No Rules- Crazy Quilting!!

Over the past year or so I have been developing a class called Let's Go Crazy (er) - The Rules of NO RULES Crazy Quilting!!  I have asked the amazingly talented and generous quilt/textile artist Allison Aller, if I may use her fabulous book as a reference and she has given me the green light.  You can see and read about here fabulous book here!  If you have any interest in textile collage, this is a Must Have book!
This past week I taught my first sessions of this class at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg, VA.  We have a great roster of classes at the Gallery and we teach whenever it is convenient for the student, that is why you will not see times and dates on the schedule!!

My dear friend Leslie Brier and her wonderful mom came in to learn how to piece a Crazy Quilt Block and then how to embellish their newly created textile canvas.  We had a wonderful time and we could have worked through the day!!  This class has been designed to allow students to express their personal artistic style in their textile collage- crazy quilt art form.  We want to throw open all the doors and windows and allow all the rules about crazy quilting to flow out and make everyone comfortable with asking themselves those wonderful "What IF" questions that lead to personal works of exuberant textile collage!!

During our first session we covered the Flip and Stitch method for piecing a quilt block.  Then I shared a wonderful method for collaging fabric scraps on Steam a Seam 2 fusible web to create a very crazy collage, Such fun!!

(click on any image to enlarge)

Here are the first blocks that my students created! I enticed them to jump in with some wonderful focal images that had been printed on fabric.  Each lady was delighted with the selection of printed images- they were perfect for their respective personalities!!

After our first class, Leslie and her Mom left and with homework to practice piecing and to return with several blocks that they had created on their home! Here you see a very simple block that Paula created.  We worked on how to start the embellishing process and things to think about and now Paula is itching to get to the FUN part!!  ( Aller's Book does a fabulous job with inspiring ideas and directions for this stage of the CQ ( Crazy Quilt) process!!)

Paula went ahead and created several Christmas themed blocks  as her practice pieces!  For a gal who is not yet good friends with her sewing machine, she did a great job!! we worked on some parts that she was struggling with in her relationship with her machine and things seem to be getting Much better!! It is so nice to be able to ease the frustration of a seamstress so they can get past the anger stage when learning to use their machine!!!

Her you can see one of Leslie's amazing practice blocks.  Leslie and I have both found our local Goodwill shops to be a great resource for fabric finds.  The black lace swatches that you see in this block was salvaged from a dress that Leslie found at Goodwill by the Pound!!  ( Locally , we have an outlet where Goodwill takes their older donations and makes them available to the public for a "By the Pound' price!)I really love how Leslie has crafted this wonderful selection of black and white patterned fabrics!

Here is Leslie's block from our first session.  Leslie has started on her embellishment journey and has added this wonderful flower trim to bring some more color closer to the gorgeous lady in the center of the block.

 Here is another practice block by Leslie!! I love seeing how an individual artists personality is expressed in their work!  With the black and white block and this numbers block above you can see the "Steampunker" part of Leslie emerge!!  I can't wait to see how Leslie embellishes this amazing block.  we will have to wait till our next class and AI will be sure to share pictures with you here!!

For another peek at Leslie's artistic personality you see this third practice block above!!  I know just how Leslie thinks as I myself often go to opposite ends of my artistic expression meter to create very different pieces of artwork!!  This only serves to keep us interested and inspired and excited about all of the wonderful possibilities available to us!!

Check back soon to see the further adventures of Paula and Leslie as they continue to follow the No Rules approach to Crazy Quilting!!

Gelatin Mono-Printing at Artful Dimensions Gallery

I have just taught my first class at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg,VA.  It was a small and intimate group but we had such fun and my students generated some incredible mono- prints!!!

This is the general set up for a Gelatin mono- Printing class. each student is given their own gelatin plate- in this case it was an old lunch room tray filled with a slab of Knox gelatin made at a ratio of 8 envelopes of gelatin to 4 cup of water.

