Quiltfest Gallery – Part 2
February 19, 2012
If you haven’t already read part one it can be found here. I’ve just realised I forgot to tell you the title of the exhibition yesterday. The show was called “Here be Dragons”. I chose it because I wanted to show my Dragon quilt and hopefully make some more. I did manage to make one new Dragon for the show. However it seems the title was more appropriate to describe how people see getting to Wales. Yes they have a dragon on their flag, but really Llangollen is very easy to get to by road or rail. Mid Wales is harder to get to with smaller and more windy roads, North Wales is easy. To be fair until I went there I thought it was rather in the back of beyond but I know better now and I am hoping I might be able to have another show there at some point. I’ve just got to spread the word that it is really easy to access.
Carrying on our tour around the gallery we come to this set of three figure quilts. The middle one is the newest of my nudes, but more on her in a moment. The first of the three quilt is called Mother. It’s not been to that many shows but has probably been seen by more people than most of my other quilts. This one got a write up in Quilters Home magazine because it depicts a very well known quilter. When Bonnie McCaffery first said how much she liked my quilts I was thrilled and when she said she would have been proud to have posed for one of them I saw an opportunity. It was a few years later when, desperate for another quilt for my gallery at the Festival of Quilts, that I finally persuaded her to model for me. When I got the photos by email (yes I have to check all that spam claiming to be nude photos for me) this one stood out. It was taken by her daughter and I think the expression is perfect, and her hair is looking great in it too. I love quilting hair and that had been part of the attraction of using her as a model.
I was aiming for this quilt (Mother) to look something like a statue. I wanted to use fabrics that gave an impression of stone.
That narrowed my options quite a lot. Some colours it is very easy to get a nice run of shades, others, not. Guess what, grey/tan/brown would be one of the trickier ones when you need this many shades. This is why if I see a run of 6-9 shades I tend to buy it on the spot. They are rare and I use them for many of my quilts. I found the only way I could get the look I was after was to use batiks and fortunately between my stash and the local quilt shop I got the run I needed.
I made the quilt and then needed to rinse and block it, I had used washaway stabiliser to keep her hair under control. The batiks ran, a lot. It looked like coffee rinsing out of the quilt. Fortunately I keep run remover on hand and soon had the dye back out of the light areas. This is a hazard of working with unwashed fabrics which I do a lot but I can live with it. There are two reason I don’t prewash, firstly time. I struggle to find the time to keep on top of washing my clothes. If I had to wash and iron all my fabric as well it would never get done. Secondly I find the fabric much easier to work with when it still has the dressing on it. As my art quilts aren’t intended to be washed it seems like a fair solution. My bed quilts I wash in the machine with colour catchers. If they run I fix it. It’s pretty rare though to have any problems with modern fabrics. The exception would be the very dark batiks. Do click on the pictures to see the enlargement. You will be able to see most of the stitches, almost as good as being there.
Quiet Moment is the latest of my nudes the story of making this quilt is shown on the blog starting on the 6th August 2011. The easiest way to read it is to select the archive from the right hand side of the page and them the year and the month. There are a lot of posts showing many details of the process.
This is another quilt that was named by readers of the blog. Though this time instead of putting the top suggestions to the vote three of us chose the name. The model, Tet and I spent quite a while arguing to come up with the winning name. It was harder because we needed the name in a hurry to get the quilt into the 2012 calendar.
This is another quilt where I had a lot of fun quilting the hair. I guess it is a texture thing, but then the curves in hair are great too. Whatever it is I do like quilting hair, human or animal. One of the problems I had when making this quilt was finding the right shades of purple threads. Purple seems to be a really problematic colour. There are just so many different purples. The amount of blue or red in it can change massively. It seems that threads are mostly to the red side and guess what my fabrics are to the blue end. The other problem with purples is they are really hard to photograph. Most of the pictures I took at the show made the purple of her body look the same colour as her blue shoes. That is really frustrating as it makes fixing the colour on the computer very tricky. Fortunately I also got a few pictures where the colours came out pretty much right. One afternoon I got chatting to some of the visitors, and we compared all their pictures. The range of colours that this quilt looked was amazing. This is why I often tell people photographing my quilts that I have postcards of them. It really isn’t just a money making scam. I know some really are tricky to photograph, but many have been professionally photographed with the correct colours and a good level of detail.
