Selvages, a SAQA Auction Piece, and a question (or two)

Note:  For those who may want to skip to the questions(s)...just scroll down to the end of the post!

Okay, so lately I've been playing with selvages...or selvedges if you come from across the pond. 

I started out with a simple plan: 

Take a piece of fabric and cut off the selvage along with a bit of the adjacent fabric (so we're talking about a strip anywhere from .75 to 1.5 inches wide).

Use a piece of muslin as a backing and then line up the selvages side by side -- placing the finished edge of each selvage over the cut edge of its selvage neighbor and then zig-zag the finished edges down to make a "selvage fabric."

close-up of overlapping selvage pieces zig-zagged onto backing fabric

 

Some "selvage" fabric

  The "selvage fabric" made some pretty good pin cushion tops....

Fun, but then I wanted to try something different...

So I took the selvages and laid them out in a less organized manner, to form a funkier selvage look:

A little "funky" selvage fabric

 And from there, I began cutting up the funky selvage fabric and piecing it with some non-selvage material:

The result is that some of the pieced selvages have become the basis for my 12"x 12" 2013 SAQA Auction quilt.  

But here's the question:

At this point, the unbound quilt looks like this:

Sample 1:  no added elements

 It's quilted and I'll be adding a faced finish.  So essentially, except for a little trimming (perhaps a 1/4 inch for the seam allowance on the facing), the piece is as above.

 But I'm wondering if there's too much empty space on the left and right sides.  Perhaps adding a touch of red would make a difference...maybe something along these lines:  

Sample 2:  red additions

I'd love to hear if you have a preference...or any feedback for that matter.

I have a few ideas for a title too.  Maybe:

"Sa/elvaged"

or

"Salvaged/Selvaged"

or 

"Sa?elvaged"

If you'd like to weigh in on that...feel free to do so!  Your comments will be much appreciated --- and I'll update you on the decision.

Cheers,

Debbie

 

Fun Shoes!

I blogged, a while back on my series of shoe envy pieces...fun, cheaper than a pair of Jimmy Choo's and no worries about aching arches. 

Well shoe envy returns...this time in the form of a small commission.  I had some pieces hung at a local art show when a woman approached me with an idea:  her granddaughter, Janessa, had just purchased her first pair of honest-to-goodness-really-high-heels for a family wedding.  She wanted to surprise Janessa with a memento of that first step (literally) as an "adult."

It sounded like a fun challenge...

We started off with some photos from the wedding (helpful, but not enough detail)

The Wedding Shoes

And then we enlisted "Dad" to surreptitiously go to his daughter's closet (cell phone in hand) and capture a close-up...

Wedding Shoe Close-up...notice the netted cut-outs

Much better, but a little bit more complicated than the standard shoe envy piece...

Instead of 3 or 4 solid pieces of fabric mounted onto a 4"x4" background, this involved 7 pieces (6 are pictured below) with multiple cut-outs in some, and a couple of non-traditional materials...netting and a stretchy, sparkly fabric to be exact).   

Pattern for Shoe Envy Pieces

Once the pattern pieces were designed, the shoe came together more easily than I had anticipated: 
- trace the pattern pieces onto fusible
- apply the fusible to the fabrics and cut out the pieces
- iron the pieces onto the background lavender fabric - one of the Janessa's favorite colors (a stiletto definitely helped to ease the small pieces into place)
- stitch away (small zig-zag appliqué)
- match the multicolored sparkles on the original shoe by using a permanent marker (micron pen in green, red, and blue) on some of the fabric's silvery sparkles (you may be able to see the slight color variation on the close-up photos).

Heel Close-up

Toe Close-up

Put in a frame --- here's the completed project....

Janessa's First Heels

 I have to say that although I'm satisfied with the piece, the bigger pleasure was in having the chance to help grandmom and granddaughter celebrate a special coming-of-age moment.

Wishing Janessa and her family many more of these special events....

Cheers!

