LOST AND FOUND

I lost all my quilt photos!! Oh My God, what the heck happened. My hard drive crashed, unsaveable! I was very proud of having a photo of all my quilts, nothing left the house without a photo. I had backed up quiet a few on a thumb drive, but not the last few years. I was thinking of going through all the quilts I still had and taking photos. A BIG job, and the ones I had sold or gifted or given to charity were lost. Then in bed one night, a light bulb exploded in my head, MY BLOG!! I could save and download the photos from my blog!. oh, what a relief. So I spent the last few days going through my blog and downloading all the photos back to my computer. I am sure not everything I made was blogged about, especialy the easy baby quilts I donated to charity, but better than all lost. My first blog post was Wed. August 17, 2009, over 14 years of quilting, out of 49 years. I made my first quilt in a high school textiles class, in 1973, handmade and hand quilted. I have come a long way! The last few years I have not quilted much, after my husband passed away. I was depressed for 3 years and did not sew at all. A friend has gotten me quilting again, sewing at least one day a week at the local quilt shop. I have finished quiet a few unfinished projects, and cleaned up my sewing room. A 2 day quilt guild retreat encouraged me some more, and the week long retreat in September helped a great deal in inspiring me to return to what I love doing. I just returned from the shop retreat on the northern Oregon coast. A whole week of quilting!! I will get some pics posted soon. So I learned a few leasons, backup, backup, back up! Don't chance losing your records of your work. I also relearned my love of quilting, art quilting in particular. Looking back through years of blog posts, I see how much progress I have made in my quilt journey, how prolific I was, how much I loved doing it, and how much I had forgotten. So I promise to return to my blogging, my quilting and sharing everything with you. sincerely, Amy Vetter.

SEPT QUILT RETREAT

A long anticipated quilt tetreat, got me to start quilting again. We had postponed it twice because of covid, so we finally got the chance to go. I have NOT been quilting for a long while, when my husband passed away, I thought quilting would be my refuge. Instead I got depressed and three years passed by with almost no sewing. This was so unlike me, I was a prolific art quilter. I did a little bit here and there, but got caught up in paper crafts. I met a friend in a card making group that I joined. I could only make so many greeting cards, so shifted to art journals, then book binding my own journals and decorating them. I have sesveral that are "art" journals, that I do my own painting, sketching, and creating in. Now I make journals with decorative elements, NOT "junk" journaling but more artistic. Journals to use like a diary or travel journal. So anyway, after taking several projects with me to the treat, I got them all finished. My main projrct were these artic animals kit, that I had bought for myself on a quilt cruise to Alaska. it cacme with precut jelly rolls, and I thought it would be quick and easy, with preprinted animals. NOT!!! The animals all had to be fused together from individual pieces. The jelly rolls were cut with pinked edges, horrible to match the points on the diagonal, to make 45' angles.

Also there were 6 white on white prints, that I had to identify and label and cut certain lengths, screw that, I just used an assortment and cut them randomly. It worked out fine. The fused applique was a mess too. The pieces were for a whole area, with other snaller pieces on top of them, so you did not know haw to position a lot of the pieces, that overlapped. I had to enlarge the patterns 200% and I did the over all pattern too, but it was a different scale, so I could not use it for placement. I finally got the whole top put together, but it was a chore, rather than a pleasure, because of the poor pattern instructions. Several of the other ladies had problems with commercial kits and patterns too. One did not have enough of one color to cut all the pieces. Annother told her to cut pieces too small, fortunatly she did have enough fabric to recut the right pieces, but we had to figure out the correct measurements. I am going to use this for my Christmas decor, I have an small table with Christmas Polar Bears on it, this will hang behind the table.

My "Emerald City" got quilted at the retreat!! I had tried to take it to a previous retreat but could not find it, panic!! I had been looking for it for 2 years. It came to light in a pile of unreleated stuff, and I was finally ready to finish it. It is from a book "Happy Villages," the author's were mostly mediteranian hillside views. I added the yellow brick road, and the field of red poppies at the bottom, and red ruby slippers at the very bottom edge. I had a very long debate with a few friends about perspective and how to angle the bricks. We finally worked it out after much thought. It is all raw edge applpique, attached with a glue stick. then light green tulle was placed over it all, then machine free motion quilted in rayon threads. It is very densly quilted to match the outlines and add accents. I did quiet a few other things too, which I will add in another post. The retreat was at "THUMBUDDY SPECIAL" in Eugene Oregon. She has two very nice modern homes, that sleep six each. Sewing room for 12, with good lighting, cutting tables, ironing boards, etc... She has a small quilt shop attached on the back of the house, open while we were there, but by appointment only at other times. It was a beautiful place, with a gazebo, lovely gardens, huge outside picnic tables and dinning tables for our large group of ladies. We had a blast!!

Finally Finished!!

I did it!! I finally finished a big project. I went to our Fyber Café semi annual retreat, and spent hours and hours machine quilting. At least 8 hours a day for 3 days. Here it is...