Daughter is the partner quilt to Mother. In fact Daughter came first. The photograph I worked from was one that Bonnie was going to use to make a quilt. I just fell in love with it when I saw it on her blog. Bonnie and her daughter very kindly gave me permission to use the photograph for this quilt. When I heard I was going to have a gallery at the Festival of Quilts a couple of years ago I thoguht it would be a great time to launch this quilt. That was a great plan until I found out how big the gallery space was. It meant that I had no walls small enough to hang this piece on it’s own. That is the point at which I knew I had to make Mother.
Stepping back we can see the whole of the wall between the gallery and the man hall. The main hall is only used by Quiltsfest on trading day, and for access by staff on the other days. One day the display of nudes nearly caused and accident. A workman had come in to help us out and on the way in saw fairly traditional quilts. On his way back out of the door he got somewhat distracted by the display on this wall. I would have felt guilty if he had actually failed to find the door, but I do like to surprise people. Quilting is so much more than most people think. We were also lucky enough to have a painter visit the gallery. To be fair he was literally visiting the gallery, not my show. He is having a show there soon and wanted to plan where he would hang his work. He was so positive about my work, it really made my day. When I thought about what he had said I was even more thrilled. The most important thing he said, which I didn’t realise until after he left was when I said I can’t paint, his reply was I can’t cut and sew fabric. I’d never looked at it like that. The biggest boost to my confidence in a long time. I hope his show is a huge success.
Nude with Rope, is another well known quilt. She has caused controversy and has a huge number of fans. It is the quilt of mine that seems to most divide opinion, and I like that. I like that people come up with their own stories for this quilt.
The quilt comes from another photograph by Alex Treacher. I choose it because I liked the shapes within it and the way the light catches different parts of it. As it required nine shades to render this image I really had to make it in blues where I find I get the best long runs of colour. In this case the whole quilt is made using Moda marbles, as is Quiet Moment. I love this range for it’s subtle variations in shade. It is especially well suited to my style of pictorial quilts. As well has having gone to quilt shows around the world, and having been held in customs in almost as many places this quilt has been displayed on the Moda trade stand. Apparently the quilt was a bit of a shock to the sales staff, they weren’t expecting it to be so big (just over 7 feet long). They were also very protective of it. This quilt got to stay in a hotel room overnight rather than a cold exhibition hall.
As you can see we have made it almost to the far side of the gallery. Looking back you can just see the door we came in by to the right of Fractal Stars. In the middle of the room are two large tables. These were provided to the stewards had somewhere to sit and sew, although they were also useful for several of the visitors. You may have also noticed the chairs around the room, we thought it was a good idea for people to have a chance to sit and look at the quilts but it also provides a place to park your less quilt obsessed friends.
Carrying on down the wall that separates the gallery from the main hall, the last quit we come to is Herd Mentality. This quilt seems to be my most requested quilt and I couldn’t possibly have an exhibition without displaying it.
It seems to have been the quilt that alerted most people to my existence, which always surprises me. I would have though either Nude with Rope or the Nude Triptych would have been the more prominent quilts. Certainly they have all been displayed, photographed and published about the same amount. I wonder if it was winning at the Festival of Quilts that really made a difference as that got them hung in a far more prominent position that any of the other quilts managed. Whatever it is they are clearly much loved.
Like most of my large art quilts they we assembled entirely on the longarm. I don’t have any spaces at home big enough to layout something like this. Unfortunately I didn’t blog the process of this one. I was making it for a large curved wall in the Dissenters Gallery and I only showed one head on my blog before the show. The picture on that post does clearly show the pattern on one of the batiks which is very cool. While I was making this quilt I was running very low on cow coloured fabrics. I had a great idea, I would phone a trader I know fairly well and ask them to send more fabric that I needed in the right sort of colours. Some would be perfect some would be no good but it would solve my current and quite urgent problem. What I didn’t forsee was getting someone who didn’t know me on the other end of the phone. Apparently you don’t often get customers calling and asking for 10-15m of cow colour fabric. The lady rose to the challenge and after several calls to double check posted me a large pack of fabrics. Many of which I did use, including one with a pattern that reminded us of sea anemones. We had discussed patterns that might or might not work. I had said no to anything with grids or lines on. I wasn’t convinced by roses but the anemones sounded like they might work. They did. They look just like the fur on a cows forehead where it goes round and around.
Due to their popularity I now offer a class where you can make your own cow head (does that sound wrong to anyone else or is it just me?). Your first chance to take this class will be in Sitges in Spain, March this year.
Our last quilt in this section it Perttu. Perttu Kivilaakso is a Finnish cellist who used to play with the Helsinki Philharmonic orchestra but who is now part of a heavy metal cello (actually they are now 3 cellos and a drummer) quartet called Apocalyptica. I haven’t done male nudes so far because they are hard to photograph so they don’t look untidy. Sorry but women are just far neater. However if I could persuade the band to pose nude with their instruments, then I am sure I could make some very tasteful quilts.
