Showing posts with label Alice Vander Vennen. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Floral Update and a Finished Piece on Free Motion Mavericks

Hello and welcome! I hope that my Canadian readers had a good Thanksgiving. I know that it's about more than good food and being with friends and family but I'm thankful that the food was good 😋! I am also very thankful to everyone who reads or even just looks at the pictures each week. It means a lot to me. You have my gratitude.

Floral Fusion Update

As you may know, I've been making my Floral Fusion blocks and following along with Denise at The Quiltery. Once I figured out who was getting this lovely quilt, I was able to sew the pieces together in a wall hanging.

Floral Fusion quilt top done!

I had done about half of the smaller blocks and all of the larger blocks. When I put the blocks together on my board, I was just missing one extra block to make a wall hanging. Once it was done, it was a matter of looking at the different options for the blocks. Here's some of my thinking.

First attempt: I found that the very dark leaves in the top two flowers on the right were too strong.

First attempt

Second attempt: I moved a couple of the larger flowers around. I thought that the top right flower wasn't visually strong enough.

Second attempt

Third attempt: again I moved some of the larger flowers around. The balance was better but I wanted to bolder flowers in the centre column.

Third attempt

Final choice: I exchanged the large flowers at the top so that the more dominant flower was in the centre.

Final placement of Floral Fusion wall hanging

Once this was figured out, I started sewing the columns together. I'm not sure if it was my tension but my machine kept eating the beginning of each section that I was sewing. I used my walking foot, so that might be it, but anyway, I wasn't in the mood to fiddle around with my machine or the foot. I did what most quilters would do in this situation. I sewed a leader block before starting to stitch the Floral Fusion blocks. This was the first time that I had done this.

Using a leader block to stop or ignore the
bunching up at the edge of a seam

For those who are not familiar with this, here's what happened. Sometimes when you start sewing at the very edge of the fabric, the thread bunches right up. It's like the machine wants to eat the fabric. It happens mostly if there is a seam near the edge but in this case, it was just two pieces of fabric. This is VERY frustrating. Some quilters will start their sewing with an extra block to stitch (the leader). I assume that they either start about ⅛" from the edge of the leader or they just live with the bunching up. Either way, if you place the piece that you want to sew right at the end of the leader block, the machine won't eat this new block.

Strips of 2½" wide fabric

I used scraps from Floral Fusion to make leader blocks. I cut strips of 2½" wide fabric and then sewed them before every seam. Many quilters will do this and after a while, they will have enough leaders to make a quilt.

Paisley Collage

I finished up the piece that I started during the Nature's Narrative Workshop with Alice Vander Vennen. I had pulled it apart after the workshop because I liked the elements but not the design. This final design is better but I'm not sure that I like it.

Paisley Collage finished

My piece before pulling it apart

What I learned

I'm really happy with my Floral Fusion wall hanging. It was so much fun to make. Thanks so much Denise for a lovely sew along. It looks like this might be one of the first times that a sew or quilt along doesn't end up as a UFO!
I love playing on the design wall to see how the blocks can be placed. I adjusted the blocks but really, any of those placements would have been fine.
After our last guild meeting, I took a small quilt home from our Community Projects to quilt. I'll use this as an excuse to quilt both of these. Then the guild will have another charity quilt and my daughter will have her new wall hanging. 😊Bonus - apparently I won't have to bind the charity quilt!!!
I've decided to use the pillowcase technique to finish the Floral Fusion quilt. In theory it should be the same as a small piece. I'll find out and let you know!
I'm glad that my workshop piece is finished. One of the things that I don't like about it is the frame. I know that framed art looks more like "art" but it's not my favourite, especially a cheap IKEA frame.
I have an idea for re-purposing one of my previous piece. If I can get it done during the weekend, I'll share it with you. It would be a great way to re-finish a piece that I liked but didn't love. I'm hoping that it will all work, without too much fussing. We'll see. 😉

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 503 of Free Motion Mavericks! Thanks for linking up. It was a productive week but not necessarily in the FMQ department, so I'm going to feature the quilt finish as well as some very amazing purses - not quilted but gorgeous!

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts used her walking foot to quilt her gorgeous Star of Wonder topper. She tried to do Free Motion Quilting but it just didn't want to! Don't you hate that? Anyway she got it all done with her walking foot. It's going to look lovely on a table!

Kat's Star of Wonder topper

Island Batik had their What's in Your Bag Challenge and both Gail and Preeti did an outstanding job on their bags. I'm always so impressed because I know that bags are fiddly and they did a great job!

Here are Gail's small and large Payday bags.

Gail's small and large Payday bags

Next we have Preeti's small and large Snapshot bags.

Preeti's small and large Snapshot bags

It's now your turn!

Thursday, May 23, 2024

Nature's Narrative Workshop and Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome 😊. It's been an incredibly busy week filled with heat, gardening, learning and art. Except for the heat, it was great! I want to share with you some of my learning and art - through a wonderful speaker at Out of the Box (OOTB) Fibre Artists and a workshop the next day.

