White on White - Jude Hill's Workshop

I've signed on for another Jude Hill workshop called "What If".  Even though I am seriously behind, I'm so enjoying the work of all the other amazing stitchers that are on-board with me.  What an inspiring group of artists from all over the world. The task is to try to use only white fabrics to compose with.  That was challenging for me because I so gravitate to color.  What I was able to find though where many of my mom's favorite embroidered hankie's that she and her mother made in the 30's and 40's .  I also pulled in a bit of linen and lace from various garage sales and thrift stores.  But best of all is one of my mother's crocheted gloves that I remember her wearing to church in the 50's and 60's.  Now to stitch it all together i a pleasing way.  I'll keep you posted!  

Just A Quick Peek...

at a project made by my Beginning 3-D kids that I haven't had a chance to photo yet. They are called Charm Chains and they've already been packed away  to keep them nice for Open House, and I don't want to disturb them until then.  So it's gonna be a while before I can really show them off.  Just know that my Beginning 3-D kids are working their hearts out for me, and I'm crazy about them!

Liberated Quiltmaking - My Finished Pieces

When I went looking thru my archives for finished liberated pieces,  I realized that I had given many away as gifts without photographing them...stupid!  So anyways, these are the two I was able to find.  I've been teaching the Liberated Method since I took the class with Gwen Marston in 1987ish.  So there should be one from every year till the present.  Oh well.

The piece above was my first liberated piece started in Gwen's workshop.  It was there that I was introduced to my very 1st Singer Featherweight.  I now own 4 and let my students use them when I don't have enough crummy machines to go around.  Anyways, I still love the piece above, I have such joyful memories of Gwen , her fun teaching style, and the incredible pieces she got from the workshop participants during the making of this work.  If you look close there is a whimsical little outhouse in the upper right corner, another house in the middle with a dutch door with a fussy cut girl looking out, and I also really like how the black and white checker fabric makes the whole piece pop as well as unifying it. 

The piece above I named Hula Hut and I believe I made it in the summer of 1988 after returning from a trip to Hawaii with my kids and the ex.  This piece is completely hand quilted with lots of colorful buttons tied throughout.  I'm pretty sure it's the only liberated piece I've made that wasn't in the primary color family.  Boy, when I step out of that colorway, I really step BIG!  LOL  (See post below)

Liberated Quiltmaking - My Unfinished Pieces

Yesterday in my post I mentioned that I also make a liberated quilt right alongside my students, so I can demo. on my own work and try to stay one day ahead of the kids.  Well I usually manage to stay ahead of them until the ending which is during the machine quilting phase.  It's here that I drop the ball.  So in my studio I have many unfinished pieces.  So here are a few:

The work above was the one from this school year and I really like how it worked played out in the designing phase.

This is the unfinished quilt from the 2010-2011 school year.  I always seem to be able to get myself to the pin basting step and then I fizzle out.  I like the fussy cut bird in the star's center below.  The last 2 years I seem to be elongating my designs for table toppers.

The work above was done for the 2008-2009 school year.  I was able to pick a really fun fabric bag that had a whimsical cotton print with doctors and nurses all over it.  

And this one was from 2001-2002 school year, and one of my favorites with all the kitties I fussy cut and appliqued down onto the pieced top.  It's funny, as I look back at all of these now, it seems I have a major tendency to pick bags that are mostly primary colors with black and white neutrals.  But if you were to ask me what my favorite colors are they are none of the above.  My favorite colors are in the blue-violet, magenta and turquoise families.  Weird isn't it?  

Liberated Quilts - Student Work

These quilts represent the culmination of our sewing machine unit in the Intermediate 3-D art class.  For many of these kids it was their first time to use the sewing machine, and just look at their work!  We spent the whole 2nd quarter learning to sew and making these quilts.  I teach with Gwen Marston's book "Liberated Quiltmaking" after taking her class myself.  It was one of the funnest quilting experiences I ever had, and so liberating too because there were no patterns to trace and cut around, just grab a rotary cutter and scissors and go!  And no two quilts turn out the same.

I'm crazy about senior Borah Lim's quilt above.  She picked a great bag of fabric during the lottery, and she made magic happen with it.  What Borah also did was accidentally cut thru most of the top after she was done piecing with the rotary cutter, when she was cutting a piece of fabric for her back side.  So the large cross running thru entire piece was put in to piece cut back together again.  Great save Borah!! 

Below we have very creative thinker, senior Noel Kim.  What an unusual design she has come up with, but it totally works.  I adore the sweet little log cabins she has appliqued down on the diagonal.   

