Showing posts with label fibre art quilt show. Show all posts

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Fibre Fling and Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 427 of Free Motion Mavericks. This week I'm busy getting ready for the annual Out of the Box (OOTB) Fibre Artists Group show. It's been virtual for the last two years so it's wonderful and a lot more work, now that it's live again.

Fibre Fling 2023

Fibre Fling 2023 is this week in Ottawa

See you at Fibre Fling 2023!

I have two pieced in the show this year, one of them you've seen a few times on the blog.

This first piece is still my favourite - Let Them Flourish. This was created through a workshop with Kate Tune for TextileArtists.org It has been exhibited but never at Fibre Fling.

Let Them Flourish

Let Them Flourish
details of the owl and French knots!

I finished this second piece with minutes to spare 😊. I must love living dangerously! This is the third embroidery that I made based on TextileArtist.org's workshop with Bethany Duffy. The other two embroideries were seascape. I loved the technique so much that I used a half-nut instead of a seashell. I just LOVE that adorable squirrel - he looks so mischievous (or stunned - either works for me!).

Squirrel - finally finished 😊

I brought the unfinished piece to my last Fibre 15 group meeting and asked for advice on how to finish it. This is what it looked like at the time. I knew that something else was needed, or at least that there needed to be something in the top part. Everyone recommended that I extend the tree to cover most of the top. I really like it now.

The embroidery piece before fixing it

I finished it up this afternoon. There wasn't much work to do. I removed the "leaves", added a branch and more fabric on the tree bark for texture. I then added another section to the top of the tree. A few blades of grass helped to ground the tree. The squirrel and tree trunk hadn't been stitched, so I took out my lovely Kimono silk thread and finished it off 😊

Finished backing

The Light Beyond is in the Silent Auction, to raise funds for the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Ottawa Food Bank. Hopefully it will do well.

The Light Beyond - to be auctioned

Update on Fibre Fling 2023

I spent most of the day at the exhibition. It was so good to see all of the art, the participants and talking with the attendees. 😊 Here are a few pictures to share.

So much beautiful textile art!

Doing a mindful stitching demo

Here's my Squirrel!

What I learned

Retirement has really messed with my perception of time.
I need to fill in my quilted calendar regularly because I was totally unprepared for Fibre Fling. I was sure that it was next week!
Even if I have blogged about a finished piece, it doesn't mean that it's ready for an exhibition. Labels, hanging sleeves or hooks and wire probably still need to be added.
For instance, The Light Beyond, completed over a year ago, not only needed a label, hooks and a wire, it also needed to be permanently stapled to the frame. I had just used tacks!
I have to admit that I'm supposed to have three pieces in the exhibition. This morning I sewed a hanging sleeve on my Courage piece (from Project Quilting 14-6). It was all ready....but I can't find it! Truly, I've looked everywhere in my studio and it's not here. I have no idea where it is, so it won't be in the show. Maybe I need to work on my mindfulness more.😒
Update - the missing courage has been found....hanging on the front of my studio door, over my winter quilt....I now have 3 pieces in the show!

Lost but now found!

Free Motion Mavericks

Check out these two very different quilts from our last party.

Gail made her crazy quilt as a quilt-as-you-go and used her many, many lovely machine stitches. She had so much fun that the quilt is called A Kid in a Candy Shop!

Quilting Gail's Crazy Quilt for Aurifil

Melva is still working on her client's quilts. Her diagonal quilting is perfect for the quilt and I'm sure that the family will be very happy with all of them.

Melva's quilting enhances the quilt!

It's now your turn!

Saturday, December 31, 2022

Best of 2022

After looking back in my blog and Instagram posts of 2022, I realise that I had another very productive year!

Overview of 2022

Although there is some overlapping, my projects seem to fall into five categories:

Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Version 2.0 quilt,
Small quilty projects,
Artsy projects and quilts,
Meditation stitching, and
Hand-made books.

FMQ Version 2.0 quilt

About half of my Free Motion Mavericks posts were about the Version 2.0 quilt. It's been a very large part of my FMQ year and I'm happy to say that it's almost done! My favourite area is the centre Sun with clouds, stars and a rainbow.

The Sun section, as seen from the back of Version 2.0

Small Quilty Projects

I made many small quilty projects, most of which were FMQ. Some of these were made as part of the Table Scraps Challenge (10 months) and Project Quilting (2 projects). Of course I continued to play with my hexies and added in a few Squirrels!😊

Prayer flags for the Holiday Season

Swirling Leaves 2

Pink Love for April's Table Scraps Challenge

Still playing with hexies!

I love the foundation paper pieced book blocks and will one day make a whole quilt with them. At this time, it's a UFO (Un-Finished Object).

Blocks for the Summer Book Club

Artsy Projects and Quilts

A number of my art pieces were created based on workshops in the TextileArtist.org Stitch Club. I also participated in 3 art shows and events this year.

Let them flourish

Please let me Play!

Wildflower vest

This art quilt was created for the Polar Bear Plunge Blog Hop.

A true polar bear story

Bonjour La Vie was created following a virtual Fantastic Fusion workshop with Lisa Walton from Australia.

"Bonjour La Vie"

Journey of Many Paths
aka Traveller's Blanket

Embroidered Seascape

Meditation Stitching

This year, as well as doing a lot of mindful stitching, I taught 2 in-person courses and 1 virtual presentation. For the courses, I made a lot of sample blocks, including ways of presenting them. I also participated in several stitching events such as Zen Stitching and the Embroidery Summit.

4-drop hanging with meditation blocks

I posted most of the images from these virtual events on Instagram. Here is a needle case made during one of the Zen Stitching events.

Zen stitched needle case

Hand-made books

Last year I made a few journals though the TextileArtist.org Stitch Club. When the Hand-made Book Club offered a very affordable 5-Day Accordion Books Challenge, I signed up right away...and of course I was hooked!

Fabric meditation book

Hand-made book with a woven binding

Quilty recycled pocket journal

Thank you so much Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs for hosting this great link up event. It's great to review what we've done as we plan for the next year.

To keep it simple, I've included the links to the related posts within the text.

What I learned

We have until January 2nd to link up to this party, but one of my blogging objectives (that I didn't share) was to increase the numbers of posts in 2022 to the same number as my 2019 and 2020. By publishing this post in 2022, I've reached my objective. I will have published 68 posts in 2022! Yeah!!!🎆
However, writing 4 posts in a little over one week is something that I don't really want to do again. Now I really want to get to my quilting 😊
Thank you so much for following me on my quilting/art journey. I really appreciate your friendships and support.
My wish for 2022 had been for calm, joy and play. I think that calm and joy are great long-term objectives but this year I'm keeping it more real and focused. My intention for 2023 is to learn by playing, with mindfulness and contentment
I wish you all the best for 2023.

Linking parties

Best of 2022 Linking Party, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday,

Saturday, June 25, 2022

Learning from the exhibition

Fibre 15's exhibition, Conversation, ends Sunday. It's been a very busy month with lots of learning. Here's a peak at some of it.

Getting ready

I've been to openings of exhibitions before, but it's a lot more exciting when you're part of a smaller group of artists. The vernissage was very well attended with roughly 100 people showing up. It was also the opening of a new shop as well as the first event of the year for the Stone School Gallery.

Journey of many paths at the exhibition

The vernissage was on the Friday but all of the art had to be delivered to the team that was hanging the exhibition on Wednesday. Since my pieces are not fragile, there was minimal packing but I did have to put labels on all of them as well as wires and dowels for hanging.

Adding the wire on the back of the canvas

Soaking in the stiffener

Letting it dry

For the concertina book, I needed to stiffen the first and last pages so that it would stand properly for display. I used Golden's GAC400 stiffener. It worked quite well.

I also had to add labels. Since creating labels is not something I enjoy doing, I did it as easily as possible. I backed a piece of pale batik with iron-on adhesive and then used a permanent fine marker to write. I also remembered to add in my small fabric label.😊

You'll notice that I wrote a lot more on the Let Them Flourish label in case it was sold (so far, it looks like I get to take it home...I'm very happy about that!)

Label for Let Them Flourish

I kept the label very short on the Please let me play because I knew that it would come home with me. I just added the link to the post since the post explains everything much better than a few words on a label.

The Please let me play label only has my name and ULR to the post.

At the Gallery

The gallery really looked wonderful with all of our art there. Here are some of the photos that I took, which represents a small part of the show.

A lovely corner with art

Let Them Flourish on a pedestal

The concertina book standing more or less straight 😊

Some of my favourite pieces by Elaine Quehl

Teaching a Meditation Stitching class

Although I have a lot of experience teaching, this was the first time that I taught any kind of art or stitching course. I'm really glad that I chose Meditation Stitching since there is really very little to bring, and no sewing machine to lug around!

Bilingual poster at the Stone School Gallery

Since the gallery is run by volunteers, as exhibitors, we had to volunteer some time to sit at the gallery during visiting hours. I chose to be there last Saturday and Sunday since I was teaching on the Monday. This gave me lots of time to work on my meditative stitching samples for the class.

Sample made of extra flying geese blocks

Sample made with the first English Paper Piecing
that I ever did (a total dud that worked out well for this)

This sampler was created to remember the weekend. It includes a shell and a washer that I found on the beach at my brother's trailer. I haven't finished it since I didn't have all of my thread with me.

Sampler to remember the weekend.

During the class

It's not usually a good sign when a class is very quiet, but in this case, it was excellent! After an introduction, everyone was hard at work stitching. They found that the time flew by very quickly! Here are some of the results of the class.

A lovely blue block from an experience stitcher

Great blocks from a student who had never embroidered!

Lovely blocks on denim by an experienced stitcher

A fun block with lots of stitching by another experience stitcher

During the class I also did some meditation stitching. Instead of the usual 4" block, I made a bookmark. I hope to make more of these.

Lots of stitching on the bookmark

Making a fun bookmark

What I learned

It took a lot of effort on everyone's part to get this show done and it looked great!
Creating the art work takes time but getting ready to show it is also very time consuming, and includes many of my not-so-favourite tasks!
I was so impressed with how the show looked - I really felt like an artist 😊
Volunteering for 2 days and then teaching a class the next day was a lot! It took me days to recuperate and that's with everything going well.
While I was volunteering at the show, I'm so glad that I brought a variety of work to keep me busy. I love embroidery but I can't do it for 6 hours at a time. Thank goodness I had some English paper piecing (EPP) - hexies - to play with!
I'm looking forward to having some fun playtime for the next while. I really need it!