Edmonton Guild Quilt Show

On the weekend I spent Sunday at the Edmonton and District Quilter's guild bi annual Quilt Show. I took a few photos and thought I better share some of them with you. 

My Mom Betty, got a few ribbons. This is her with her Gypsy Wife Quilt. I did the machine quilting. 

She got one of these pretty hand embellished Ribbons. 

My log cabin plaid quilt with the hearts. I have not gotten a real good photo of this quilt. I had many comment to me about the long arm quilting I did on this quilt. I did feather hearts and I was very pleased with how this quilting up. I got this quilt done in Oct 2015 a few months after the last Edmonton guild show, so it was eligible to be shown here. 

My Christmas Postage Stamp Quilt. I really like this quilt. 

This quilt is also my mom's. I do all her machine quilting. It got a 3rd place. 

She had 2 other quilts that got ribbons but I did not get photos of them. I must have gotten distracted by all the shopping. 

Also at the quilt show they had a Members Mall. This corner was were my quilts and wall hanging were. Wow they had a good sized room and were able to show off my quilts better then I thought. I was told I would get a table and could bring a quilt rack. I did not know some were going to get up on the wall. 

There is a table with my book ( the Yellow paged book is one of the other members). I worked hard on the book as I thought it would help sell a stack of quilts. There was enough to look at I am not sure many really looked at my book. It is nice to have it done now. 

The framed wall quilts are mine. I thought this was a good place for these framed ones to sell. 

Another view of the my art for sale. 

As the quilt show is were we show off the finished quilts, I have added this post to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Quilts for Sale

I have added 2 new pages to the banner of my Blog. One is Art Quilts For Sale. I am still working on this page. I have a few more art quilts to add to the list and I do not have all the sizes and prices listed just yet. If you go check it out you can at least get a feel for my art. 

The other page is Quilts For Sale. This is were you will find lap quilts and bed quilts. They are also nice enough for the wall but some of them are more traditional quilts. I still have to add a few more quilts to this page. I think I need to get more photos done. 

I have sold a few quilts in the last few months just by word of mouth. I never really thought to place them on my blog with prices and sizes. 

Design Class

I have been away at Class all this past week. It was in a design class by Anna Hergert. I love Anna`s work and have wanted to take a class from her for a while. My mom, Betty was able to take a five day design class from her a few years ago. 

Above, is one of the silly moments of our class. I got wearing my moustache for Mo-vember and the bottom of my box as a hat. I would be so mad if someone else posted this bad photo of me, but I need to laugh at myself a little. 

I have ended the five day class with a plan to finish a hexagon box. I still have tons of work to do on this box. There is a ton of hand sewing to get the sides of the box together. I hope to get more stitched tonight in front of the TV. 

Here is the box top. It still needs lots of work, but you get the idea. The black is ultra suede and will be fused to the top of the box. Then there is a side part to the box top. It was this piece that looked like a moustache. 

The box is to be like my Secret Garden and the rod iron gate to keep it in. 

I was inspired by a garden book I had, Garden Mania.  I found these illustrations of gates by Jean Le Pautre from around 1660`s who had an Italian teacher. He was French and may have been around to work for the French King Louise the 14th. It was back when Versailles was being build up and the French Royal Court was moved to Versailles. I am sure it was a very good time to be an artist in France. Some of his etchings  have been the gardens of Versailles. 

Here is a Hexagon design I worked on but made some changes too. 

I played with different options for the side of my box. You can see I was inspired by the squares and circles on the side of the gate for my first two ideas. They did not relate enough to the top design. 

This was another design option I worked on. It is based on a square. 

Here are some of Shelia`s hexagons she was stitching. Her designs were all based on the hexagon. 

Here is one with the stitching done. 

This one is Janet`s design. She was ready to do the stitching at the end of class. 

