This past year my co-program chair, Gail Galloway-Nicholson, and I, also took on the annual “Chapter Challenge” for the Coastal Quilters of the greater Camden (Maine) area.   We both had the same idea, but didn’t have enough time to implement it for 2011, so that will happen in 2012 (and be announced at our October meeting).  Then I had this FUN idea for this year…what about groceries?   Some of the wine labels are just awesome in color and graphic designs!   So I noodled around the idea.  Last August at the Coastal Quilters annual picnic at Joan’s camp cabin, I deputized those present and sounded them out.  They loved it and had some great suggestions…. so guess what… The local quilters came through GANGBUSTERS!

The (Camden area, Maine) Coastal Quilters Chapter Challenge 2011

The Challenge was this:  to take a packaged food or beverage product (not the fruit which is nice, or cleaning stuff which is work), but a food item of some sort.  You had to use at least four colors from the packaging (all of the colors if the label had fewer than four), plus you could add black and white.  But then I thought hmmm…someone could just troll the aisles looking for a package in colors they liked and wanted to use.  So I added a kicker:  you had to use something from the packaging in the quilt.  For example, if you used Tabasco sauce, you could use red-hot chili pepper fabric.  Or you could use rotini (corkscrew pasta) and make a corkscrew quilting motif.  I am so proud of this group:  12 signed up, 12 finished quilts (2 of us, including me, finishing a week before I had to turn the quilts in to Maine Quilts for hanging in the show and only 2 months after the ostensible deadline that I set!), and all are FANTABULOUS.  I’ll share them all in two long blogposts.  This is the panel I’ll share today:

The first panel of quilts

The finished size was 20 1/2 by 20 1/2 inches, in the hoeps that some of the traditional quilters would be tempted to participate as mostly the art quilty types have done recent challenges.   The irony:  the two with really traditional bits are by Louisa Enright (the hexagons) who is a contemporary quilter and does watercolor painting and me!  I had figured with this size you could do four 10×10 blocks (for example, what if someone bought frozen succotash–corn and lima beans–and used the traditional corn and beans block) plus have a bit for binding.  Or do a 12″ block and sash it, etc…. Sigh!

The first quilt completed was by Eleanor Greenwood, who does almost everything by hand!  She used a Naked smoothie bottle, and got permission from the Rainforest Alliance to use their frog logo in the center of the quilt (it appears on the back of the bottle).

Naked protein smoothie

The frog is stuffed and 3-D, the beading is spectacular, as are the colors, the 3-D petals… you name it.  WHAT a way to begin!

La belle grenouille contente (the happy frog) by Eleanor Greenwood. This takes my breath away every time I see it!

Next on the drape (I’ll do the quilts on the left, first):

Leigh's Blueberry Soda

Leigh Smith used a bottle of blueberry soda with an arched window as her item. She used a green metal garden stake as the rod and the rope to edge the window.

Karen Martin stretched the definition of food and beverage to include Centrum Vitamins:

Centrum Vitamins....notice the curve in the rainbow color logo and how Karen interpreted that in the blocks

Karen Martin used improvisational curved piecing which she learned from Northport (Maine) quilter Dianne Hire to make her blocks.Clever!

Next up is Jim Vandernoot’s AWESOMEly quilted piece.  Jim works for Campbell’s so used the V* Fusion drink as his inspiration.   I wish I had written down the proper title….  Jim, if you read this please send it to me because it’s perfect for this piece:

V-8 Fusion

Jim Vandernoot is a part-time Maine resident; we're thrilled he likes to take some of his vacation time and come visit with us!

Update:  the correct title (Thanks Jim!) is “In Search of the Quilting Gene.”  LOVE it!

Betty Johnson chose Land O’ Lakes half and half, and the curved lines in the graphics for her quilting motif:

Land O Lakes Half and Half (I'll take the full fat version!)

Btty Johnson perfectly captured the swirling lines and colors of the package graphics, wondei\ring about the fish swimming under the surface of the lake!

And on the bottom right of this panel, Rebecca Hokkanen made Tea-Bags using The-Tea Nation…with real teabags in the florette on the largest of the bags… notice the “T” in each bag??? How punny! (Please do not throw tomatoes at me as they will only mess up your keyboard…)

Cranberry Tea

Rebecca Hokkanen makes bags, and drinks tea, so she make Honest-Tea T-Bags!

If anyone wants my instructions for the challenge, just write to me and I’ll send you a PDF!

WOW… what a whirlwind it has been, and what a lot of fun we had.