Debbie

“First Snow” to be in Exquisite Moments exhibition

“First Snow” (2013) by Susan Brubaker Knapp

Susan Brubaker Knapp here. I completed “First Snow” in late March, but was not able to share it with you until now, because the exhibition curators – Leslie Tucker Jenison and Jamie Fingal of Dinner At Eight Artists – wanted to keep the theme and pieces a secret until the exhibition was decided  and announced. I love the theme of this exhibition: “Exquisite Moments.” Leslie and Jamie explained it this way:

Consider the following: 
The unfurling of a flower. 
A hummingbird in flight.  
A magical moment shared with a lover or friend. 
The birth of a child. A personal milestone.  
The realization of a dream.  
A treasured memory.  
The sacred moments of the ordinary.  
These are the Exquisite Moments that make us who we are.

I’m lucky; I’ve have had a lot of Exquisite Moments in my life. It was hard to choose. But I’ve been wanting to make a piece that was about snow, and about my kids. We don’t get very much snow here in North Carolina (compared to my childhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). I remembered all the times I played with my girls in the snow, and especially about the very first snows of the season, which are even more magical than the others. I went back and found these photos of them trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues. I think this was about 2003 or 2004:

Working from these photos, I changed the positions of the bodies so that they fit better in the very tight vertical format (24" x 60") needed for the exhibition. I used my fusible applique method (described in my book, Point, Click, Quilt! Turn Your Photos into Fabulous Fabric Art) but fused everything down to stabilizer (Pellon 910 interfacing). I also changed the colors and simplified the jackets so that they were bright, solid colors:

 

 

Pencil marks on the faces (above and below) give me guidelines when I paint.

I painted the faces with acrylic paint (my favorite, ProFab Transparent Textile Paint by ProChemical & Dye), then cut out the figures. I worried a bit that the blush on their cheeks was too strong, but it really was that red in the photographs. They had been out in the cold, windy air for a while. 

Then I thread sketched the figures, adding details.

With the bodies completed, it was time to position them on the background. I had planned to use this darker blue fabric for the background, because the snowflakes would really show up on it. But it turned out to be too dark and vibrant a hue. It didn’t look anything like a sky, especially a daytime, cloudy winter sky capable of producing snowflakes. And because the value was as strong as the red of the jacket, the figures didn’t stand out as much as I wanted.

 

I found a lighter, grayer blue background I liked better, then tested the position of the snowflakes by placing the snowflake sketches on top of the piece. My goal was to get a nice smooth swirl from the top left into the area near Julia’s mouth.

Once I had the snowflakes where I liked them, I put them behind the background fabric and traced them with a white chalk pencil, then put some stabilizer behind them and thread sketched the snowflakes. I used Aurifil Cotton Mako 50, a perfect weight to get these fine details. Of course, my cat Wicked had to take a nap on the piece when I left it to grab lunch one day. It wouldn’t be my work without a little cat hair on it!

After I had completed all the thread sketching on the snowflakes, I decided that they weren't standing out enough against the background. This is something I had worried about when I decided to use the lighter background. So I went back and added some metallic white/silver paint in some spots on them. 

The piece was coming together, but the swirl of snowflakes still wasn't standing out enough.

Lea’s jeans were also a problem. See how they completely blend in to the fabric in the lower right corner? I’d used the same blue fabric as the background when I was planning to use the darker fabric for the background.

I added lots of little dots of paint around the snowflakes. I thought it needed them to better define the swirl, and add a bit of sparkle and magic to the snow. I also darkened Lea’s jeans:

 

Now it was time to quilt! I layered the quilt top with backing and a batting I’ve never used before, Dream Wool by Quilters Dream Batting. I like using wool batting for large pieces I have to ship to exhibitions, because wool has more of a “memory” and bounces back after it has been folded better than cotton. I was very pleased with it, and found that it gave this piece a little more texture than some of my pieces I’ve done with cotton batting (request and select loft) by Quilters Dream.

