Setting up at Barnful of Quilts 2011

Today we set up for the 9th annual Barnful of Quilts at the beautiful Fox Family Farm in Waxhaw, NC. Members of Fiber Art Options are the featured artists this year. Tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 8 – from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. – is the big day. Come and see us! The event benefits Samaritan’s Purse, so your admission ($5; or free to those older than 80 or younger than 18) goes to a great cause. You can see photos of previous years, and get directions on the Fox Family Farm website.

Here are a few photos from today; I’ll post more on Sunday.

Nancy G. Cook with a piece by Deborah M. Langsam

Work by Linda Stegall

Setting up in the center ring

Linda Stegall selects pieces to hang

DeLane Rosenau’s work going up

P.J. Howard hard at work

Janet A. Lasher’s art cloth blows in the breeze

Work by Deborah M. Langsam, P.J. Howard, and Nancy G. Cook

The beautiful barn

Quilts hanging inside the barn

Quilts in the rafters

Only a few of the vendors had set up before we were done. Tomorrow, it will be packed to the gills with yarn, baskets, quilts, dolls, jewelry, weaving, and lots of other fiber-related crafts. I can’t wait to see it all! Here’s a peek:

Bead Riffs Review and Book Give Away

This clever writer and bead artist, Rachel Nelson-Smith, combines her expertise in beading jazz in a very refreshing book full of detailed instructions, well executed examples and a number of fine pieces in the gallery showing work by different bead artists.

These projects are specific to increasing your skills using two foundation forms of off loom beading: the Peyote Stitch and Right Angle Weave. Nelson-Smith gives good illustrations on the foundations of these two forms and then shows the many different ways they can be used and combined.

The necklace is a good example of combining different stitches to create a very elegant product.

I have always loved the wonderful crystal rivolis and wanted to use them. The author shows several different applications with directions. This bracelet was one that I liked best.

The artist also shows her designs in different color ways which really helps point up how much can be changed with a simple color shift. the photo of the bracelets is a good example. Notice that you can change the sizes as well.

Please leave a comment along with your email address. October 15, I will randomly select one commenter for the book. Sorry, can only mail to USA.

Nancy

“Meadowood Stitched” opens Oct. 1st

One hallway where “Meadowood Stitched” is exhibited

Today we hung the “Meadowood Stitched,” exhibition at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden near Charlotte. It is a beautiful venue. This is the second year we have exhibited our work here. The exhibition officially opens tomorrow, and Nancy G Cook will be there demonstrating how she creates her work. 

P.J. Howard was among the first of us to arrive. Does she look prepared, or what? I love her t-shirt; it says, “I make stuff.”

 

We got to work. First we laid out all the pieces on the floor, and decided what should go where. Then we hung the pieces and took a preliminary look. Here is DeLane Rosenau hanging her lovely felted wool piece:

 

After determining correct placement, P.J. and Janet A. Lasher measured to make sure that the pieces were all hanging at the right height:

Nancy (right) worked out details with Cynthia Klemmer, DSBG’s director of education:

Here are photos of some of our pieces:

by Janet A. Lasher

by Linda Stegall

by P.J. Howard

by Deborah M. Langsam

by Susan Brubaker Knapp

by DeLane Rosenau

by Nancy G Cook

One of two hallways where “Meadowood Stitched” is exhibited

My butterfly invites people to come down the hallway to “Meadowood Stitched”

Please mark your calendars and make plans to visit our latest exhibition, Meadowood Stitched, at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Belmont, NC, just outside Charlotte. It runs October 1 through November 14.

Psychedelic Peacock

This weekend, I got started on my latest piece, which will be pretty large, about 48" square. The sketch above shows what I’m aiming for (except that the background will be black instead of white). I’m going to do it in a pretty realistic way, but change a lot of the original colors.

The piece is based on the photo below, which I took at the zoo in Colorado Springs this summer while on our family vacation. This peacock was uncaged, strolling the lawn, and was initially quite happy to have his photo taken. I was pretty close to him, maybe about six feet away, when he decided that he didn’t like me much. He hissed, and came at me, and I retreated … but not before getting some great shots.

I started by cropping my photo to a square and printing it out 8" wide on my laser printer. After tracing the main lines in the image on tracing paper, I blew up the line drawing in Photoshop to the 48" size I needed. Then I placed this image in InDesign, a page layout program, and drew dotted lines every 8" across and 13.5" down (as the pages would be printed out on 8.5" x 14" legal-size paper). I positioned the sections, one at a time, on the page, and printed each out – a total of 28 sheets. Then I cut and taped them together along the dotted lines. You can see the dotted lines here if you look closely:

Here’s how it looked all together on the work table in my studio:

I placed black fabric on top of this drawing, pinned it to the paper, then positioned a light box underneath, and slid it from section to section, roughly drawing the lines with a mechanical chalk pencil. These lines will help me position the fabric pieces, after I’ve put fusible adhesive on the back of each.

 

Usually, I trace my lines onto clear upholstery vinyl, and use that as a positioning overlay to place all the fabric pieces correctly. In this case, since the piece is so big, I thought a vinyl overlay might be difficult to use, so I am trying this instead. 