"Letters" quilts and the four Frayed Edges at the Picker Room, Camden Public Library, on July 9, 2011

Deborah Boschert, our “expat” member now living near Annapolis, Maryland (for those of you not in the US, that is near Washington, DC) flew up for the weekend to visit, so Deborah, Kathy Daniels, Kate Cutko and I had a glorious weekend.  The reason for the gathering was our second show (the first was in 2007, and is here and here and here) at the Picker Room of the Camden Public Library.  On July 1, Kate drove over an hour from her home to help me hang the show, and was I ever grateful for the help!  A week later, Deborah arrived and spent the night with me in Hope.  The next day, July 8, we gave a program on the show for the Coastal Quilters in the morning:

Deborah Boschert talks about her "long and skinny" piece which hangs over the glass display case in the Camden Public Library's Picker room; this is a first for the Coastal Quilters--rather than meet in the usual Lions' Club location, we met "on-site" in the library! Thanks to all who were able to come!

We had a short break on a glorious summer’s day , minus Kate who had to work her morning  job as Bowdoinham town librarian, and ate on the back deck at Marriner’s for lunch…astonishingly, we all look good in this photo! Clearly we are happy to be together!

 

Lunch at Marriner's, on the back deck over the Falls. L to R: Deborah Boschert, Kate (Kathy) Daniels, and me

Kate arrived in time for our 2-4 p.m. Artists’ Reception, which was well attended—I expect that is was almost all Kathy’s friends and relatives, and we so appreciate their coming!

Viewers at the Artists' Reception looking at our Letters pieces

Eighteen months ago, we starting noodling about the idea of a group challenge/themed pieces that would be new for the show.  I’ll blog more about the pieces in a later post, but the photo at the top of the post shows all the 12 pieces.  We each made two 12 x 12 inch pieces (inspired by Deborah’s participation in the Twelve by Twelve project, here) and a center piece that was 36 (or thereabouts) inches wide and anywhere between 16 to 42 inches tall.  I was inspired by the quilt exhibit by tACTile, a group of quilters from the Australia Capitol Territory (ACT), which you can see here.  But we decided since other groups have taken the idea of a line running through all the pieces, to not do that for our series.  Our theme was “Letters,” which we thought was a good one for a show in the Library and because each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, has used letters or words on our quilts.

At one point, Joshua drifted through (to see if I’d take some stuff home for  him, actually), but he kindly consented to let me take his picture with the portrait of him…he has grown up a bit!

Joshua playing air guitar in front of the quilt of Joshua playing guitar... I think I'm glad I didn't have to quilt the beard that he has had since shortly after the photos I took for the quilt! And isn't that a cool lion on his t-shirt?

We had lots of thoughtful visitors:

Kate chats with a gentleman who really seemed to enjoy the show and spent lots of time looking at the pieces.

and

Kate chatting with the architect, Deborah at the far end of the table, Kathy speaking with the artist who did the recent show with the colorful goldfish paintings

and

Deborah's three pieces on the left, Paul (hubby!) looking at Kate's graphic novel-inspired pieces

and

More of Kath's friends and family, plus a really nice couple who are part-time Maine residents and drove an hour just to come up for the show...way cool!

and

Kate and Deborah looking at the room and show

and

"Letters" quilts and the four Frayed Edges. We are standing in the same order as our quilts: Deborah's inspired by letters home, Kate's graphic novel-inspired pieces which will find a home at her Bowdoinham Library, me with pieces inspired by the Getty Museum, and Kathy's chicken who became Tillie of Tillie Lays an Egg (with permission of the author)

and that’s it for the day….  I’ll post again about the Frayed Edges FUN as well as our Letters Quilts.  Of course, I think I had better go take good pictures of the quilts…would make blogging about them a lot easier, eh?  That’s it for today…stay tuned!

No…I have not followed Mama into the great beyond, but instead have been busier than ever (what else is new?).  I am seriously looking forward to some down time in August, but in the meantime had to

• help hang and launch our Frayed Edges mini-group show at the Camden Public Library (will blog about that in a day or two I hope),
• with my fellow Frayed Edges, be the program for the monthly Coastal Quilters meeting and do the artists’ reception at the library
• complete my piece for the local Coastal Quilters Chapter Challenge and then (as project coordinator)
• make some new black drapes and
• pin all the quilts, print the photos, make the tags, etc., in time to deliver next weekend for Maine Quilts (which happens the last weekend in July),
• get son Eli off to a 2-week trip to Australia (SOB… wish I were there but elated as he comes home tonight),
• help get Joshua ready to move into his first-ever-on-his-own apartment (with girlfriend) in town,
• take care of the settling of Mama’s affairs,
• prepare things for teaching in Nebraska at QuiltNebraska 2011 (including ordering supplies and shipping boxes to arrive in time) and
• attempt not to implode!

