Grab Bag Challenge

I’ve been too busy with my day job lately. I haven’t had time to work on the latest Grab Bag Challenge. A week or so ago, I decided I better get started on it since it’s supposed to be done by June 1st. I have a photo that is to be used for inspiration and a bag of fabrics and embellishments. Many smallish and medium sized pieces means I am doing piecing instead of the whole cloth painted quilts that I’ve been doing lately.

I made a few sketches, laid the fabrics out on the table, and have been letting myself have an hour or so now and then to do the piecework. I let myself have most of Saturday to work on it, and now it is well on its way to looking like something. I am interpreting the photo rather abstractly, and am using the sketch as a guide rather than making a pattern.

I was discouraged last night as a laid out a large piece of hand-dyed fabric with lots of color variation behind the main shapes. It wasn’t relating to the composition the way I had intended. The darker colors weren’t in the right place, and were hiding behind the foreground shapes. This morning I gave the background fabric a quarter turn, and now I feel good about it again. The dark area is now at the bottom of the composition, and adds a lot of depth to the piece.

There are a few more colors I want to piece in. I will get out my paints to add in a few shadows, and I will probably get out my paints again after it is quilted.

Photos and Fabrics for a Grab Bag Challenge

A new Grab Bag challenge is beginning. I will need to get my fabrics chosen to send off. I think I am not supposed to share the bag I send off or the project I am working on until the challenge is complete. This year we are to choose our fabrics from an inspiration photo which will get sent with the bag. The photo will be used as the inspiration for the quilt which will be made, but doesn’t have to be interpreted literally.

I wonder if having photos to work from will stifle the creativeness of some as they try to interpret too literally. But then, having a photo will maybe give a jump start to the creative process. Certainly choosing fabrics from the photo will make for more coordinating bags.

I have a photo I took a while ago, and haven’t known what to do with it. It will be fun to choose some fabrics inspired by it, and see what someone else makes of it.

I will share the photo when I get back a quilt inspired by it, not until June.

Grab Bag CD

I have been enjoying looking at all of the wonderful quilts on the 2008 Grab Bag CD which just came in the mail yesterday.



Here is the quilt that I made for Lyn Wolf Jackson:
and a bowl from the scraps:

And the quilt made for me by Janice Simpson:

These are two of the 59 quilts that are included with detail photos and artist statements on the CD. Instructions for ordering CDs can be found here: http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACSFundraiser.html

The Grab Bag CD, Fabric Scraps, and Community Quilts

The Grab Bag CD is now available. For a minimum $10.00 donation to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause, and shipping and handling of $2.00, you can obtain a CD containing 173 inspiring photographs and artists' statements of the 59 wonderful quilts that resulted from the 2008 Quiltart Grab Bag Challenge. Complete details for ordering are here: http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACSFundraiser.html. I will be ordering mine in the next day or so, and will be looking forward to seeing all of the quilts which were made this year.

I was given a couple of bags of leftover fabric. I decided there wasn’t anything that I wanted to keep for myself. But there were a lot of nice pieces of fabric which I thoughtmy guild could use for their Community Quilts program. There were flannel pieces cut into strips, all different widths and lengths. I decided to sew the strips together to make a top for Community Quilts, and proceeded without much of a plan except to improvise as I went along. I enjoyed working with the happy bright colors. This will be completed by the guild with either tying or quilting, and will make a small girl very happy. It’s super soft and cozy too, being all flannel.

There are a lot of Christmas prints in the bag too. I might do something similar with them.

Why I Haven’t Been Quilting Lately (and a Sneek Peak at the Grab Bag Quilt I Received)

Well the reason I haven’t posted any of my quilting lately, is because I haven’t done much quilting lately. The day after I finished my Grab Bag quilt, I came down with the flu. There was a week when I had just enough energy to take my daughter to and from school. Then a week trying to catch up on the things I had been neglecting. Another 5 days on a Southern California & Disneyland vacation.

This week has been devoted to talking about what to do with this monstrosity.It had two working burners when we bought it with our current home a few years ago. We tried to get the two non-working burners fixed, but apparently they don’t make them that size anymore. One of the remaining burners decided a couple of weeks ago to only heat halfway, which leaves one useful burner, so we decided it is finally time to do something about it. We don’t want another free-standing range, because we want a place next to the stove to set things. Getting two people with differing ideas about the situation has been a trick. Combined with a data analyst husband who wants me to help him analyze every possible option we have for stoves, cabinets, counters, and possibly redoing the rest of the kitchen counters is making my mind completely frazzled.