Next, I needed to plan how I would color the drawing, since I’m not doing this in the actual peacock colors in my photo. My peacock is going to be kind of technicolor! So I took a copy of my line drawing, and had some fun with my watercolors. (The finished painting is at the top of this post.)

My next step will be to start tracing shapes onto my fusible adhesive. I use Lite Steam-a-Seam 2 from The Warm Company, because it works great for my process. Because it is slightly sticky after you remove the paper backing, it is very easy to position and reposition all the little pieces before you fuse them down. Sometimes I have a lot of little pieces, so this is an important feature for me. I also like the stability that the adhesive provides. Lite Steam-a-Seam 2 is not the lightest fusible adhesive out there – this is a plus if you are going to do a lot of threadwork on top of a piece, because it acts as a stabilizer, too. I will be using interfacing behind this piece to provide additional stability before I stitch; I’m doing all the little strands in the feathers with thread sketching.

By the way, my interest in peafowl goes back to the early 1990s, when my husband and I rented a late 1700s cottage on the Shadwell Estate. Shadwell is the land originally owned by Thomas Jefferson’s father, and where Jefferson grew up, just outside Charlottesville, Virginia. Our landlord lived in a spectacular mansion built by Jefferson’s grandaughter, and we lived in the older, smaller house, which we called Boxbriar Cottage. It was the most amazing place I have ever lived, surrounded by 20-foot-tall boxwoods, pastures, gardens, enormous tulip poplars, and woods. 

Our landlords had peafowl; not long before we moved in, their peacock had been killed by an owl. His mate, peahen Emily, still sauntered the grounds, and we loved seeing her and hearing her eerie cat-like call in the evenings. When our landlords went out of town, we were given the job of feeding Emily, who ate quartered grapes, chopped walnuts and crushed Carr’s Water Crackers. I am not kidding you.

Qulting “Up and Away!”

 

Here’s where my new piece, Up and Away!, stands now. Last night I added the purpley-blue at the top, since the piece was looking flat to me. I think it has a lot more magic in it now. Funny how one change like that can make such a big difference. I also went back in and re-painted some of the grass with more saturated color, and I like the way some strands look hazy, like they are out of focus in the background. This helped to add some depth, too.

The placement of the butterfly is not exact; I just plunked it down there for the photo. (It is already stitched and ready to position once I have quilted the sky). That is next. 

Getting started

Okay, I know I'm cutting it close. There are just three weeks until the opening of Meadowood Stitched, the exhibition by the members of Fiber Art Options at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden. I have finished one piece, and have just started the second. Well not really, part of it has been done for years. I think I made this butterfly about five years ago. It is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. 

Clarification: The photo above is of a three-dimensional butterfly made from fabric and thread, positioned on impatiens. (I remember sending this photo to my mom, and she thought it was a real butterfly, until I pointed out the scale, and told her, “If you saw a butterfly this big on your impatiens, you’d be running for your life!” But I was really pleased that it looked that realistic to her.)

My idea is to position this three-dimensional butterfly on a painted background, soaring up into a bright blue sky, with grass at the bottom. Something like this grass:

I took this photo at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden’s meadow area that they are calling Meadowood, which will officially open this fall. This afternoon, I started the piece I am planning by tracing this grass:

I am going to have to “hustle my bustle” to complete this piece by the deadline. But hey, I love deadlines! Stay tuned. 

Masters Vol 2 winner announced!

Mary Jo Bowers is the winner of Masters Vol. 2. Congratulations Mary Jo!! Please send me your snail mail address to: ngcook1atbellsouth.net and I will send the book to you.
Nancy

Come see me this weekend at Matthews Alive

I’m all set up for Matthews Alive!

Matthews Alive, one of the biggest festivals in North Carolina, and one that boasts the biggest Labor Day Parade in the Southeast, is this weekend. I’m the featured artist at the Quilt Show, which contains work by lots of local quilters. The show encompasses beginners and experts, and many types of quilting; I got a preview, and it is just terrific!

Carnival midway, rides, corn dogs and cotton candy, music, arts and crafts – it’s all here. There’s music, too, everything from rock and pop, alternative, beach music, and a Beatles tribute band. The festivities start tomorrow and run through Monday.

One of the coolest things about the festival is reflected in its motto: “Good times funding good works.” The celebration is dedicated to the support of non-profit organizations through music, arts and community involvement.  Nearly 1,000 volunteers – including Megan Shein (who organizes the quilt show) and her husband — put in more than 2,000 hours of volunteer time to run the three-day festival.  One hundred percent of profits go to local non-profits; to date, that is more than $750,000! Everything from marching bands, scout troops, adult day care centers, and charitable groups all benefit.

Quilt Show organizer Megan Shein with one of her beautiful quilts

The online map shows you where I'll be; in the Community Center, just off the main drag. It is a beautifully restored school building. I’ve been warned to expect a lot of traffic. Last year, the quilt show got more than 2,500 visitors! I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact that we are indoors, and the air conditioning in the Community Center is excellent! I’ll have my books, DVDs and patterns for sale, and will be working on new work and demonstrating the whole time I’m there. Come and see!

They even gave me a VIP all-access pass, which I am wearing around the house this evening so that the kids don’t mess with me. Hey, I’m a VIP!

Come and join me tomorrow. The parade starts at 10!