Bandon Textile Art Retreat

We had a wonderful three days at the textile retreat in Bandon, Oregon. The quilt shop, Forget Me Knots has built a great facility above their shop, with huge floor to ceiling windows in the sewing area, a full length design wall, and well lit tables. It has a large kitchen and bedrooms to sleep 8. Eight of us went over Monday morning, and played with our individual projects. I started doing gelatin mono printing with acrylic paints, on my Gelli Plate. I made quiet a few pieces of 8 X 10 fabric, using stencils, and other tools. I finally decided to use a set of blue, green and rust prints I was working with, so I made several more, with similar motifs and colors. My mind was in over drive, with ideas to use the fabric bouncing around in my head. I went down stairs to the quilt shop and got 5 fat quarters of coordinating Bali Batiks, to use as a background. I pinned everything to the design wall, and stared at it! I eventually ended up cutting 6" and 4" circles out of my painted fabric, piecing the batiks into a background in large sections, and randomly placing the circles on the background in clusters and alone.

As I rearranged the circles, for contrast and balance, I decided they looked a little bit like flat discs. So I needed to add paint to shade them into spheres. I added a darker edge in blue or rust to the bottom edges, and high lighted the top edge in chartreuse and light blue, I also used metallic copper, and light green. I used my camera to take pictures, as I made design decisions, to get a different perspective. It helped me see the contrast, problem parts and solve problems. I added lighter colors to the center, left a blank spot for the eyes to rest, and changed a few pieces for more contrast with the background. It had gotten dark, so we lost some of the window light and decided to call it a day. The next morning, we had a refreshing walk on the beach, with early morning golden light and a double rainbow over the ocean as a storm rolled in. I got some black cotton batting from the shop, and started machine free motion quilting with matching rayon thread. I followed the paint patterns to create flowing quilting patterns, and used darker threads in the background in a small stipple, to get it to recede. By evening I had quilted the entire wall hanging, with my intricate dense quilting style. I will bind and sleeve, it once I am at home. It was fun to do something from start to finish, no pattern, no preconceived ideas, just jump in and go. I think it worked out just fine, and was a successful effort in creativity.

For more info on the art retreat, visit the Fyber Cafe blog, the link is listed at the right side of my blog.