Dallas Quilt Show 2017

I had a wonderful time at the Dallas Quilt Show last weekend. I'm on the show committee as the printed materials chair, so I work on the show just about year round. It's so nice to see all our plans come together.

The judges liked several of my entries which added to the fun and excitement. My "Home Dream Home" challenge block won the first place ribbon.

 

The block is 10 x 10".

"Dr. Lizard" was awarded the Third Place ribbon in the Small Contemporary category. 

 

He's small. 20 x 17".

"Dad's Blue Truck" won an honorable mention in the Pictorial category.

40 x 35".

I entered "Chrysalis" in the Art Quilt category.

 

33 x 43".

"Dragonfly Dance" was in Small Contemporary.

 

14 x 18".

This quilt from 2000 called "Berek at the Koi Pond" hung in the special exhibit called "In The  Beginning." The exhibit was made up of early guild members. I joined the Quilter's Guild of Dallas in 1988.  

 

After several days of immersion in everything QUILT, 

I'm inspired and anxious to get busy making something new.

 

Coffee Memories for Grace Johnson

 

When I painted the coffee cups in Judy Coates Perez’s acrylic ink class at International Quilt Festival 2015 in Houston I knew I would make an art quilt for my long-time coffee buddy, Grace Johnson’s birthday.

Judy had us make 10 different background samples in the morning. The background of the cups was sea sponge-painted with several colors of acrylic ink. When the sponge paint was dry, I cut coffee cup shapes out of freezer paper and ironed them onto the fabric as a resist. I dry-brushed blue ink off of the edges of the cups to create the blue background. I added the brown coffee with a second freezer paper stencil and some fabric markers.

I added borders of my own hand-dyed, and some commercial hand-dyed fabric.

 

 

I added rice stitches around the cups and an arch to represent morning with embroidery floss. 

 

I drew the spoon with silver Sharpie and Tsukineko white ink. I sewed clear beads spilling from the spoon to represent sugar.

When Grace announced that she would be moving to Tulsa to be near her family I realized we had been having coffee together for 19 years.

 

So I glued and stitched down 19 coffee beans.

 Coffee Memories, 12 x 24"

 

Grace, I look forward to visiting your new home in Tulsa!

Sweet Gum Ball Challenge

Members of the Not Your Grandmother's Bee were challenged to create something inpsired by a sweet gum tree seed pod.

 

This is my "Blue Bommy Knocker."

The name comes from a children's book "The Hungry Giant's Soup" by Joy Cowley where the "bommy-knocker" is a spiked club that is the giant's weapon of choice.

by Marie

by Donna Mullen Irving

by Carla Hamm

by Debbie Coates

"Liquidamar Stysaciflua" by  Linda Creagh

by Charlotte Rutland

Dye Retreat 2016

My annual dye retreat just ended. Four of us plus a few guests spent a week in Ken's giant air-conditioned wood shop in East Texas playing with dye and fabric.

(Photos by Linda, Carla and me.)

My attempt at a Debra Linker-style tie-dye.

 Ken has two utility sinks in the shade with a wringer between where Jill has rinsed one of her scarves.

Guest Lynn and homeowner Kathi shibori-folding fabric on the work tables. 

The long counter in the background holds the dye concentrates.

 A dark sky drip-dyed for my next quilt with t-shirts in the wall paper trays below.

 Jill (pictured) and Linda did some chromatography experiments to test the movement of dye with hard and soft water. They determined that it doesn't make much of a difference compared to the ordinary tap water at Calendar Lake.

 

  Linda was successful at discharging dark fabric that was shibori tied.

She used Sodium Hydrosulfite in hot water.

 Linda's pole-wrapped black silk after a discharge bath.

 Our big book of dye swatches.

 Kid's t-shirts.

 Kathi's new cloth napkins.

 One of Linda's pole wrapped shibori pieces.

 Jill's stitched shibori scarf.

 Dyed yardage for our fabric stash.

Carla visited for a few days and did some Freida Anderson-style plate dyeing.

Carla's finished shirt. The bottom was "jelly-rolled" into a tuna can of sunrise red dye.

Vicki and Lynn visited too.

 

Chewy and ...

 

... Smokey supervised.

Merging Visions 2016

Every April, the Denton Poets’ Assembly teams up with VAST (the Visual Arts Society of Texas) in a collaborative exhibit called “Merging Visions” in celebration of National Poetry Month. 

All poems and artwork are originals created by members of the two groups. Some of the poems are created with the artwork as inspiration, and some are inspirations for the artwork.   

The 9th annual Merging Visions Exhibit will be held at the Patterson Appleton Arts Center, 400 E Hickory St, Denton, TX 76201. The exhibit will be free and open to the public 1 pm - 5 pm Tues.-Sun., April 15 through June 5, 2016. 

"Dragonflies at the Pond" is inspired by a poem by Richard Schinzel for the Merging Visions Exhibition. I hand-dyed cotton sateen for the background and added dyed cheesecloth to represent the pond's edge. The dragonflies, water bug, cattails and lotus are fused to the background. 21x31"

"Cedar Waxwing" is my second entry for the Merging Visions Exhibition. The poem Invisible Threads by Beth Honeycutt describes a bird sitting in a snowy nandina bush. I combined three photos and "painted" things with photoshop before having it inkjet printed on cotton sateen. 13.5x18"

Dallas Quilt Show 2016, 35th Anniversary

The Dallas Quilt Show 2016 has ended. You can see photos of the big winners here.

My personal favorite was the also the People's Choice winner.

Extraneous Female: Escapement Mechanism by Rebecca "Becky" Prior

My “A Day at the Zoo” Block Challenge

The Block Contest is a judged exhibit which features blocks made by members of the Quilter’s Guild of Dallas, who are given challenge rules and a theme which they must follow in the design and construction of their individual blocks. This year’s contest theme was “A Day at the Zoo.” 

Each participant was given a packet with a background fabric and other pieces of fabric to be used in the block. The original designs may be pieced or appliquéd, or a combination of the two. After the 2016 Dallas Quilt Show, the blocks will be assembled into a quilt. This quilt then becomes part of the Guild’s “Keeper Quilt” collection and will be displayed at future shows.

  

I was thrilled that my block won First Place.

Each year, the show chair selects a special “theme” for the show, and the "Show Chair's Theme" category includes quilts that reflect that theme. For 2016, show chair Judy Kriehn chose “Words and Letterforms.”

My entry to the Show Chair's Theme was "Art Does Not Have to Match Your Sofa". 38 x56" 

It won an Honorable Mention and the Past Show Chair's Choice Award.

The large words in acrylic paint express my feelings about “matchy art.” Fabric marker and stitching accent the smaller message. It says “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. – Andy Warhol.” The sofa itself comes from the underlining of an actual sofa then shadowed with oil stick paint. 

I entered "Red Fish" 17 x 19.5” in the Pictorial Category. 

 I entered "Blue Fish" 17 x 19.5” in the Pictorial Category. 

I entered "Dragonfiles at the Pond" - 20.5 x 31.25” in the Art Quilt Category.

I'm so inspired by all the beautiful quilts I saw at the show. I'm so looking forward to spending some time in the studio!