Table Topper and Playing with Weaving

Hi and welcome 😊 I'm late but finally here. I can't imagine anyone is waiting impatiently for me to click on Publish, but if you are, then please accept my apologies. I had a great day out with my girlfriend. We had an amazing Thai lunch to celebrate our October birthdays and then attended a preview at the National Gallery of Canada. What a lovely, carefree afternoon.

Making a Table Topper

The friends whose pool I took care of this summer are having a party on the weekend. He is retiring and I'm making him a special table topper/placemat. He is from Newfoundland and had painted his back fence in the style of the homes there. 

Here is the quilt, ready to be FMQ (free motion quilted).

Newfoundland Houses Table Topper ready to be quilted

Here is the backyard fence, painted in the style of houses found in Newfoundland. The picture is slightly fuzzy because I took it from inside the gazebo. 

Fence in the backyard

I didn't take process pictures. I drew the three houses on graph paper, cut and pieced the fabric for the houses. I then used Steam-a-Seam light to appliqué the windows and doors. On the fence, the white doors are outlined in black and the black doors are outlined in white so I used black and white zig-zag stitches around the windows and doors. I made two passes at them since some of the stitches were missed. It might have been a tension issue because there was no issue stitching on the thicker purple fabric.

I'll be finishing this piece before Saturday, so I'll try to write a post on the weekend.

Playing with Weaving

This afternoon was the preview of Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. What a great exhibition. The premise of the exhibition is that modern tapestry has influenced abstraction in modern art. A lot of the work was done in the sixties and was very ahead of its time. The majority was also made by women 😍

I'm just going to share a couple of pieces with you and hope that if you can, come see the exhibition (see Related links below). 

Liz Collins Heartbeat 2019

silk and linen textile, Jacquard woven and cut

Liz Collins' Heartbeat 2019

Here is Olga de Amaral's art piece, Cintas entrelazadas c. 1969 made of wool and cotton. The colours and the construction are so interesting.

Olga de Amaral, Cintas entrelazadas c. 1969
wool and cotton

Close-up of Olga de Amaral's, Cintas entrelazadas

After viewing the art, my friend and I stopped in at the creation area of the exhibit. There were materials and information on how to weave. Here are our creations!

Woven on cardboard with strips of printed paper and raffia. 

My woven piece after visiting the exhibit

Lise says she's not creative
but her piece begs to differ!

If you can't make it to Ottawa to view the exhibit, there are many articles in the Related links below. The exhibition, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction will be at MOMA - The Museum of Modern Art, New York, April 20–September 13, 2025.

End Notes

Here are a couple of photos taken today.

Poppy and some street art in Ottawa's
Byward Market

Louise Bourgeois' outdoor sculpture, Maman,
outside of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

What I learned

• The table topper is coming along. My proportions are off compared to the fence. We'll call it artistic interpretation (aka accuracy challenged).
• The zig-zag stitch was a challenge. I changed my needle but I'm not sure that my machine likes to stitch over Steam-a-Seam. In the end, if I stitched very, very slowly, the zig-zag stitch was better. It also worked fine when I stitched over a section in reverse! Next time I need to appliqué, I'll try to do it when I'm fresher and more patient. That will surely help to trouble shoot.
• You probably noticed that the table topper is the mirror image of the fence. I must have sewn the fabric upside down, but didn't notice until it was too late. Oh well, another artistic interpretation 😁
• I have already cut out the backing and will sew it up using the pillow case method. This means that I won't have to deal with binding. Yay!
• It turns out that the Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction exhibit has been around for a while. This was great in finding the links below. I took quite a few pictures of the text since I'd like to research a few of the artists.
• I really wanted to include other art pieces here but sometimes textile art just doesn't photograph well, at least without great equipment. I'm going to change my phone soon and I can't wait to get a much better camera.

Related links

• Abstraction and Textile Through the Lens of Present Practice, article about the exhibit
• Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction - about the exhibition
• ArtSeen Dec/Jan 2023–24 article by Suzanne Hudson
• Liz Collins weaves a promised land with colorful textiles, (video) National Gallery of Art
• Liz Collin's work
• Who is Anni Albers? 8 Things to Know
• Louise Bourgeois' outdoor sculpture, Maman, article

Linking parties

I'll be linking to many fun linking parties. Why not check them out after linking up below? Monday Musings, Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Patchwork & Quilts,

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 506 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was another productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Gail of Quilting Gail made this cute Dresden Plate mini that is at the Hobb's Batting booth at the Houston Quilt Market! Very cool and colourful.

Gail's Dresden Plate mini

Deb the Scrappy Quilted quilted and bound three legacy quilts. Here is one of them.

Deb's quilted charity quilt

Did you see my finished scrappy placemat? This one is for my son. Now we all have one 😊

My scrappy brown placemat

It's now your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter