Art and Quilting in Camden and Hope

Archive for the ‘Machine Quilting’ Category

Pink Oyster Mushrooms for Dinner@8, Celebrating 10 Years

Tuesday, June 26th, 2018

Here’s what I wrote on my entry: Beneath the Surface of the Edges of the pink oyster mushrooms, the Space Between the gills forms rhythmic Patterns of shadow and light. My Affinity for fungi and lichen extends to the inspiration I find in the world around me in Maine, even at at the Belfast Farmer’s Market. Dyeing and painting white cloth is part of my artistic voice, my Personal Iconography.

I am over the moon excited that Pink Oyster Mushrooms has been juried in to the 10th and final (SOB) Dinner at Eight exhibit and that I can now share it with you–I made this back in the January to April time frame, and keeping it under wraps has been difficult! From that website, “Dinner at Eight Artists is pleased to present The Best of Dinner at Eight Artists: Celebrating 10 Years of Exhibitions. Each artist selected a theme from the last 9 years for what will be our last exhibition. Quilt size is 30” wide by 50” high. The exhibit is sponsored by Havel’s Sewing.

“Artists considered the following:

We’ve explored the Edges and the Spaces Between

We examined things Beneath the Surface

We all admit that we have Rituals

We shared our Exquisite Moments

We Reflected upon ourselves and the world around us

We expressed our Affinity for certain things

We’ve noted the many Patterns in our lives

and expressed ourselves through Personal Iconography”

First and foremost: Yes, oyster mushrooms really can be PINK! Here’s the photo I took at the Belfast (Maine) Farmer’s Market last September:

Yes, the mushrooms really grew that color of pink!!!!! The tops are the usual brown, and apparently they lose the vibrant color when cooked, but still….Gorgeous!

Here are two detail images. For this piece, I dyed the background fabric a very pale, warm pink. Then I used Tsukinenko inks mixed with aloe vera gel (the white kind from the organic food shop that is about 98 percent gel, not the green yuck that is barely 60 percent aloe gel from Rite Aid) and painted the browns and pink shadows on the gills. I used stabilizer underneath and did all the stitching on the curled tops before layering up with batting and backing. I then quilted the wholecloth top, outlined the brown tops/edges, and added a little more quilting where necessary to prevent buckling on the brown areas.

Detail 1

Detail 2

It has been such an honor to be a part of so many of the Dinner at Eight exhibits. I am a better artist and a happier person for having met and worked with and become friends with the strong women involved, starting with Jamie Fingal (http://www.jamiefingaldesigns.com) and Leslie Tucker Jenison (http://www.leslietuckerjenison.com). I am proud beyond belief of the work I have done for these exhibits, which I consider to be the best of everything I have done, and deliriously happy to be included in this final exhibit. THANK YOU, Jamie, Leslie and all the Dinner@8 artists.

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Posted in Art, art quilting, Dinner@8, Dyeing, Exhibiting, International Quilt Festival, Machine Quilting | 10 Comments »

Janome Education Summit, Post #2–overview and quilting with rulers

Friday, June 1st, 2018

Quilting with Rulers with Amy Dreisbach Johnson of Sew Simple of Lynchburg (Va.) and Amy’s Quilting Adventures

So before I begin with our Tuesday afternoon session, let me set the stage:

Imagine: 2 1/2 plus days in a room with like minded sewing geeks on the best machines around doing what we love best, with a wide range of talents from garments to funky fabrics to quilting to Janome Educators

Upon reflection, the range of techniques and machines we covered in 2 1/2 days was remarkable! Kudos to Janome’s Education Coordinator Regena Carlevaro for a fantastic Summit with amazing sponsors and projects. Our schedule was:

Monday evening: arrival and welcome reception with munchies
Tuesday morning: Kimberly Einmo, Welcome and Flying Geese on the 9400
Tuesday afternoon: Amy Dreisbach Johnson and Ruler Work on the 9400, Janome David on Marketing Trends
Tuesday evening: Pizza Pajama Party and more fun sewing and playing and seeing everyone’s quilt blocks, presentation on using the Binding Attachment with Liz Thompson
Wednesday morning: Working with Double Gauze and Luxe Cuddle from Shannon Fabrics–OMG …WAIT until you see the furs…not cheesy fake stuff but feels like heaven fake stuff…bring on the winter snuggles AND Build your Brand and Design your own custom Fabrics with Eileen Roche
Wednesday afternoon: Exploring AcuSketch for Quilting with Tamara Kate
Wednesday evening: a dream excursion: dinner cruise on the Hudson at sunset!
Thursday morning: More on Build your Brand with Custom Fabric, then Serge Forward with Heather Peterson of Girl Charlee and making a knit pencil skirt (custom sized) on a Janome Serger and Cover stitch machine
Then, sigh, the buzz and comradeship drew to a close and we all spread to the corners of the continent going home.

Many of us are blogging so I’m going to set up a separate post with links to posts from the Summit, here. I’ll add to this as more posts go up.

Back to Amy and Ruler work:

The day started out with a real boost–Amy came up to me and said my book, Threadwork Unraveled, was one of the ones she used to learn how to free-motion quilt and that I was part of how she got to where she is today…isn’t that kind and sweet and amazing? Squee! She certainly has learned…look at some of her her amazing quilting (more at the end of the post):

Some of Amy Johnson’s ruler-work quilting. She does what I love: combining linear with curvy designs to heighten the contrast and make a quilt top sing.

Many of the participants had never done ruler work. The 9400 machines were equipped with the latest upgrade and the ruler-work foot. WE were equipped with (Oh my!) a set of Janome rulers made by Westalee! Amy gave each of us a quilt sandwich with a small square in a square design printed on fabric (done at sponsor MyFabricDesigns.com), which we could quilt using the design she provided to teach using the various rulers in our kit. Of course (this will be a recurring theme) I decided to do the quilting my way instead–sorry, I am SO not a hearts person!

I decided to start out combining ruler work (the pumpkin seed designs and the first shape in the orange) with free-motion work. Compare this to how it looked when I was done:

Doing some fill work around the curvy-pointy-shape in the border to increase contrast. It’s hard to see in this photo but I’ve done bubbles in white in the background of the center square. Straight line outlining done with ruler foot. And notice that pull-out extra light on the 9400…LOVE IT! Use it all the time at home.

And some more delectables from Amy’s work:

Love the combination of swoopy grid and feathers and in each block the straight next to the curved.

Just WOWza!

And more swoon-worthy quilting by Amy Johnson

Even in-progress is gorgeous. Of course, I’m a sucker for curved cross-hatching. I wish I could get my round swirls to be so round and even!

Tune back in a couple days for more of the Janome Education Summit 2018.

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Posted in Favorite Products, Janome, Machine Quilting | 5 Comments »

Janome Education Summit 2018

Wednesday, May 30th, 2018

Many of you know I have been a Janome Girl for a long time. I was beyond fortunate to be able to attend Janome-America’s first ever Education Summit last week in New Jersey. It brought together Janome Educators–those wonderful folks who work in show booths for Janome, Janome dealers, in classrooms at quilt shows, around North America, the National Spokespersons for Janome for both the US, Kimberly Einmo, and Canada, Tamara Kate, as well as many Janome Artisans (like me) and Janome Makers. As someone said at the start, I am in awe of the talent in that room, and my awe only increased as the week progressed. I’ll share what we did over several blogposts because it was WAY to much fun and educational to fit into one post. A bunch of us from the summit are blogging, so I will link to their posts at the end (and perhaps in a separate post, too). A HUGE HUGE HUGE THANK YOU to Janome America–I think all of us are still floating on the collective energy and inspiration!

Our welcome and first session were from Janome’s new US Spokesperson, Kimberly Einmo. She’s well known for her many books on Jelly Roll quilts, great traditional piecing techniques, and being an all around nice person.

We began by working on the Janome 9400, the machine I have in my studio. You will have to pry it out of my cold dead hands. I love what I can do on this machine. Stay tuned for different session work on it (as well as all my garment sewing and a lot of my quilting).

The swag that came from attending this Summit was unbelievable–thanks to ALL the donors. Kimberly designed a ruler for flying geese and has a new line of fabric, Solid-ish which was one of our first delights. I had admired it on Facebook posts, but OMG it is SO much prettier in person! And I am now a convert to specialized rulers. This ruler makes it brainless and possible for even me to get perfect points (and I totally mean that, not just complimenting because we got a freebie, it really works).

Check with your local shop or online for solid-ish. There’s a warm pink and coral and yellow that I want some yardage! Well, the aquas too, and the greens…..

Even I can use a ruler like Kimberly’s Easy Flying Geese: the colors are pink and mint for breast and ovarian cancer awareness. If you can read the writing, in this case the pink, that makes the geese (notice the darkened triangle above the 3 1/2″ line?). If you can read the blue (flip the ruler over), it is for the background pieces. Easy peasy.

One of the first and most useful tips came at the start: ya know how Jelly rolls and other precuts have pinked edges and shed bits of thread and lint like crazy? Lint roller them FIRST, before you undo the package!!!!! Brilliant!

If you lint roller your jelly roll, you end up with lots less floaty bits messing up your clothes and studio!