To make this post quilting related, I will show a sneak peek at the Grab Bag Quilt I received from Janice Simpson.

We have been asked not to post full photos yet. There will be a CD made available with all of the quilts. I will post more information when it becomes available.

Quiltart Grab Bag Challenge

I just returned from several days vacationing in Southern California and a couple days in Disneyland. When I picked up my mail at the post office, I was excited to receive my Grab Bag Quilt also. This is what was in the Grab Bag that I sent.

Janice Simpson from Marquette, MI made me a lovely Japanese lady in a silk kimono who is now hanging up and brightening my hallway. Thank you Janice for a great quilt.

There will be a CD created with photos of all of the quilts made for this challenge with artist statements. It will be available through Fiber Art for a Cause, to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Details to come as soon as the CDs are ready.

Grab Bag Quilt Teaser

I'm done! Well almost. I just have to add a sleeve and a label, which will get done this afternoon. It will go in the mail first thing Wednesday morning, so I can show it at my guild meeting on Tuesday.

I’m not allowed to show the quilt until the bags have been exchanged, but I thought I might show the tiniest little slice. The quilts are due to be sent to the original owners in about three weeks, and then I will show both quilts.

Irises and my Grab Bag Quilt Collection

Last week I broke in my new sketch book with some Iris drawings.
I have chosen to put stylized irises in the Grab Bag Challenge I am doing. I am making good progress, and should be done by the due date in six days. I have been doing a lot of had stitching, and will add machine quilting in a few days.

Here are some of the Grab Bag Quilts which were made for me over the years:

“Technicolor Sunflowers” by Gerri Congdon, 2004 Quiltart Challenge

This quilt was made by Yvonne Fluehr for the 2005 Piecemakers Challenge

“Sew Much Fun!” by Shelley Dawson Davies for the 2006 Quiltart Challenge

“City Five” by Julie Zaccone Stiller in 2007 for the CQFA Challenge

Grab Bag Quilts

I am working on a grab bag challenge. Everyone submits a bag filled with fabrics and optional trims, and they are exchanged. Quilts are made using the contents of the bag, and the finished quilts are returned to the owner. I think I am not supposed to show what I am doing until the challenge has ended. So I will show some other Grab Bag challenges I have been in.

I did my first for a Quiltart challenge in 2004. A photo of this quilt is here.

In 2005 the Piecemakers Quilt Guild did a similar exchange and made this quilt. I used Robbi Joy Eklow's fusing techniqe. I overpainted the background fabrics to coordinate them more with the rest of the quilt, and added the solid dark purples from my own fabrics for some contrast:

In 2006, I made this quilt for the second Quiltart Grab Bag Challenge. Inspired by photos of succulent plants from my garden. I pushed the colors a bit in order to use the fabrics from my bag. I used Robbi’s technique again. The green smaller green succulents were shaded with Pigma markers to add some depth:

And again in 2006, I made this quilt for my CQFA group. This was based on photos I took of the pickle weed marshes in San Leandro:

I have been busy trying to get other things done, and hadn’t started work on this years grab bag, and have been a bit scared to start, because I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do with the fabric. The deadline is the end of the month, and I decided I better just do it.

I cut a piece of batting a couple of inches bigger than the finished size, started laying fabrics on it, and it became obvious what I will do. This afternoon I am off to the library to find reference photos of Irises, and then I will be very busy for the next week and a half.

A Bag of Stuff, Sérusier, & A Thought for a New Quilt

"Clam Cove" was made for the Quiltart "2004 Bag of Stuff" exchange. It is based on a photo I took while vacationing on the New England coast. It was made while I was transitioning from traditional to art quits. I spent a couple of years making what I consider "inovative" quilts. This is the first "art" quilt that I made. It began as an appliqued landscape that was very stiff and unnatural looking. I decided if realistic wasn’t working, then I would abstract it. I got brave and stenciled designs across it with acrylic paint. Then I got extra brave, cut it up, and pieced it back together. It now lives in Alaska with the owner who put together the bag of stuff that I worked from. I was surprised after I did it that the more abstract version seemed more lifelike than the original version. Making this quilt taught me that it's okay to cut things freehand and allow things to happen. To respond to the piece I am working on, and allow it to change.

This is my interpretation of Paul Sérusier's Le Talisman which I made for a Fast Friday Fabric Challenge a few months ago.

I think it could be interesting to reinterpret the Clam Cove photo using a style similar to the Sérusier piece. This idea will be filed away for another day. I have some Christmas sewing I thought I might do, and then there will be another Fast Friday Fabric Challenge coming up Christmas week, and January I will doing work for Pamela Allen's class.