Upcoming New Solo Show

I will be having a solo show of my art quilts in the Paso Robles City Hall for the last week of April and all of May.  Here are a few quilts that will be in the show.

Orange and Blue Landscape

24” x 21”

The left side symbolizes nature with its organic leaf shapes in contrast to the more industrial, polluting, skyscrapers of the cities. A small river of bright blue Dupioni silk runs through the top symbolizing our decreasing precious water supply.

Into the Redwoods

21 ¼” x 18"

This quilt was inspired by a photo I took going into the Redwoods in Santa Cruz.  It was started in a great class I took from Susan Brandeiss,  http://www4.ncsu.edu/~brandeis/ who creates beautiful fiber art,  I digitally printed it onto silk, after enhancing it in photoshop.  There is a leaf digitally printed on the green organza.  I then added embroidery and beads.  I like using the  combination of the digital  photography, which is high tech with the low tech of hand stitching, which has been around forever.

What’s Black and White and Red All Over?

19” x 31”

This quilt was inspired by photos and views of the many fields and vineyards in the central coast area of California

Hand dyed fabric using potato dextrin resist, commercial fabrics, ribbon, buttons, beads, and foil.

Hand Embroidery with thickened Dye Prints

 With it getting  chilly here in California, that means below 30 degrees, as opposed to 30 degrees below 0, a temperature we would have in winters in Wisconsin, where I grew up, I pulled out my cotton velveteen quilt to finish stitching.  It keeps me warm as I stitch on it.  I used thickened procion dyes and had a great time drawing line patterns on it.  This quilt started out as a whole piece of fabric and I painted rectangles of solid, bright colors randomly on it with thickened dyes.  After letting it dry a little, I used a syringe, brush and cardboard tube to draw and print line patterns, again using thickened dyes.  It was a fun afternoon of serious play.   Then I cut it apart and reshuffled the rectangles to repeat the colors and patterns in a more random way.

The next step was to quilt it.  I have loved hand embroidery since my mom taught me years ago.  I can remember stitching on stamped pillow cases, floral designs and girls in old-fashioned dresses and bonnets.  Every time I embroider it brings back wonderful memories of my sweet mom. I still have her old Coats and Clark booklet of stitches, which is actually pretty good, and cost only a quarter, back in the day.

Here is a close-up of some of the embroidery on this quilt.  I use mostly perle cotton, #8.