Unlike most of the art quilts in this post Perttu himself is made from fabrics with small designs on them. He has flowers, butterflies and paw prints. I think you can just see the flowers on the lightest grey in the close up. I tend to buy grey fabric whenever I see it, and usually it will have a small print of some sort. I enjoy the challenge of using commercial fabrics for my quilt and to be honest I really don’t have the time to custom dye everything I would need. I also like to think that if I can do it from found fabrics then so can other people. I would like people to leave my shows and talks inspired. The comment that most upsets me at events is people saying they might as well give up. It seems I have really failed if they can’t see potential to try and make something themselves. Quilting is something anyone can do. Some will do it better than others. Not everyone will be able to do everything, but I really hope that people would feel there is something they could achieve.
Part 3 of the tour can be found here.
Quiltfest Gallery – part 1
Due to the number of pictures I want to share with you I will need to break up the tour of the gallery into sections. I hope that you will get the feel of walking around the gallery by following through these posts. So grab some refreshments and let me take you on a tour. The gallery is warm and as you walked down the corridor to the gallery you could hear a sewing machine. It’s gone quiet now but maybe we can run it again later. Don’t forget you can click on the images to get a bigger picture.
As you can see this is quite a large space which plays very well with my large art quilts. Over on the far wall you can see Bad Rain, the poster quilt for this years Quiltfest. It’s a shame See Sound isn’t lit, I guess it’s too quiet at the moment.
On the greeters table you can see a stack of Quilters Desk Diarys. I think Susan still has a few for sale if you want one. It’s her table cloth too. Oddly I rather like it. Not my colours but somehow it works, and I do like her quilting on it.
Next to the table is Guide Me. This quilt is really too large for the gallery so it had to go on a quilt stand rather than be mounted on the wall. That’s fine as I have stands but it then leave you with the problem of people tripping over the legs of the stand. So we have a donation jar to one side (for the local hospice) and the table to the other. It worked, no one fell over and no one knocked the quilt down.
Guide Me may look like a pieced quilt but it isn’t. It is one piece of black cotton sateen with the design being made in coloured threads. The straight lines of this quilt were marked and then sewn with silver thread, but all the rest of the quilting is freehand. This is a design I had planned to piece, well actually I still do intend to make it as a pieced quilt but it seemed a lot quicker and easier to make it as a wholecloth. I was almost right. I learned an awful lot from this quilt. I had to make 2 complete quilts and even on the second one I got to do 12 hours unquilting. I got one of the sets of green leaves in to the space for blue waves. it had only taken 12 minutes to quilt it in. I’ve got better at unpicking since then. I could probably undo it in 8 hours now!
To the other side of the entrance there are two pieced quilts. Despite being better known for my art quilts I love traditional patchwork. Some people seem to find this odd, but I can’t see them changing my mind. A few weeks ago I was giving a talk about my quilts when it suddenly hit me that I needed to do some proper patchwork. I’ve got a Turning Twenty quilt on the go now which if keeping me happy. Yup, not only do I enjoy patchwork I enjoy other peoples patterns and kits. So sue me 
The first of the pieced quilts is Ferret’s Fractal Stars. This is my latest pattern, and I had hoped to be able to launch it at Quiltfest, even though I hadn’t intended to hang this quilt. On hanging day we had more space to fill than I had expected to had to rummage through my bags of quilts to choose a couple of extras. This one fitted the space perfectly so got to come and play.
The coloured fabrics in this quilt are Ricky Tims hand dyes. I’d been hoarding them for a while before this idea came to me. I was really busy when the design firmed up in my head so I got one of my students to make it up for me. She was very glad I hadn’t told her they were my prized fabric before she started. I can see why Ricky uses them. The patterns they make when you cut them are fantastic. I especially like the red purple one.
The coloured triangles are all quilted with freehand feathers. That seemed like a really easy option when I started, but of course in the biggest triangles I can’t see the whole area in one go on the machine. One of those moments where it might have been easier to do on a domestic machine. Oh well it worked out in the end.
Next we have a another quilt I hadn’t intended to hang. Susan had to talk me into it, as it really is too big for the wall. I’m glad she did. A lot of people liked it and asked many sensible questions about it.