Because my box has to be hand stitched I am adding this post to Kathy`s Quilts and slow stitch Sunday

Bloggers Festival

I have added a link to  Amy's Blogger Festival. I have chosen my art quilt Crop Circles to the List of quilts. I feel I learned a lot making this quilt. I used mostly my hand dyed fabric and used free form cutting (no ruler) make it. I had to really think about how the parts were going together. I knew I wanted to make fields with the circles on it but also wanted to make it pleasing to look at.  It was what I call a brain buster. It took my months to do. I have left my images very large so you can view the details.

Crop Circles

Original design by Cathy Tomm

                      

Size 50” wide x 62” Tall

Statement: Fields of green and purple are cut by roads and encroached on by urban growth into some of the best farming lands. The myth of aliens leaving crop circles might be easier to explain then all the real troubles farmers have been facing. Urban growth, mad cow disease, chicken flu, fluctuating, commodity prices, rising fuel costs and increased debt plus all the regular weather risks of farming. Hats off to the real farmers from an Ag Grad

Techniques: Custom Machine Quilted on Longarm Machine, Hand and Machine Appliqued, Button Embellishment, Binding is multi pieced to repeat inner part.

Shows that Crop Circles has been juried into:

Canadian Quilter Association 18^th  National Juried Show  Finalist. Ottawa, Ont. 2006

Pacific Northwest Quiltfest Biannual Juried Show Finalist. Seattle, WA. 2006

American Quilter’s Society Paducah Quilt Show Finalist. Paducah, KY. 2007

Design Wall Monday - Pamela's class results

Sweet Thoughts  - Glued down and ready to sew.

Today is Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times so I thought I would share my art work from the weekend workshop. The Edmonton and District Quilt Guild hosted a workshop with Pamela Allen from Ontario. I was in two days of classes. There were three days but I did not sign up for Friday's class. 

This is the cupcake lady just before I did some of the final touches. It is neat to see them change. Note the window is different, also the hand and hair. I did this one on Saturday and it felt good to get this much done. I now need to sew the appliquéd down by hand and then it can be machine quilted.

My horse and me. My horse is named Jester and he is a paint so a rainbow horse. I know I am the jester. Not sure this one is done. I may make some changes still. This one is not fully glued down yet, just pins. 

My pop quiz. We were given a little piece of printed fabric that had a part of some art. We were then to expand the piece and add what we wanted to complete the art. It was quick say 30 mins or so. The final size is only 7" by 10" or so.

Some group from Sunday mostly. My horse is on the top left.

Group designs from our mini pop test. These were very fun. I may have to do some more of these as they made you think faster. I think my mom and I may have to have a mini workshop to do some of these. It really loses you up and there is just a little bit of fabric. I think some of us had trouble cutting out some big chunks in our fabric. I know I sometimes used a less favourite fabric because I was saving the good stuff.

Lex trouble again. He has my husband's old sweat shirt. Loves to bring us things to get our attention. He likes to bundle it up so it does not hang down. This was the best of about 6 photos as he kept moving.

Living Colour Auction Quilt

Photo by Mark Frey

I few years ago I was invited to make a donation quilt for the Living Colour Show  hosted by the Association of Pacific West Quilters. They are auctioning this and a few other great quilts on May 10 to 22, 2012 on line. There is a second group of quilts auctioned off in June also. To find out more about the auction go check it out on the APWQ site. If you have every wanted to own one of my quilts this is your chance.

I named it Evaluation of Colour.

Artist Statement
I had leftover triangles, which led to an idea for making lightning out of them. I thought about lightning bringing life to color, color to life. The triangles didn’t work the way I had in mind, so I decided to go with free-form cut shapes instead and threw out the triangles. I was influenced in part by a class taken with Jane Sassaman.

Techniques & Materials
A curve pieced background and fused lighting and amoebas. The fabrics used are all my own hand dyes.

Tonight is the Edmonton Guild Meeting. I am handing in my Spring Bracelet for the guild endowment fundraiser. We also have a very good speaker Pamela Allen. Then Saturday and Sunday is the class I am in. I have not thought about what I will make or what fabric I will take with me.

