Reflections II

"Reflections II" - 20"x28" - 2006

This piece began as an exercise, a personal challenge, to get across the color wheel from blue to yellow. A young decorator friend had given me books of fabric samples. The pieces from one in particular had a lot of blues and yellows with wonderful textures and plaids that I couldn't resist playing with.

I cut all the pieces the same rectangular size and played with their arrangements on my design board. Some of the pieces were cut in half to make a better composition and to help me obtain my goal. The plaids were a great transition between those two complementary colors. The orientation was horizontal in this process. It wasn't until the I was quilting that the piece began to reveal itself to be a city skyline reflected in a river with a smoggy sunset sky. You can see the added paint and pastels that emphasize the buildings and their reflections. I also used oil stick pastels to blend the upper pieces in the sky. Pastels were also used to extend lines of color into the backgound mat of moire fabric. The raised outside border is covered with the excess fabric trimmed from the four sides, so it too has the extension of pastel color lines.

The extended strands of floss (2-ply strands) that are the beginning and ending of each line of stitchings get one tiny dot of glue under it to hold it in place. This aura of colored threads is just as much a part of the composition as any other element and I want control of where they lie. Without it, those thread ends are a tangled mess. In the photo below they've been separated, but not yet adhered.

"Reflections II" is exhibited and for sale at MB Gallery in Chicago, Illinois.

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In the Garden

"In the Garden" - 14"x17" - 2005

This work began by "just playing" with Seta Color fabric paints. At some point I saw a tree developing and the hint of either flowers or fruit appearing. I began adding more dots of color and limbs to the tree. I stopped before developing a too complete picture. Because the quilting process changes and distorts, I knew I would have more control of the composition if I waited until that stitching was finished.

Before it's quilted, the wrinkled piece looks like a topographical map.

Here you can see the added spots of paint and oil stick pastels.

I also added warm colors with pastels to the painted green fabric background mat. This "matting" covers a foam core foundation. I sew a "pillow case", slip the foam core inside and blindstitch the open side shut. The crinkle quilt piece is secured to the matting fabric surface with stitches that look like my quilting stitches.

"In the Garden" is for sale at Good Goods gallery.

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Faceted Spectrum

"Faceted Spectrum" - 35"x35" - 2004

This crinkle quilt is pieced from several color-ways of a striped batik fabric (couldn't choose just one piece when they were all so "yummy"). I had cut a lot of squares, each were divided into four triangles, and then the fun of playing with arrangements began on the design board. I was delighted with the fractured log cabin block pattern that "happened".

After the quilting is completed, the crinkle quilts re-enter the design process. Usually something more needs to be added or there are areas that need to be emphasized or DEemphasized. Paint or oil stick pastels are what gets used most often ... sometimes crayons. I use whichever medium will best serve the purpose to get the effect "demanded by the piece".


For this work, additional lines of silver acrylic paint emphasize the log cabin structure. Also, I used pastels to adjust colors in the stripes ... either to blend in a too prominant color, or to add another to balance the colors within a row or block or visual section of the piece. As you can imagine, this part does not go quickly. There's a lot of contemplating and looking at the work through a "viewing glass" or my favorite tool, the wrong end of a pair of binnoculars. Seeing the work through these obscures the details. Values and design lines are most visible.

The quilts are "shadow-boxed" within the frame. Initially, this was so the glass would not crush against the quilt. I cut and stack strips of foam core which are then covered with fabric. These now serve the purpose as an additional design transition between the frame and the quilt (the fabric matting is the other). The fabric that covers those strips for this one is the "other" (wrong) side of a black mono-stripe. The color is added with pastels.

I'm pleased to tell you that Good Goods sold this one.

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Wild By Design

"Wild By Design" - 20"x 24" - 2003

This was the first crinkle quilt to be framed. Initially, it had non-glare glass to protect the surface. It was accepted and shown in a juried ART show with the glass. However, the texture and details of the stitches and patterns were obscured ... even when viewed up close.

This piece also was the first to feature the tail ends of the two-ply floss I use to do the quilting. This was my "airplane project" to work on while traveling to and from the "Wild By Design" symposium in Lincoln, Nebraska (hence the title for this work) in February, 2003. The beginning knot was near the end of the strand, but I had to leave a longer tail when I knotted off at the end of each line of stitching.
I could hardly wait to get it up on my design wall when I got home. Thankfully I was impatient and got it up before I had a chance to trim those scraggly tails away. I liked the aura of color that happened around the outside of the piece. Since then, I leave a long tail at the beginning knot as well as at the ending one.

"Wild By Design" is exhibited and for sale at MB Gallery in Chicago, Illinois.

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Wine Reception at Good Goods Gallery

Now, it seems the reception for my "crinkle quilt" art took place so long ago. It was held in conjunction with the Convergence symposium that took place in Grand Rapids at the end of June. That event was a biennial, international conference sponsored by the Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. (HGA). One of the tours offered by the symposium was a gallery tour in Saugatuck and the town of Douglas that is located just across the river. I'm most pleased to have shared my work with all who came to view it during that time.

There were twelve pieces displayed on two walls that were about 12' apart.


Some of these pieces have been featured in previous postings:
Passing Storm
In The Spirit of Gee's Bend Quilt Series
Burning Tree
I'll post descriptions of the others in future postings ... promise!

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