This shows my pieces laid out on my sewing machine table and a block in progress by Kimberly Coffin, my tablemate, whom you can find at her website Sweet Red Poppy.

I tend to stress in classroom situations and my brain freezes, so I don’t accomplish a lot. But I do start thinking. I totally want some play time to make more geese and maybe some placemats, a wall quilt of the modern persuasion…. I saw what Tamara Kate was doing and totally thought that I need to get out of my box and play. Go check Tamara Kate’s website Kayajoy for inspiration.

My flying geese…. I need some new placemats for spring and summer, so think I’ll order some of my favorites…that magenta, and the bottle green, and the turquoise…oh dear…..

More soon! Next post will be about ruler work with Amy Dreishbach Johnson of Sew Simple of Lynchburg VA.

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Posted in art quilting, Favorite Products, Janome, Machine Quilting, Piecing, Professional quilting, Techniques | 4 Comments »

Words –> Power –> Action

Thursday, February 22nd, 2018

Two and a half weeks ago, I came across a Jimmy Fallon re-working of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin’ on Facebook and Youtube (hear it here–really LISTEN to the lyrics). I was so moved by it that I wanted to create a quilt based on the song, but realized there were all those pesky copyright issues with using Fallon’s lyrics, so instead I created this quick piece to capture the spirit of the re-worked song. I pretty much never just drop everything and make a quilt this rapidly, but I just had to do it. I have titled it Words –> Power –> Action because, as our mothers told us, words have power. Over the past two years, the election cycle, the results, and the first year of the current Presidency, have galvanized many so many of us. I have changed. Legions of us have changed.

As a US Foreign Service Officer, I was not allowed to participate in partisan politics (federal regulations) because our job was (and should be) to serve ALL Americans. I was used to keeping my mouth shut. As a national level quilting teacher and artist, I felt it was better to keep politics and religion out of the classroom (and still do), so I kept my mouth shut. But the past 20+ months have convinced me that I must speak out. My quilt about the Women’s March on Washington in January 2017 was my first overtly political quilt.

Speak Up, Speak Out © Sarah Ann Smith 2017.

I’ve been so distressed about the polarization and apparent lack of civility, compassion and understanding, of tolerance for differing views, that the past two years have been pretty depressing. Our political climate has made me angry and galvanized me to take action and speak out. Inspired by Fallon’s lyrics I went in search of quotes. I’ll share all of them after each detail photo in which they appear.

I began like our nation, with revolutionary words from the US Declaration of Independence, which are written at the top of my brick wall (yes, I have the Pink Floyd lyrics “another brick in the wall” running on loop in my head, along with the phrase “the writing is on the wall”–I resisted the temptation to use that as a title!). I dyed fabric to be a wall, using cold wax (from ProChem, and can’t find it any more on their website!) to create a resist for the mortar. The backing is dyed cement grey. The edges are raw, like my nerves and emotions (and those of so many others), torn on both the top and backing, with a tiny bit of batting peeking out and scruffed up.

The top portion of Words–>Power–>Action . There are more visible bits of words and phrases, and longer quotes written in lighter ink behind, as if they were fading graffiti.

Prominent phrases and quotes:

Speak Up, Speak Out
get woke
We the People
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

Background quotes:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governedwhenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. US Declaration of Independence
We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. B. Obama

Closer view of the center of Words–>Power–>Action with quilting that I hope simulates the rough texture of brick.

Center portion of Words–>Power–>Action

Prominent phrases and quotes:

Take a knee
Listen
Reach Out
#metoo
When they go low, we go high. Michelle Obama

Background quote:

We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense. B. Obama

Center bottom of Words–>Power–>Action .

Bottom right of Words–>Power–>Action

Prominent phrases and quotes:

Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world. Hillary Clinton
Vote! Get Involved
Courage can be contagious. Michelle Obama
e Pluribus Unum (for non-US readers, this phrase comes from our Founding Fathers and means out of Many, One which represents who we are as a nation, a government of the people, by the people and for the people)

Background quote:

here in America we are waging a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thanks for reading this far. I hope you like it.

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Posted in art quilting, Dyeing, Inspiration, Machine Quilting, Surface Design | 16 Comments »

Inspiration in the Ordinary, links and sites

Saturday, January 27th, 2018

Hi everyone! Thanks so much to those of you who were able to attend my new lecture, Inspiration in the Ordinary. Thank you so much to the many guest artists who allowed me to share their work in my lecture. You’ll find them below, along with links to a couple apps that I mentioned in the lecture as well as website links to two exhibits and several books, including The Art of Sarah Ann Smith…so far.