The Godfrey Gallery Packing Art

 I have packed my art for a group show at the Godfrey Art Gallery in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. I am a part of a fiber art group called Filamenta. Friends Dawna Dye Harris and Sharon Rubuliak are the other two ladies involved. Dawna is driving to Yorkton this week to deliver our art work and stay a couple of days for the artist reception. The artist reception is Sunday March 6th at 2;00pm, our show is called Connections. Sharon and I are not going to make it to the artist reception as the winter driving is crazy and my family needs me home. The show Opens on March 6th and closes on April 21st, the address is 49 Smith Street, Yorkton, SK. Please if you live near by check it out and then let me know you were there.

Above is a photo of my fabric book Exploits NFL, being packed for the show. My grandfather was from Exploits, his name was Joe Manuel. I have been to Exploits twice in my life now 1976 and 2008. Wow and I guess that is what the book is about.Very far back I am related to Ruth McDowell the great quilter. Ruth and I got to meet and talk about it when she was here in 2001 for Quilt Canada. Her grandmother was a Manuel and so was I before I married. The book has a photo of our two old relatives that were brothers and ship captains in the family business.

Here is two scratch pads being packaged in bubble wrap. I have the gallery guests write in the books as a way to connect with my viewers.

This is Tag the Brick Wall. I invite the viewers to write on a shipping tag and pin it to this brick wall quilt. It is fun to see what some people write to you. Again this is a very interactive piece of art. I have always thought this would be a great guest book for a family cabin, to keep take of the friends that stop by.

To see more of the Connections Series follow the link. 

I did post some better photos of the art pieces in the past. 

These quilts and books are all for sale please contact me if you are interested.  

Quilt Bee Tuesday

Margie's Library Project

I was asked June of last year to be apart of a Public Library Art Project. My friend and fellow quilter Margie Davidson headed up the project and is the artist. I was asked to do the machine quilting on the quilts. Margie has hand painted fabric and done some machine applique, as well the text, hand written. Oh yes then there are parts with block printing from hand carved blocks. The blocks all had meaning related to the text. Margie has used Sun printing for the leaves using Seta colour and leaves from her yard. I think I have all the different type of techniques listed now. The text is about the people who have immigrated to Edmonton and Alberta from other parts of the world. It was hard not to stop quilting and just read them all.
I have done many different quilting patterns on this project. I asked Margie if I could post some photos. We desided that I should only post close up till the whole project has been released to the public for viewing. So, here are some photos. I think I will get some others to post after all the unveiling has taken place. There are three different Public Library locations in Edmonton were they will hang for a few months and then in 2010 all three parts will be displayed together at the main Branch of the Edmonton Public Library - Stanley A. Milner, downtown.
I had to quilt the vein lines on all the leaves. I was a little worried how long these would take and if a could do it well enough. Margie and I were pleased with the results. These ones are the elm. Up top is the Silver Maple leaves, I liked them best. Closer to a sugar maple and I had a Silver Maple in a past yard. I really enjoy working on this project. Margie's style and colour chooses are so similar to mine. Thank you Margie for asking me to be apart of this great project.

Please look for the final photos of this project in the new year. Or came to Edmonton and see them in person next year. Then you can read the stories.

Connections Art Show coming soon

We have a show coming up in Summerland, B.C. at the Summerland Art Gallery on Oct 8th till Nov 21th. The gallery opening reception is the evening of Oct 8th. These photos are of three of the pieces I have in the gallery. The top one is Meal Plan. It is a stand up folding book. It is made with firm batting and hand dyed fabric and paper. I have added the kitchen tools with wire and eyelets in the fabric. Also added is paper tags with my hand made fimo beads. I also made hand craved stamps of a tea cup, cupcake and fork with spoon,and then used them to stamp the pages. I made this because my Grandmother use to make a very detailed meal plan when she was excepting guests for several days. A copy of her plan is on the front cover, it was a trip of us coming to stay a week back in March of 1986. The other pages have some of the recieps she would have used. Some are in her hand writing.
These are Scratch Pads. In the Gallery the guests are able to leave a note for everyone to read. It is a way to connect with our viewers. The ones shown are very full and I am now making new pages to add to the books.