Paint is then spread with a brayer onto the hardened gelatin plate and items (called Masks) are placed on top of the painted gelatin to block the transfer of paint to your paper or fabric.

This is the resulting print from a plate that has several colors of paint on it and a variety of masks ( the masks in this case included mesh veggie bags, a wonderful leaf stamp that was used to take paint off the plate- thus leaving the impression of the stamp, some unraveled polyester yarn, a lace doily and some loose threads taken form the edge of a piece of fabric).  This would then be called print #1.

Here is another 1st print done with green and yellow apint on the gel plate.

After the 1st print is dry, one can do another print with different colors and different masks.  In this case Lynette cut her own masks from paper and laid them down on the gel pate so some of her patterning from print #1 would be protected by the new masks.  It is always such a fun moment to lift off that second print and see what the results are.  Lots of Oh's and AHHHH's!! Such wonderful fun!

After the first print, and the removal of the masks covering the painted plate, there will be paint left behind on the plate.  A second print can be done at this time and this print is called  a Ghost Print and is often my favorite print.  The Ghost Print is always so very detailed,subtle and elegant.

This is one of my favorite Ghost Prints generated that day.

This is just a  small selection of the mono prints made that day in our three hour class! this is a very addictive technique that requires very few tools and depends on the artists willingness to experiment, get messy and take chances.  Don't begin this project without a big stack of papers and fabrics, either white or colored, to print on as YOU WILL NOT WANT TO STOP!!!!

I will be teaching this workshop again soon at Artful Dimensions BUT I am definitely teaching this class on March 31st at Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria ,Va.  Check here for sign up info!! I would love to see you in class!!

Some New Work !

Recently I have been doing many projects using re-purposed wool sweaters .  I made several pairs of finger-less mitts for Christmas  gifts and even sold several pairs around the holidays. With these various projects I had many wool bits left over and being one to ALWAYS think before I throw away, tried my hand at making some cording from the felted wool sweater seam allowances. The resulting cording is what you see below.

Now what to do with this fun and sturdy cording.  It could be used for any number of things.  I could be braided together to create purse handles and straps.  how about combined at necklaces with some fun hand made beads?  ALL of these ideas are on my list, believe me!  As I am really enjoying some bead work right now I decided to try and combine the cording with some Ultra Suede, heavy interfacing and BEADS to create some organic looking bracelets.  Here is my first attempt!!!

I put this piece on Face Book and got an order for a similar one and I put this actual piece in the Gallery at Artful Dimensions just before Valentines Day and it sold after two days.  I think I am on to something!!!

These cuffs are very comfortable to wear as there is no stiff inner metal cuff to increase the weight of the piece. Several people who adore other beaded cuff bracelets that I create, have expressed interest in a softer formed piece as they have joint issues and cannot wear things that are hard, on their wrists.  These interactions with customers greatly influenced my design process with these new softer, gentler beaded pieces.  These beaded works stitch up in no time at all relative to the copper lined cuffs ,also a bonus.

As this Red Corded Cuff sold so quickly, I had to start on another one.  The Purple Corded Cuff was just completed and will be going to Artful Dimensions this weekend.  Now I have folks who want to learn how, so I am working on a third piece that will serve as a class sample so I can advertise classes at Artful Dimensions.

The Purple Corded Cuff  available for purchase at Artful Dimensions Gallery, Fredericksburg, VA.

Inside shots are all well and good but there is nothing like outdoor natural light for taking pictures and getting true color representations!!  I simply had to add the next three shots so you could really see the true colors in this piece.

All of this wonderful beadiness from a bit of felted wool sweater seam trash and a few conversations with bead lovers!!  Don't you just love those Light Bulb Moments??????

Studio 7- Artful Dimensions- A New Art Home!

