Easy Arch

 This has been an unusual year to say the least. All of us has had changes in scheduling and activities. Dealing with the ongoing pandemic has been a challenge in many ways, and we all hope it will come to an end soon. Staying healthy is our main focus right now, and with suddenly having all that extra time available has been a little hard to handle at times. Usually I will complain about not having time to explore some directions with my quiltmaking, and then I find myself with all this time,  weeks of time in my studio. What to do with that has been more challenging than finding fabric and get to work. Knowing that I do better with some structure, I set goals for every week, working an something I want to explore, finding information about a technique I had been interested in, and working through the ins and outs of it, till I feel I know everything I can. I will share some of this in a few post in the next weeks and months. Lots of different fabric/surface treatment have been tested, leaving me with stacks of dyed , painted and otherwise manipulated fabrics, which I hopefully will use in new projects in the near future.

Early  spring I worked for several weeks on one of my favorite piecing technique, the Easy Arch block.  This has always been my to-go-to block when I feel very uninspired. Just choosing some bright and colorful fabrics will improve the mood! Making the stylized leaves is my favorite variation of this block, and adding some curved piecing, it was a small fun piece. I like it so much I think I will use the rest of the blocks to make a bigger piece or a table runner. Because it is so fast I sewed six blocks in each colorway, so many extras to play with. Black background could be nice too.

It has been years since I took the time and made a bed quilt for our bed.  Again the Easy Arch block is perfect for larger quilts. When you put four together, you can have a "diamond" shaped or a 'circular" shaped center. Adding sashings and cornerstones breaks up the blocks and gives them somewhat of a traditional look. It also adds a little to the size. The brown variation I made for my sister, and the purple variation I made for me. I am not a very "purple" person, but this will change the look in the bedroom, and I am in the mood for a change right now.                                                                                            

I will buy all kinds of 5" charm packs when I go to shows. Especially batiks, so after collecting many different one, I finally made a full size bed quilt for a grandson. I was left with several black/white and neutral colored batiks. this is the basic block using those colors, and with a red and black setting. Fun and easy to make.

Next on my list was doing something for the youngest grandsons, twins. Of course they will have to get full size quilts too for their 3rd. birthday too. First time ever that I am ahead of schedule with two finished tops, similar but different. Different sizes of the basic Easy Arch block, set together with filler strips. These will be machine quilted as I am sure they will be washed many times.

Just another picture of my own new bed quilt. I am very happy to have this one done.

I plan to share a few more projects coming up, just trying to stay busy!

Please stay safe!

Picture quilts from J C Campbell Folkschool

A small but very nice group of ladies came to J C Campbells Folkschool in Brasstown, NC for a week long stay. The class was "Free Form machine applique",  for five days we worked with pictures and drawing, and created some wonderful pieces of textile art.

Debbie from Georgia, brought a beautiful photo of a butterfly in the garden that she wanted to work with . She worked long hours every day and recreated this wonderful scene on a pieced background (love the bright greens!). The free form stitching around the shapes gave the butterfly life and definition. Metallic threads added lots of sparkle and details.

Mary from New Jersey, had a very nice photo of tulips that her grandson had given her. She wanted to create  a small wall piece with the bouquet and blue vase as the focus. Many shades of reds and yellows gave great contrast to the flowers and the bright green fabric gives a wonderful frame to it.

Kathy from Georgia worked with one of my favorite themes, an old boat. This one was in a day scene, but as the  week progressed it became a night scene. I think the dark blue fabric added a lot of mood to this landscape. She plans to add wavy quilting lines across to give the feel of water. Love the boat of course!

Friday night is "Show and tell", we all get to see what has been done that week. So in between  woodwork, metalwork, leatherwork, paperwork etc. we get to show our projects. Nice with spotlights to show off beautiful textile art!

Quilt Camp at Ripley West Virginia.

A great week at Ripley with quilt campers from 18 states! Many, many women and men come to Ripley every October to learn new quilting techniques and to meet old friends and make new ones.

Colors were not as brilliant this year I'm sad to say, but these berry bushes at a rest stop might be the inspiration for something!







Seven very energetic quilters had signed up for my class with the focus on "Transfer Paint with Botanical Elements". These pictures only shows a small number of what was made this week- impressive!

 Maggie from Ohio had more than a little fun with the iron. She created some very interesting and complex backgrounds with her collection of leaves.

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 Beautiful color combinations.