The Coastal Quilters Grocery Challenge...in a nutshell, pick a food or beverage product, use at least 4 colors and at least one element from the packaging as a motif in your 20.5 by 20.5 inch quilt (since someone will ask, mine is the blue one, top-right)

So as a teaser, I will share with you the photo of the two panels of The Grocery Challenge, an idea I dreamed up for the Coastal Quilters.  The photo above is of the twelve pieces…astonishingly all 12 of the folks who signed up got their quilts done (mine was one of the last few done…no surprise there).   Soon I’ll share more about each of the 12 quilts, the grocery products from which we drew inspiration, and how.   But before that I need to tell you about our group show.  I can’t believe (well….yes, I can) that I managed to not even post a single word here before the show opened on July 1.  So if you’re in or near Camden, Maine, come back here in a couple days or click here to see a bit more.

Last year I was the lucky recipient of a $50 scholarship from Coastal Quilters to take a class; they can be in person or online, and must somehow relate to your quilting.  If one wanted to take a class in photoshop, for example, to learn about manipulating photos and printing them on fabric, that would qualify!  Well, I had signed up for two online classes:  lino-cutting and the workhorse sketchbook/journal.   I used my scholarship to defray part of the $60 fee for each of the classes.  In return, scholarship recipients share what they learn with the group.  We don’t give away the teacher’s entire class, but share enough to whet the appetite to learn  more, I hope!

I did a fairly long program about lino-cutting, including explaining the tools, the materials, where to order them (you can buy some at the local art supply store which is awesome, but the linoleum I prefer we have to order from away).

My cutting board/jig, with a new block in progress and the carving tools. Of course I had to buy the pretty bright colorful ones!

I got the idea for this block while working on my ornament gifts for my Frayed Edges friends this past Christmas.  I realized there was NO way I was going to carve the block, print the fabrics, and make ornaments in time, so I set aside the idea for future reference.  But I did decide to work on the design and make the block as a demo of the process for Coastal Quilters.

I went to some of my reference books and Google Images for pictures of reindeer.  I ended up with a composite image of a caribou resting:

I liked the arched-top shape for an ornament; I think I can make these similar to a fabric postcard using Peltex as the stiffener inside.

To make carving the block easier and make the block more versatile, I chose to use a 6 inch square of linoleum carved on point:

The recumbent stag is carved, as is the sky, but not the ground

Originally I thought I’d carve some rocks in the ground, but eventually decided that grass was a better choice.

Nearly all carved...I saved some of the grass so I could actually finish the carving during the presentation

I made the first test-prints during the demonstration.  As you can see, the first print came out OK, but a bit light (on the left).  Figuring out how much ink is enough without getting goopy is a trial and error effort.  You just have to accept that you may have a few duds.  I added more ink (think consistency of toothpaste) and got the second, better print (on the right).

first and second prints, done on a pale gray (think snowy) batik

Here’s a close-up version of the stag/caribou.  I can leave these prints as is or cut them down into the curved-top shape from the original sketch:

The better of the two prints

I pretty happy with this one, tho I didn’t get the lines on the face quite right.  Hope you’ve enjoyed the process, cheers, Sarah

This year my local quilt chapter, the Coastal Quilters (part of the state guild, the Pine Tree Quilt Guild) decided to change our annual challenge (now in its third year) from 10×10 inches to 12 inches wide by 9 inches tall.  The reason?  So that after the challenge participants can, if they wish, donate their quilt to Ami Simm’s Alzheimer fundraiser.  The donations are auctioned and the proceeds go to benefit Alzheimer’s research.

In past years we were challenged to interpret a photo (Here–scroll about halfway down to see the ropes and buoys quilts and here for my buoys quiltlet) or use a little bit of EVERYthing in a grab bag (Here and here).  This year, we each received a fat quarter of a black and white print:

Obviously, this is AFTER I got to it with the fabric paint and scissors….ahem.

Once the challenge debuts at Maine Quilts (in Augusta, Maine, last weekend in July), I’ll share the others’ pieces, but for now you can see how I painted the fabric (above) and  used it.  My quilt consists of white fabric (painted blues), the challenge fabric (painted blues, green, and blond-brown hair colors), beads and sequins (mermaid’s tail) and yarn (couched to the top to “frame” the piece).  Actually, this piece shows her swimming UP; when our guild president held up the quilts, she held the mermaid with her swimming down (second photo) and I think I actually prefer that way!  What do you think?

And swimming down:

And a close-up of the tail:

It was fun to do.  Although Mama doesn’t have Alzheimer’s (that we know of ), she does have deepening dementia.  She can’t remember how to work the remote for the TV, and sometimes when she can figure out the phone she’ll call and say “Sarah, this is your sister.”  I think I shall donate my mermaid to Ami’s fundraiser…I’ll let you know more when I get it sent off and donated.