Alice Vander Vennen

Alice Vander Vennen is a "Canadian artist working in mixed media assemblage, primarily with textile, copper, and found objects, capturing stories of loss and hope; courage and strength." (from her website - see Related Links below).

Her work is both organic and structural, made up of found objects, natural elements and almost always copper! She is also an incredibly lovely and generous person who always had something positive to say about her students' work!

Alice Vander Vennen - guest speaker
(please ignore the glare on her frame!)

In the workshop, our first exercise was to create a piece on card stock that could be affixed to a greeting card. We were encouraged to bring a bit of found objects or things that had meaning to us, and we're encouraged to chose fabric, as well as leaves, copper pieces and wire from Alice's stash.

My first exercise at the debrief

The image above was my piece at our first debrief. I later changed some of my piece by adding a bit of layering and stitching down the green fabric in bunches. I love the lace butterfly at the top. The copper works well with the fabric layered around the leaf. At home, I added the embroidery and the beads strung from a copper wire.

My first exercise, finished that evening

After an hour and a half, we had a debriefing with Alice. All of our pieces, finished or in progress, were placed on a black felt on the floor while we sat around them. Alice went through each piece, highlighting what was good about them. She talked about composition, colour, etc. It was fascinating and educational to hear how she saw each piece.

At our first debriefing, our first exercise, finished or in progress

The second exercise focused on composition and we had to use the shadow box frame (which she provided from Ikea). We could use the piece from our first exercise, or we could create another. We could also keep the piece within the mat of the frame, or make it larger and place it over the mat.

I had picked up a piece of fabric with a lovely blue paisley flower from Alice's stash. I wanted that to be the focus. There was also a great hand-made stitched piece that I added. The background and the beautiful pink fabric comes from three scarves.

The beginning of the second exercise

Playing with the second exercise

The scarves were very slippery so I used the back of a canvas fabric to stitch everything on. I'm still struggling with the composition. During the workshop, Alice shared with us her methods for gluing stones and other things onto her pieces. I couldn't leave the workshop without trying it out 😊

Stones and broken pottery glued onto fabric under a layer of canvas

Trying out white borders around the piece

We had a second debrief at the end of the day. Some participants had finished their pieces while others were finishing up, or struggling like me. It was really great to see such different and lovely work. Here are a few of them. I'm afraid that I don't know the name of the artists who made each piece. I'll add them as I find out

Alice during our
second debriefing

Memorable objects in a
lovely composition

Dazzling jewelry in
and out of the frame

Fabric strips layered
with glittering circles

A knitted copper piece among
folds of fabric

A great landscape composition
by Kathy

Natural objects in a lovely
composition by Katherine

A glowing simple composition
and layered card by Caroline

What I learned

I think that the debriefings were some of the best parts of the workshop. It was fascinating and educational to hear how Alice saw each piece.
She talked about colour and composition in a way that wasn't intimidating and this sparked all kinds of ideas in my mind. It was after the first debriefing and looking at participants' work that I figured out what to do with my small piece.
It was great to see Alice put a piece together for our first exercise and then cut it up for the second!
I couldn't cut up my composition since the stitches wouldn't have stayed in place. Besides, I really wanted to do something with the blue paisley flower.
I'm really not happy with the piece, but I will let it simmer in a safe place and hopefully get back to it before our next OOTB meeting in June, where we will share our work.
Alice offers various workshops in Ontario and elsewhere. If you're in that area, you may want to check these out!
You may also want to check out more of her work, as seen on her website.

Tips for going to workshops

If you're supposed to bring fabric but don't know what you'll be doing with it, it's better to bring less than too much - too much choice can overwhelm the creativity process.
You can always trade scraps of fabric and things with other participants.
Remember to bring extra lighting if you need it!
Bring fabric scissors and another pair of scissors for paper and other things.
A cushion on a hard chair can make a huge difference.
If weather permits, take a few short breaks outside to clear your mind.
You can scrounge for found objects anywhere - including the parking lot!
Too much food and drinks is better than not enough 😋 since you can always take the extra home!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 483 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Janine of Rainbow Hare made a harmonious piece for the Endeavourers. Here is the Elephant in the Room with lovely machine and hand quilting 😊!

The Elephant in the Room by Janine of Rainbow Hare

Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué made a lovely baby quilt, Reine des prés/Queen of the Meadows, for the local hospital. The background is a disappearing 9-parch with lovely hints of colour. The bee in the centre with the quilting really looks great 😍

Reine des prés/Queen of the Meadows, by Frédérique

Angie of A Quilting Reader's Garden was quilting this lovely quilt when she had a mishap! She's now OK and her quilt if finished👍!

Angie's finished quilt.

Gail of Quilting Gail has been busy making her Christmas tree skirt for the Island Batik Paper Pieced Celebrations Blog Hop. Daphne was impressed when she got to chill in the sun 😎