Detail from “First Snow” (2013)  by Susan Brubaker Knapp

Detail from “First Snow” (2013)  by Susan Brubaker Knapp

The 33-piece exhibition “An Exquisite Moment” will be displayed at International Quilt Festival – Long Beach (Aug. 1-4; sponsored by Moore’s Sewing Centers) and International Quilt Festival – Houston (Oct. 31- Nov 3; sponsored by Havel’s Scissors).

Artists:
Frances Holliday Alford; A Moment of Passion
Sue Bleiweiss; The Hummingbird
Deborah Boschert; Glimpse
Paula Chung; Ancient Jupiter
Gerrie Congdon; XXOO
Cindy Cooksey; Grocery Shopping with Sammy
Diane Doran; California Dreaming
Jamie Fingal
Sheila Frampton-Cooper; Ode to Lavandula
Diane Hock; Serenity
Stacy Hurt; Lift
Leslie Tucker Jenison
Lyric Kinard; Bach Suite
Susan King; The Visitor
Pamela Klebaum; Stitching, Interrupted
Sherry Kleinman; Waiting Expectantly
Susan Brubaker Knapp; First Snow
Jane LaFazio; Havana
Susie Monday; One, All One
Jeannie P. Moore; The Ring
Jayne Larson; Rainbow:  A Moment of Reflection
Rachel Parris:  Ordinary Day (pictured above)
Judy Coates Perez; Fear of Flying
Yvonne Porcella; The Power of Yellow
Wen Redmond; Birds Eye View
Karen Rips; Fiji
Carolyn Ryan; Shattered
Cheryl Sleboda; Geschwindigkeit (Speed)
Sarah Ann Smith; Listen to the Song in the Night
Virginia Spiegel; Golden World
Cynthia St. Charles; Winter Walk II
Terry Waldron; Water Dance
Kathy York; Balance

“We All Swim Together”

Painted Comber

Susan Brubaker Knapp here. I have started work on a new piece I am calling “We All Swim Together.” It will include many species of fish, both fresh-water and salt-water. It will be a large piece. I am hoping to show the amazing beauty and diversity of fish, and to point out the many issues they face: over-fishing, pollution, global warming, destruction of wetlands, regulation of rivers and dams, and many more. 

I have appreciated the beauty of fish since I was a little child, fishing with my father. There is something magical in their glistening scales, and shimmering fins. They are so amazingly graceful. It is terrible to think that so many species are endangered.

Painted Comber

 

 

 

Blackbelly Rosefish

Blackbelly Rosefish

Narrow-Barred Spanish Mackerel

Narrow-Barred Spanish Mackerel

I’m in “Machine Quilting Unlimited”

Exciting news! My work will be featured in the May/June 2013 issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited. This issue features work by Ruth Powers, Helen Goddard, Charlotte Warr Anderson, and Barbara Hollinger, among others. My work is included in their “In the Studio” feature. It will be available in late April at select independent quilt shops, Barnes & Noble and Jo-Ann’s Fabric & Craft Stores nationwide.

Machine Quilting Unlimited is a fabulous magazine with in-depth articles on machine quilting techniques. If you haven’t seen or read it before, you are in for a treat! 

They have a special deal going between now and April 10: if you live in the U.S. or Canada and subscribe or renew a one-year print subscription, you get a 20% discount on the subscription price. (That’s a 42% savings over the subscription price.) The promotion code is SPRINGBREAK.

Shoes for “Kick Off Your Heels” fundraiser

 

I just completed a pair of art shoes I am submitting for the Kick Off Your Heels fundraiser. It is a juried invitational with the goal of raising $5,000 for The Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California. They they not only treat women, but also educate and do major research on heart disease with women, exclusively. 

Did you know that more U. S. women die each year from heart disease than from all cancers combined? Organizers Jamie Fingal and Sue Bleiweiss didn’t either. After watching a segment on Katie Couric’s new talk show about this subject, they decided to put together a project to help raise awareness of heart disease in women. The link to the segment is here. All of the heels that are juried in to this fundraiser will be sold in May 2013. They are designed to be works of art, not wearable shoes. As we get closer, I’ll keep you posted on how you can help by buying a pair of shoes.