It is the sample I made for my book Ferreting Around. Well technically it’s the sample I made for the classes that became the book. I never intended to get into writing but it happened anyway. The quilt was made to keep my students happy. They asked for a group quilt that everyone could take home at the end. They wanted a lap quilt that would cover a king size bed, and that didn’t need them to buy fabric in the first month (it was just after Christmas). When they asked for flying geese, celtic knots and half square triangles I got the idea for a sampler quilt. I really like sampler quilts and having done far too much research, there aren’t that many sampler quilt projects out there. Also I wanted one that was designed to be quilt as you go. This one is, and the backs of some of them are stunning. Mine is a bit boring, but then it was the first so I didn’t have the others for inspiration did I.
Heat is another quilt filling a tricky space. That is exactly what she was designed for though, so I guess it is appropriate. It was originally made for the gallery exhibition I had in the Dissenters Gallery in Kensal Green cemetary. That gallery was full of odd spaces as it is an old building. I needed a few long skinny pieces and as at the time most of my quilts were cool and subdued colours I thought something a bit more lively was called for. The photograph I worked from was taken by Alex Treacher, and for me fitted the bill perfectly. This dancer is full of life. The fabrics used to produce her are all commercial quilting cottons.
All my art quilts are made with applique and thread. They are not printed or painted. If you look at the larger image you should be able to see the raw edges and stitching. I don’t bond most of my quilts so although they are designed as art to hang on the wall they are still soft like bed quilts. This quilts special claim to fame is being the most 3D nipple I’ve made so far. Someone recently suggested producing a quilt where the nipples follow you around the room. Which, being me, seems like a great idea.
When I’m not quilting, and indeed sometimes when I am, I can be found lurking at drag strips. many of my quilts have been finished in the pits at various tracks. Some even got finished driving between race tracks, what can I say, I tend to be a bit short on time.
For a while I had been thinking of doing some quilts of the cars at the track, but I couldn’t decide how. I knew I didn’t want to do photo realistic quilts but that doesn’t really narrow things down much. Then I saw the Queens of the Stone age video for Go With the Flow. I loved the way the colours are used in it and that settled how my burnout quilts were going to look. I think I might have to do some red landscapes too at some point.
The first car I chose to do could have been a mistake. There are a lot of rails (long skinny traditional dragsters) in racing and without their livery they all look quite similar. Fortunately (and quite by accident) I managed to pick one with just enough distinctive features that other racers could identify it as Dave Wilson.
My second car was a much safer choice. It’s the very distinctive Studebaker of Andy Robinson. No chance of this being mistaken for anyone else. However those flames and the V8 badge on the nose were a pain to cut out. It was worth it, I love this quilt. I do have plans for a few more burnout quilts, including our race car Trogdor. The hard part is getting just the right angle on the photographs and getting enough details to conclusively identify the car. I will also be starting a new set of wheelie cars. Several of the cars lift their front wheels when they launch at the start of the race, and I think that will give me lots of normally hidden detail to work with. As soon as I have some spare time (does that even exist?) I’ll make a start on those. Well, that’s it for now. I’ll start work on the next section of the tour. Part 2
Ferret Bites
February 18, 2012
Given the success of the little quilts I made at Quiltfest we decided they needs a name. We decided on Ferret Bites. The few that were left at the end of the show are now available to buy in my web shop, here. Each piece is unique and once it’s gone, it’s gone.
I have decided to offer free shipping on any of the Ferret Bites, for everyone. It seemed a bit unfair to penalise those who live further away when they had the least chance of coming to the show in the first place. So just for these there is no need to ask about the shipping, it’s free.
I am working on the photos of the gallery. I hope to have the first part of the walk through up tomorrow.
Quiltfest Trading day
February 17, 2012Yes, I am doing the easiest posts first. I am not feeling too well, Susan Briscoe did try hard not to give me her cold but seems to have failed at the last minute so my brain is working worse then usual. We are lucky to have to pictures in the post as both Susan and I forgot to take any pictures on trading day. Tet nabbed my camera and saved the day.
Terri who works at the venue and has been looking after us during our stay offered us use of the screen in the lobby for the day if we could put some pictures onto a USB stick. That wasn’t an offer we were going to pass on so Tet got to work and just after opening a slide show was up of the quilts in my gallery. I didn’t actually manage to get to the lobby and see it, but I’ve heard from people who did and they seemed to like it, so ti was worth the effort. Unfortunately because I was busy on the gallery I also didn’t get to meet the students from Yale Collage, the two guys in the photo. I’d have liked to have found out what sort of things they had been working on but it wasn’t to be. They didn’t get a chance to see the gallery during the day though I am told the did spend a lot of time watching the slide show. Maybe I should have sent some one to tell them the real thing was just in the next room
This next picture is of the trading hall. There were a selection of quite varied traders there. I found a few interesting things. I will be particularly interested in how the spray on glitter/sheen works. If it sprays well and stays put it could be really useful on some of my more textured quilts. However I am not holding my breath. Glitter usually comes off on everything except what you might want it on. I would love to find out I bought the one product that doesn’t but I am still a realist. Still it should be fun to play with.
