas, but since I have so many projects going right now the maple leaf blocks will have to wait.

Chris

Dancing Away the Blues

Well my square dance quilt is quilted and washed and ready to use. All I did was quilt in the ditch, but even that took a long time. I realized while quilting it how much I don’t like moving around a lap size quilt under my domestic machine. I can’t imagine quilting anything larger than lap size this way. It makes me want a long arm quilting machine and frame. Dream on….

The goal for this quilt was to use up blue squares in my stash from a fabric exchange as well as use up more blues for the back of the quilt. Here is the back of the quilt showing how I used up the rest of the blue squares as well as some other fabrics in my stash. I also used different light blues/whites for the binding. Even though I used up quite a bit of fabric, I still have more in my closet.

The parade yesterday in NYC was great. The weather was fantastic and we had a really good time.

Chris

The Mystery is a Mystery No Longer

We have now finished our mystery quilt on the Learning FA yahoo group. The mystery was written by Noel and the instructions were really well done. I had never done a mystery before and thought that it would be a fun thing to do. It was fun! Noel had us guessing pretty much the entire project.

I picked out panda fabric for the main fabric because I was going to give this to my daughter since she is crazy about pandas. In fact I bought a kit at the NJ Quilt Fest last Sunday to make her another panda quilt. That panda pattern is done by the same person that designed the dinosaur quilt that I made her when she was about 3 or 4 years old. You can see the dinosaur quilt in the slide show of my quilts or on Flickr or Webshots.

At any rate back to the mystery…. I am a little disappointed in how it came out. I wish I had picked different fabrics to go with the panda fabric, but I guess that is the point of a mystery. You read the fabric descriptions and hope for the best. I am still going to give it to my daughter for her birthday in May. It is not big enough for a lap quilt, but will make a nice table topper. I don’t think it will be good enough for a wall hanging.

I plan on doing a lot of quilting on it to jazz it up. I am hoping that will make it look better. The pink fabric is not really intense enough, but maybe with some quilting with some pink thread that is darker than the pink fabric it look a little bit better. I need to practice my free motion quilting so this quilt will give me the opportunity to do that.

Any ideas for the quilting? I won’t be quilting it until April so I have some time to think about it.

The pandas are really cute and my daughter will love them!

Chris

Quilt Fest of NJ.....Amazing Quilts!

I had the pleasure of going to the NJ Quilt Fest in Somerset, NJ on March 8. The show had traditional quilts as well as art quilts. I mainly took photos of the art quilts since that is mostly what I am interested in these days. A lot of the quilts were astounding. I did not include photos of all the quilts since the video file would be way too large. The quilts are much better in person than they are in the photos.

The show also had a lot of vendors and I did manage to spend some money...I won't say how much or I could be kicked out the the Quilting on a Budget yahoo group!

Enjoy the quilts! You have to wait a while for it to load once you click start.

Chris

Square Dance is Basted

We had another snow day in NJ and my college canceled classes. I worked on getting my square dance quilt pin basted so that I can machine quilt it on Friday.

It takes me forever to pin baste a quilt because I have to give my back, neck, and shoulders several breaks along the way. Since this is a just going to be a lap quilt, I think I am not going to be doing any fancy quilting. Lap quilts in my house take a lot of wear and tear and basically a great deal of abuse. So I guess I don’t want to do too much quilting on something that will be pretty much worn out in about 15 years. In fact this quilt is supposed to replace one of our current shredded lap quilts.

I am trying a batting that is cotton and bamboo for this quilt. It seems really soft. I did wash and dry it to shrink it before I put it in this quilt. I did not really want this quilt to shrink anymore after it was quilted.

I hope you all didn’t get too much snow today. The end of winter can’t some soon enough for me!

Chris

The Beginning and the End

I finished piecing my square dance quilt yesterday. The quilt ended up being 12 blocks by 15 blocks. That means I had to hand cut 180 blocks out of the original top. I have not hand cut pieces for a quilt since I first started quilting 20 years ago. I think that it came out pretty good, but working with so many bias edges on the outside of the block is a bit disconcerting. And there are still bias edges at the outside edge of the top!

Here’s what the top looked like after sewing of the 6.5 inch blue and white squares together.

Here’s what the top looks like now after cutting out and sewing the 180 square dance blocks together. Each square dance block ends up being 4.5 inches.

I think after I quilt it I will just bind it in a light blue/white fabric. My goal is to use up what is in my stash and I will use whatever I have. It probably will turn out to be more than one fabric for the binding. I also plan on piecing the back of the quilt to use up even more of my stash. The back will be a whatever I can find sewn together…..no planned pattern.

Chris

Asian Quilts

My dear daughter loves all things Asian from video games, to animated films, to food. She even took Chinese for 2 semesters last year at MIT. I can’t even imagine trying to learn a language like Chinese. I had a hard enough time learning Spanish and Latin in high school.

Here is a photo of her that her boyfriend took over Christmas week.

She hates having her picture taken even though she always looks great in the photos.

She loves Asian things so much that I have made her 2 different quilts with an Asian theme. The first one is called “Japanese Garden.” I made this from a pattern in New Zealand Quilter for her high school graduation. Here are some photos of the quilt.

I fused the circles onto the black fabric and satin stitched the edges. I also fused the many hexagon “cherry blossoms” and used invisible thread to stitch them onto the quilt. Here is the beautiful label that I made for the back of the quilt.

The back of the quilt was pieced so I could use up the Asian fabrics so it is just as interesting and beautiful as the front. When she has a wall large enough to hang it I will have to sew a sleeve onto the back.

I also made her a smaller quilt showing a temple scene from Japan. The pattern comes from a series called “Postcards from Japan.” This quilt currently hangs on her bedroom wall.

We are planning to go to Japan on vacation this summer. DD has been begging to go to Japan or China for years. Now that she has a digital SLR camera I am sure she will take some wonderful photos while we are there. I hope to make her a quilt of one of her photos.

Chris