"Fun in the Sun, Bastendorf Beach, Oregon" Wow! I can't believe it is done, what a feeling. It is created with a montage of several photos I took at different times at the beach, my friend's dog, my friend Debbie flying her kite, kids skim boarding the surf, and the dog & kayaker at the lake at my sisters. I was reading a quilt book about portrait quilts, and the author said it is not about who you know, family and friends, but about body language telling a story. I see this strongly in the girl in the pink bikini getting into the cold water, you know it is cold just from her body language. The boys running after the soccer ball, and the kids building a sand castle all tell a story with their body language. The shadows in my original photos were very dramatic as well. They are made with two layers of black tulle and a tan chiffon scarf. The boy, girl and dog are also trapunto, I thread painted them, then added an extra layer of batting before adding them to the background. It is a large quilt about 2 1/2 feet by 5 feet, so it was difficult to wrangle around under my home machine, especially getting started until I had it stabilized with some stitching. Please leave a comment, I would appreciate it. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" Check out all the talented fiber artists click here

Fabric Dyeing & Silk Scarves

Our Fyber Café art group had a dyeing work shop at Tracy's in June. It was the least hot of our options, as it was going to be over 100' in Grants Pass. We had a wonderful friendship salad, everyone brings something to add to the greens. I worked on mostly shibori dyeing, wrapping cotton yarn around fabric on PVC pipe, then scrunching it together. I used two colors of dye on each, but I think the cotton yarn soaked up too much dye and did not act as a resist enough. The patterning is subtle.

I had previously done a bunch of fabric with indigo Procion MX dye, so wanted to use other colors. The greens are lime squeeze and bright green with some warm black.

Magenta and bright purple made a vibrant color combo, the pattern is wonderful. The magenta and indigo is more sundued.

I also dyed several silk scarves, we use the MX dyes just like the cotton. I scrunched them up and ice dyed them. Two of the scarves are devore rayon/silk patterned scarves. The pink/purple was done with MX dyes. The blue/green dyed scarf was done at a class, where we used silk dyes, I believe they are called "Alter Ego." You add two different types of dye to the same dye bath. One dyes rayon, the other chemicals dye the silk. It is boiled in canning jars on the stove. When you remove the scarf from the dye bath it is TWO DIFFERENT colors, MAGIC! Most of the other group members made ice dyed fabric, we like the technique a lot. You don't have to mix up all the dye solutions, just use the dry dye powder. It is very easy, and you have no control of the outcome, you have to let go and accept what ever happens. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Tyvek Flowers

I spent Sunday and Monday cleaning the house and backyard for some ladies from my Fyber Café group to come and play. Having company is one of the few reasons for me to put much effort in the house. I would rather quilt, paint, craft, garden, read or any other thing, than house keeping. I am also a great procrastinator. We had a day playing with "Melty Stuff" for our textile arts. We began with painting Tyvek mailing envelopes, and Tyvek house wrap with acrylic paints. I saw a wonderful idea on YouTube, sorry I can't remember which of the many sites I was watching. If someone knows, let me know and I will credit it. Then 3 circles were cut, in various sizes, and a button put through the center.

Hitting it with a heat gun, CAREFULLY, the Tyvek melted and curled around the button. Careful, it melted FAST, and you were likely to end up with a tight curled ball of melted plastic. I added some green painted Tyvek for leaves, and some pretty button centers.

This one is a little bit different material, it did not curl as much, as just melt, into pleasing waves. The house wrap was a lot heavier, but also worked. We also melted Lutrador, the paint acted as a resist, it does not bubble, but gets lacy holes in it. I like using it for leaves. The lighter weight Lutrador made some beautiful light frothy lace, the heavier weights were tougher to melt. Also under the heat gun, tulle, organza with glitter and plastic beads on it, grocery store netting from onion bags and frozen turkeys. All of this can be sewn onto art quilts for various reasons, mostly texture and special effects. I can't decide if I am going to make the flowers into hairclips, broaches or sew them on to a quilt. But they are very beautiful and sturdy, they hold their shape very well. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Crows & Dragonflies

A week after returning from Asilomar, I am off again, for our annual retreat to the Oregon coast. Our Fyber Café art group takes four days at Bandon, Oregon. We had LOTS of FUN! It is a work on what ever you want kind of retreat. I did not know what to take, it was a last minute, throw some hand dyes and thread into the car. I packed a spare sewing machine, as I thought my usual was getting wonky from all the goop from the Steam a Seam, that I used in Asilomar. It must have worked itself out, as I had no problems. I took this piece of hand painted, printed, stamped, and stenciled fabric, I wish I had a picture before I started adding applique to it. I really liked the way I layered all the acrylic paints. My idea was to add a pair of crows on a branch, I began free hand cutting a variety of leaves from my hand dyes. Sketching the crows was an issue. I am good about drawing almost anything but birds. It is so important to get the body language right, the correct angles of the head. It looked more like a dove, until I bowed the head down.