I lottery off bags of donated fabrics that spend a bit of time color co-ordinating so that the kids don't have to spend too much time dealing with that.  And the students really get into the lottery and take it very seriously.  I also get to grab a fabric bag so I have cottons to demo with, and I try to stay one day ahead of my students.  I really like the quilt I made this year in the liberated technique.  I'll post it tomorrow if I can remember to photo it tonight. LOL

So the kids learn to machine piece, safety pin baste, machine quilt (not free motion till Advanced level), and to put on a binding edge.  They also are responsible for making a label for their backside, and appliqueing it on with an invisible stitch.  They may choose to embellish at the end as Karisma has done above and below with beads, buttons, and other goodies.

And then there is 9th grader Karisma Dev, who always thinks outside the box for every project and comes up with a unique idea.  Karisma's piece was, I believe, the largest piece in the class, it had the most parts to piece together, and she spent hours working on it at home besides at school.  It was totally worth  it kiddo.  I'm so proud of you!

They learn about the Log Cabin design above.

What a beautiful bag of fabrics senior Andrea De Leon picked to build her quilt with above, very rich and full of autumn flavor.

Senior Johonna Paz picked a bag with her signature colors, peaches and pinks with a bit of green.  Look closely at her fussy cut heart in the center.  Johanna's piece was also very large and required a lot of effort to piece all those parts together.

 Making a heart with diagonals above.

About putting your piece on the diagonal for display.

Junior Kevin Tang picked a very jazzy bag of fabrics for his piece above.  Kevin wants to go into the fashion industry, and he's got a great head start here learning how to sew and design.  

The Flying Geese design above along with a Star and Log Cabin.

Junior Joyce Le has built another beauty above and below.  I especially love her label on her backside below.

How to make labels and applique them down.

And senior Elsie Aguilar's label below is precious with it's bird house and duck postage stamp.  Clever girl Elsie!

Strip piecing.

Junior Nida Fatima choose a Xmas bag of fabrics and made this wonderful house themed piece.  She also took the time to add button embellishments.

And about solutions to covering up seams that are popping open after we machine wash these puppies.

Love, love , love junior Rita Labib's colorful quilt and her unusual embellishments.  Rita ended up not liking her piece but I feel it's one of the best designs.  It calls to me Rita!   It's a crazy, happy piece, like me  LOL 

It's actually worth points to these kids if the quilt can make it thru one machine washing.  Cause it's all about craftsmanship, right Rita???  LOL  Love you

And we will finish off with senior Erika Roderos and her very pretty quilt.  Click on all the images for a closer look at their machine quilting.  All of them came up with great design ideas.

Stitchers of the world, I hope you enjoy these works from my very talented young ones.

For EXTRA CREDIT, make a mini quilt with colorful pieces of papers.  Cut out shapes and glue them onto a foundation.  You can pick one of the patterns from above or make up your own quilt design.  The more elaborate you make it the more points you will get.  You will have 2 days to do this in so you can give it to me Wed. the 14th or Thurs the 15th of March.  Put your name and period on the back side and name which quilt artist's piece you liked the best.

Framed Appliquilts - Student Art

So thrilled to finally show off my beginner's finished appliquilts in their paper mache' frames. The kids built their frames from scratch and then paper mached over their cardboard foundations. After a coat of primer they paper collaged then embellished them and put labels and hanging devices on the backside. Look at how beautifully their frames compliment their quilts. From top to bottom, left to right are junior Alma Gudino, 7th grader Andrew Veenstra, seniors Jenny Ham, Emily Choh, Ariel Improta (yes, our drama teacher's daughter), Connie Pae, Ivy Hu and Shabina Toorawa.


















A close-up of the pieces so you can see all the handstitching and embellishments. And these are just my beginners! What a lucky woman I am to teach these kids!

Jamie Fingal - Professional Artist

Recently I discovered there is a major art quilter living close by in the city of Orange. Oh boy! So off I went to visit Jamie in her studio. She was so gracious, giving me a tour of her studio and showing me her art quilts. She is the author of "Embellished Mini Quilts", a book that I've looked at many times at my local bookstore. It was so much fun to meet her and see her work in person. I've always admired her playful, whimsical style and I adore her use of color. What was really cool to see were her new works (heavy metal inspired quilted embellished aprons) and her amazing sketchbooks, they were so detailed and contained beautiful photos of her work and crazy wonderful drawings of her ideas as she develops them. She was such an inspiration. Thank you Jamie for sharing with me a slice of your world. The second photo is a mini quilt that I purchased from her.