My favorite of what Maggie did.

David from North Carolina for sure has his own color aesthetic and is not afraid to experiment. This is something I can appreciate as a textile artist. Bright colors and flowing shapes, combined with unusual color combinations, were everywhere.

Bright colors and bold shapes. Quilting should be fun!

My favorite of David's designs. This is an art piece.

Eleanor from Ohio brought her old iron which she had not used in a long time! This was so great and gave her lots of strong colors and high contrast pieces.

 Her painted papers had some very neat designs and resulted in very special background effects for her leaves and ferns.

 The black and yellow ferns is my favorite design that she made. Don't get rid of that old iron, Eleanor!

Janet from West Virginia was dong something that was out of her comfort zone, but was very eager to do so. She has taught quilting for many years, but was ready to learn something new. I enjoyed teaching it, and she ran with it. This beautiful little quilt is her machine quilted piece. I think she will make some more!

 Another of Janet's small pieces which looks great.

 And she was very productive, to say the least! Lots to take home to work on.

Judie from Ohio is a long time quilter who embraced  this new technique and experimented a lot. She claimed that she had problems with color, but this must be a good problem because she made some very colorful pieces and I love the color combinations she came up with! 

 My favorite from Judie is the big leaf in blue and purple. Also beautiful quilting.

Jeri from Ohio is an artist in her own right and very creative and talented. I'm sorry to say that my phone acted up and I lost a few pictures from this class, unfortunately that included some of her pieces. (good news is that Jeri e-mailed me some pictures, so I can show a few of her pieces). They were very creative and so well made.                                                                                                      

Lovely colors and shapes, with added textures that was achieved with  very interesting free motion quilting designs.                                                                                                                                    

And last but not least, Eileen from Ohio worked on several banners with leaves and shapes in fall colors which she plans to use at her son's upcoming wedding. She was cutting paper shapes and creating wine shapes to hang. Unfortunately she had to leaves early so no pictures, but if I can get some I will post them here.  (again Eileen e-mailed me pictures of the finished banners). A lot of work went into making them long enough to be displayed. I bet they were a great addition to the wedding!                                                                                                                                            

If you're interested in quilt classes at Ripley, check out www.quiltcampcedarlakes.com.                                                                                                                           

Impressions of Color

Last night was opening of my show at Maryville College. There was a wonderful turnout of many good friends and their friends, as well as family. I so very much appreciate the support from everyone!

Beautiful flowers from my family in Norway, to wish me good luck.       

 Great turnout of good friends and family, and small reception of goodies. All thanks to the Art department at the College. Carl Gombert takes care of everything, and makes all of it look so good.

 First time I have worked in a pictorial series. The "Ironworks" series are inspired by a photo taken by my sister, Marita. Absolutely loved working with the different colorways. Right now I am not sure which color is my favorite, just love to see them together.

This is a leaf I found in Florida. Very hard and a little difficult to get definition. But finished they are my "Brain" pieces. Had so much fun working on them and coming up with names. "Mush Brain", "Grey Matter", "Left Brain, Right Brain".

 These are huge sycamore leaves, actually it's the same one used in all 4 pieces

Most of the pieces are a combination of machine outline stitching and hand seed stitching. I dye the pearl cotton to fit with the color scheme I am working on, and fill in all background.  I love this kind of handwork and it fills the need to work at a slower pace.

 These are large sycamore leaves and some Hawaiian leaves.    

 Another favorite is the boat on the waterfront. Have a thing for the old wooden rowing boats, just something about the wood and colors. My sister, Marita, sent me this photo which had to be a quilt .

The largest piece at the show. The huge leaves are from Tennessee and Hawaii. I don't work so much in cooler colors but this is one of my winter quilts

 And one of he smallest pieces at the show, a study of leaves from my back yard. More vibrant in real life.

My interest and fascination with Hawaii comes from two trips there, The islands are so diverse and the nature is so varied. The lush areas just so impressive, not just the size of the leaves but also the shapes. I could make hundreds of pieces from the inspiration of Hawaiian botanical life. And pretty soon I will have !

This Hawaiian inspired piece is appliqued, rather than transfer paint, and was made after many photographs of  leaves on O'Ahu.

Love to work with these colors, and the surprises that will occur is always  an "opportunity" to do something different, never a mistake. After I get my feet down on the ground again, I have many pieces of fabric,  a box full of leaves, lots of painted papers, ready to be something, very soon!