I wanted the free motion quilting to be loose and sketchy, I am a fussy quilter when I do raw edge applique. I like to follow the edges exactly and make sure I don't miss any. So this was a challenge! I took a couple of deep breathes, tried to get my head around the idea, then just dove in. Fast and loose, sketchy, trying not to stay on the edge. I really like the effect, it came out the way I wanted it to, and it was really fast. With a couple of thread color changes, it probably took me no more than 45 minutes to quilt. Adding a nest and eggs was a last minute choice, I used some striped shibori fabric I had dyed for the nest, and an ice dyed blue for the eggs. I haven't named it yet.

After a fun lunch excursion to Port Orford's "Quilter's Corner" to add to my large fabric stash, I got a fabric with gold metallic dragonfly wings on it. It inspired me to begin a composition with three dragonflies. It was difficult to cut out opposing pairs of wings from the print. In looking through my hand dyes I found a blue piece that already had a curved ripple cut, so I used that for water. With no planning and no pattern, I chose a sky fabric and began cutting lily pads and flowers. The flowers are from an Ombre fabric, light to dark pink. I wasn't very happy with it at this point, no plan leads to no good.

It needed more to the composition, so I added the cattails, I was concerned that they were too dark, but I liked the way they framed the piece. It also needed the koi for balance and as a better focal point. The sun and cheesecloth clouds added some interest to the sky. I free motion quilted with my usual rayon threads, in my usual tidy way, to edge and add detail. The koi is quilted with gold metallic scales, and sparkles nicely. I am happy with it now, but I don't like it as much as to crows. It is pretty but too tame.

Several of us wanted to play with paper fusion. We used mostly napkins and tissue paper to collage onto muslin with gel medium. Some old book pages and music sheets, and other ephemera were also used. This one was too dark until I added the green to brighten it up. I've already cut it up to make greeting cards.

I began this one trying to use lighter colors as a background, but it is very jumbled and scattered. Not sure about it, it doesn't seem finished.

Then I tried to make more of a composition, using florals at the bottom, light prints and patterns in the background with the large butterfly as a focal point. I really like this, I might quilt it. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" check to see what other talented artists are doing this week.

Asilomar Conference

Oh, what fun we had!! My friend Lorraine and I went to Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, Ca for the Empty Spools seminar last week. WoW!! I had class with Gloria Loughman from Australia, I love her work and have all her books. It was a 5 day class on painted landscapes. We made a sample from her pattern which I'll put at the end of the post. Then we painted sky fabric, mine is dull blue, gray, white, for a moody Oregon seascape. Many of the student works were beautiful sunsets, with bright colors. Cutting the fabric into various widths, from 3/4" to 2". we then rearranged them to get a blend of colors. We could do them vertical, horizontal or diagonal. I chose diagonal to give it a rainy coastal feel.

The water is painted in a darker, more intense color, I added some green to the ocean, and painted the fabric dry instead of wet. I wanted it more streaky, not as blended. My design is from a photo I took from the South Jetty beach at Bandon, Oregon. The rock formations are very distinctive to me, and brings back many good memories of trips with my husband. The second photos of the trees on the rocks is from Bastendorf beach, I added a few trees to my design, but haven't made them yet. I worked hard on the sketch, especially the "pointy" middle rock. Trying to make it skinnier, shorter, chunks out of the side, anything to make it look less phallic. I finally decided to make it gray and hope it would fade into the background more. ha ha ha.

Gloria's technique adds a black edge to each section of rock, put together with Steam a Seam 2, then on black fabric and trimmed to 1/8". I did NOT like the Steam a Seam, it is too sticky, and thick, two layers was ok to stitch through, but more, like the rocks, and my needle gummed up, and my thread broke. I need a stronger thread too. It also gummed up our scissors and rotary cutters, and my needle threader on the sewing machine is screwed up too.

So far, so good, I added some sand fabrics and some cheesecloth at the bottom. I have more stitching to do on the cheesecloth and more to add at the bottom edge of all the rocks. Also some waves splashing up. The bits of white will add a much needed brightness to the design. I've also started adding some trees to the top left rocks and a single stunted tree on the big rock in the water. I can't wait to get this finished.

My practice piece with a fat quarter of Gloria's hand dyed fabric, we picked the piece from a brown paper bag, so could not choose the colors we liked. The ocean area is a bit of green hand dyed shibori fabric I brought with me.

I made a second piece while I waited for people to catch up. I thought I would do my Bandon seascape with a horizontal background, so wanted to play with that orientation. I will add a larger rock to the bottom right and some sailboats to the water.

This pic is all the student practice pieces, while we learned her technique. Notice the horizontal, vertical and diagonals. Also, the man in class had to be different and added a palm tree to his, he was from Hawaii.

My friend made this beetle in Susan Carlson's class. I will not post anymore student work, as many people were picky about people taking pics of their work. We had a fabulous time. The beach was beautiful, the food great, and we toured all the class rooms at the end of the week. Seeing all the fabulous work was fascinating, and being able to talk to all the teachers. I will definitely use this technique again, it adds a lot of interest to what could be a boring piece of blue sky.

The wildflowers on the dunes were in full bloom. I will be linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.