A New Show is Coming!

Mark your calendar for Sunday, November 2nd. That's the date on which my fiber arts group, ARTAA, will begin showing some of our collective works at the Guilderland Public Library on Western Avenue.  This very talented group of ladies will have many beautiful textile art pieces on display, including art quilts, jackets, fabric dolls, hand-made lace, and embroidered note cards.  The exhibit begins on November 2nd and will run through January 1st, 2009.  Shown here is one of my quilts, "Rhythm of the Night II," and I hope to give you a glimpse of more of the pieces that will be on display in future blogs.

A Nice Surprise!

I had a lovely surprise recently: this quilt, "Leaves That Are Green," won a blue ribbon in its category at the Lowell Quilt Festival in Massachusetts.  The quilt is machine appliqued and machine quilted, and I used some of my own hand-painted fabric in the composition.  I had so much fun working on this piece, and I learned a great deal about color and value during the design stages.  I named the piece after a favorite song of mine by Simon and Garfunkel -- I find their music still inspires me, even after all these years.

More Ornamentals

Here are the last three pieces 

in the series of Ornamentals.

It was really fun choosing the designs and the fabrics for each one of these little art quilts.  I experimented with threads and fell in love with a new 30-weight polyester thread designed by Caryl Fallert and produced by Superior Threads called Brites -- the stitch is a bit bolder than that of the 40-weight rayon I usually use, and the colors are brilliant.  I used these threads in the outline of the silhouettes and to attach the perle cotton to the edges.

Ornamentals

I'm very excited about my latest project -- I call these little works "Ornamentals."  Each measures 5" by 7", and each is a different framed silhouette fused to a background and bordered by a third colorful fabric.  They are then outline-quilted and edge-stitched, using Perle Cotton #5 to add color and presence to the edge. There will be five of these pieces in the series, and they can be purchased for $25 each (contact me at diane@DEsignedbyDianeEvans.com). They will also be for sale at the Adirondack Museum Fabric and Fiber Festival on Saturday, September 13th, along with many other beautiful pieces of textile art by the women of ARTAA (Adirondack Regional Textile Artists' Alliance); I'm very fortunate to be a member of this group of very talented ladies.  Come to the show on the 13th and see what we do!

A New Presentation

I wanted to find a way to present the quilts from my Notebook Series ( my weekly Journal Quilts) in a more prominent setting for the show at eba Art Gallery, since the pieces themselves were only 8" by 10".  I took artist canvas that measured 11" by 14" and wrapped it with hand-dyed fabric, stapled to the back.  I then framed each quilt with a fusible binding and mounted it to the canvas with a combination of decorative beads sewn at each corner.  The finished piece can be hung as is or placed inside a purchased frame to add even more dimension.  These quilts are shown on my website, www.DEsignedbyDianeEvans.com, and are for sale at prices ranging from $75 to $90.  Be sure to visit the site!

Moving along!

The design progresses!  Working from the bottom layer upward, I've appliqued more pieces to the background (top photo).  Each time a layer is added, I've cut away the black interfaced fabric from behind it (bottom photo), so that there will be no more than one layer of fabric on any part of the quilt top once it's done.  I use my seam ripper to begin cutting away the background, and then I switch to small applique scissors.  Before I start the cutting, I say a prayer that I won't cut into the applique itself -- this is an important step in the process and seems to help greatly . . .

My Latest Project

This is the beginning of my newest quilt project; I had started it almost 2 years ago and then stalled in my progress because the design just wasn't working for me.  I brought it to Quilting By The Lake and received invaluable suggestions from Philippa Naylor, and my enthusiasm came rushing back.  

The image at top left left is the section of the quilt with which I started -- it's easier to applique small pieces to a portion of the quilt, rather than the entire quilt top, which I anticipate 

will measure about 40" by 60".  Fusible interfacing has been ironed to each of the flowers; these are then machine-appliqued to the black background, which has also been interfaced.  The circles have been fused to the background using WonderUnder.

Here's an image of the back of the quilt, showing where I've cut away the black background behind the pieces that were interfaced.  The purpose of this step is two-fold: it reduces bulk in the quilt, and it allows the appliqued piece to show its color more brightly, since there is no black fabric behind it.  This is a technique I learned from the very talented Jane Sassaman in one of her many workshops.  The threads from the applique are pulled to the back and woven into the stitching so they won't show through to the front or get in the way of future stitching.

More to come as I move forward in the days (make that weeks) ahead . . .