Lastly, for the trading day, some pictures from the gallery. As we have discovered before turning on a longarm and starting to quilt is a very good way to summon quilters. They appear out of thin air as soon as you start quilting. I don’t mind at all, this really is the point of taking my machine on the road. I want as many people as possible to understand how the longarm quilting process works, and especially what I mean when I say all my work is free hand. Even people who are standing watching me will ask if I am following a line, have I drawn on a line, and is the machine programmed to do the pattern. I’m afraid by the end of a show the answer will usually be a question. Can you see a line? Can you see a computer and does the machine move when I am not moving it.
I really like getting requests for patterns as that is a clear way to demonstrate there is nothing set up in the machine or drawn on the cloth. This time I didn’t get many requests, and a lot I did get would have taken more artistic ability than I have. One lady would have liked the Phoenix Rising quilt as an A4 sample in just quilting. To be fair, so would I, it sounds lovely. It’s not something I could just draw though. Maybe I will put some outlines onto washaway before I next bring the machine out and about.
The most popular pattern for this show was feathers in the style of the centre of Greek Fossils. I guess that makes sense, but it caught me by surprise. I tried some feathered hearts (Welsh and Valentines day) and the usual sampler pieces but they weren’t what people were looking for this time. I will be scanning the left over samples and putting the up fro sale on my website over the weekend.
Links for the shops
I know none of you are interested in shopping, least of all craft related shopping but for interest I’ve looked up the websites of the two shops I have mentioned Castle court quilters can be found here and Colinette yarns here. Collinette offer mail order services, which I may need even if I can’t tempt you. Castle Court quilters do have a picture of the castle on their site which I forgot to photograph.
Another link I should share is the Quilt Association News. They have a report on my talk with some pictures here.
One for the knitters
After Castle Court Quilters I headed south towards Collinet (no idea if that is how you should spell it) yarns. It was quite by chance that I found out about this place. A friend of a friend of a friend mentioned it over dinner, and actually was there when I arrived. The building doesn't look at all promising from the outside and the car park was quite revoling. However as soon as you step inside it is worth the trip. The displays are stunning and spread through 3 rooms of yarns. The yarns are produced and dyed in Wales and they are magnificent. The question isn't if you will buy something just how much you will buy. I really liked the number of samples around the shop. Samples that they allowed a customer to try on to check the size before making her own. It's little thing but very helpful. The staff are very knowledgeable about their products and somehow I bought quite a lot of yarn. I did get very lucky. There wasn't much in the sale room but I found a 1kg bag of odds and ends all in black/white/grey 30 pounds, very good value. I have already started knitting up my purchases.
Castle court quilters – Oswestry
February 16, 2012
The first stop on my tourist trip was to Oswestry. I had planned on going to the morot museum in Llangollen but the weather was foul and I really just wanted to drive for a bit. It's probably just as well as I needed the time for the quilt shop. The location is lovely, they are right opposite a castle and have plenty of parking, even for a customer with a motorhome. As you can see the workshop is impressive with huge tables for people to layer up their quilts on. I wonder if the customers know what a great resource this is.Obviously I had to buy some fabric. Mostly I bought stone effect. It's not a range I've seen before and I love it. It's also from a supplier that shops around here don't often use so I just had to buy it then right? My only chance and all that 
The ownwer was lovely, offering not only hot drinks but food too. I wish I could have stayed longer but I had another stop to make on my way to Llanidloes.
Llanidloes – art quilts by numbers
February 15, 2012
These are a few pictures from yesterdays workshop.
Llanidloes
This will be out of sequence as there are things I still need to post, but it ois real time. All set up for this afternoons talk.
Wholecloth class
February 12, 2012
This is a bit late, things got very busy here for a while. We had a lively class in Gresford yesterday. I've just had a hard time choosing some pictures for this post. It seems hanging around the gallery gave people ideas, lots of ideas. Watching the students play with those ideas then gave me some too. I never knew people could enjoy drafing so much. I hope you like the picture, bear in mind these are in progress. After class we went out for a meal, and discovered there are three hotels with the same name and a chinese across the road. You know that makes tracking down your friends a lot harder. Despite that it was a good night followed by an early morning and a busy day. Trading day was good, but I'll tell you about that tom,orrow. Now I want towatch a film and sleep.