It has been a long stretch since my last post. I was on track to change this habit for 2012 but then something came about that put all of my Art Spaces in a Dither!!! Art Spaces?? Plural??? "What is she talking about?", you may be saying to yourself. I know that I would be if I were you! Well the bottom line and big news is, I am now the proud and delighted resident of Studio 7 at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg Va!! My fiber art was juried intot his unique gallery dedicated solely to 3-D works, back at the beginning of December and I was thrilled. This is a true artists cooperative with each member working at the front desk several times a month and sharing all of the duties for keeping such a concern running. We are also a Non- Profit organization and one of the top goals on our mission statement is to offer lots of community outreach in the arts. That means lots of classes at reasonable and affordable prices as well as free events . I have searching for a teaching venue and now I have one!! Artful Dimensions has a dedicated classroom space that will soon be buzzing with activity with all sorts of artistic exploration.!

I took my husband down to see the place on New Years Day as I had to drop off some new work. There we met our organizational President and ceramic sculptor extraordinaire, Christine Lush -Rodriguez. Tom was so impressed with all that had been done to renovate the warehouse/garage/wood workers/Rave site/space and so impressed with the atmosphere and the all that came with the organization, that as we were leaving he asked me when I was going to apply for a studio space!!! I was flabbergasted!! Now you all know that I have a large space in my basement and that it is in a constant state of use and upheaval and I thought that in no way would I even begin to consider renting a studio as I had all that I did already. He obviously thought other wise! it took him about 5 minutes to convince me that I NEEDED to be down at Artful Dimensions and a vital part of the community that was being created and that I could not afford not to rent a studio!! So I am now fully ensconced in Studio 7 with the beautiful purple transom over my door- Meant to be!!!

(At the time that I made my move in plans ,there were only Studio 7 and 8 free- The transom of Studio 7 would have been one of my favorites had all the studio's been available!!)

moving in

We made the decision on Thursday January 5, delivered the check on Friday January 6 and started to move tables form my basement studio down to Studio 7.

One corner of my space with a comfy chair waiting for visitors , next to one of my shelf units full of fiber books and some art samples.

(Bringing in a comfy chair started a bit of a ruckus in the gallery as several of my fellow studio artists scurried about to outfit their spaces with comfortable seating. It was either that or lock my door so my yellow chair did not up and leave the room!!:) )

My plans are to move my fiber arts work- Embellisher machine, felting, some sewing and book arts projects down to Studio 7 and leave everything else at my home studio. There were some added benefits to all of this moving. Much of the overflow clutter in our garage has now been sorted, purged and reassigned to spaces in the basement studio , freeing up lots of garage space.

In my next post I will have more pictures of my space but for now I want to share some of the artwork that is featured in our wonderful gallery and created by the 14 other artists members of our cooperative. ( I will provide links to web sites for those artists who have a web presence so be sure to check them out.)

Ceramic Sculpture by Christine Lush-Rodriguez

Fabulous wood sculpture by artists Brian Raynor (right) and Joe Wilkinson (left)

ceramic wall piece by Christine Lush- Rodriguez.

Amazing miniature polymer clay relief sculpture by artist Melissa Terlizzi. This piece measures 5 x 7 inches in total.

Sculptural work with found objects (racing bibs) by mixed media Sculptor Laura Allen.

The stunning silk weavings of weaver Diane Kowalski, amazing to see all done is silk!!

Three of my sun printed and beaded art quilts.

Wonderful fiber wrapped cactus sculpture by fiber artist and painter Lynette Reed.

The delightful Mantis Praying by metal artist Bill Richardson.

Stunning glass work by glass artist Ben Childers.

Wonderful semi -precious stone and bead jewelry by artist Dee Antil.

These are just a few of the highlights o the artwork behind offered at this amazing new Gallery! I hope that any and all of you will drop by in person or virtually to see what is going on as we continue to grow!! We are on the hunt for at least 15 more Artist members so if you do 3-D work and live int he area and want more info, drop me a line and I will set you up with an application to begin the jury process!! This is going to be so much fun!!!!

I will be back very soon with more news about my new adventures, some new projects and processes and general info about my whirlwind art adventures!!