Here’s how I made my shoes:

I started with blue pumps purchased for $2 at a local thrift shop, sanded them lightly with sandpaper, and painted them with gesso. The shoe in the front is the original color, and the shoe in the back is painted with gesso:

I painted them sky blue with brown tree branches:

I bought the nest, eggs, silk dogwood blooms and the bird at local craft stores, and auditioned them:

The birds did not resemble any I’d ever seen in nature, so I trimmed their feathers and repainted them to look like chickadees, my favorite bird. Then I glued wads of paper inside the shoes, and glued or pinned in the moss, lichens, nest, eggs, birds and dogwood blosssoms. Here they are, all done!

 

Newest FAO Member Wins Award

Susan Lenz, the newest member of Fiber Art Options, has just won an award at the wholesale Craft show in Philadelphia. You can read more about it here. http://americanmadeshow.com/category/latest-news/

Susan does highly original work, based on recycling textiles from other times to convey her messages.

Stay tuned here to see a full review of her work and to see photos of her highly detailed fiber art. Susan has a number of series of work, Portraits of Decisions, Keys, Stained Glass. She creates artwork with a great deal of thought, originality, and amazing productivity. Susan has had solo shows in North Carolina at Waterworks, Maria V. Howell Arts Center, a number in South Carolina and recently her Portrait series was at the International Quilt Festival in Houston TX.

You can follow her blog here.  http://artbysusanlenz.blogspot.com/

Bonnie & Clyde

“Bonnie & Clyde” by Susan Brubaker Knapp (2012)

Susan Brubaker Knapp here. After International Quilt Festival in Houston this fall, Alex Anderson (of TheQuiltShow.com) contacted me to ask if I'd consider doing a commission piece for her. She’d seen my piece, “Maximum Cat Nap,” and wanted a portrait of her son-in-law’s cats, Bonnie and Clyde) to give him for Christmas. I said yes, and she sent me this photo of them. It was perfect; well lit, with lots of detail.

But the background was a bit dull, with a few distracting elements. Alex said she thought that one of her quilts would make a better background, and I agreed. This is her quilt, Chopsticks:

I started by painting in the black:

And then the eyes and some of the rusty brown, and the pink noses:

 Then the tan:

And then the background, Alex’s quilt. Here is the piece with the painting finished, before thread sketching. It is a bit light compared to the photo of the cats; I knew I had to leave it this way, since the thread would add a lot of texture and color:

Here are some detail shots of the thread sketched and quilted finished piece. Some of these photos were taken under different light sources, which is why some look cool and some warm.

I hope he likes it. I managed to get it to Alex by Christmas Eve, but just barely!

Here are questions to commonly asked questions about my wholecloth painted pieces:

What fabric do you use? Either Pimatex PFD (prepared for dyeing) by Robert Kaufman, or Dyer’s Muslin (MDYE) by P&B Fabrics.

How do you transfer the design? I start by tracing the main lines in the image from an 8x10" photo on tracing paper. I enlarge this traced drawing to the size I want in PhotoShop, import it into InDesign, then print it out in tiles on my computer and tape them together to get a full-sized pattern. (You can also take your traced drawing to an office supply place and have them blow it up.) I position this under the fabric and start painting. I can see the lines through the fabric, so they provide rough guidelines for me. 

What paints do you use? I like PROChemical & Dye’s ProFab Transparent Paint. If you  are interested in trying them out, you could start with this set. I will be offering kits of these paints on my website soon.

What brushes do you use? I use brushes with very stiff, short bristles by Lowe-Cornell.  I will also be offering these brushes on my website soon. 

What thread do you use? For thread sketching, I always use Aurifil Cotton Mako 50 weight, which is a very fine cotton thread with a lot of sheen. I also used the 50 weight to quilt this piece; sometimes I use 40 weight or heavier.

Can you teach this to my quilting group? Yes! I have several wholecloth painting and thread sketching classes. You can read more about them here. I am booked up for 2013, and starting to book 2014 and 2015.