Guest Blogger Makes a Tote Bag

Today, as a guest blogger, we have one of our gallery’s artists, Merle Thompson, who designs and sew garments. She says:

“Having recently finished a jacket on commission, I found myself with many strips of fabric remaining. Before I put it all away, I decided to create a tote bag for the current show’s Asian theme.

“I used the traditional log cabin quilting pattern. However, I used the random sized strips that I had already cut. For the Asian theme I chose a square featuring a Japanese lady.

“For log cabin piecing, you sew one strip at a time, beginning on one side and working around, enlarging the square as you go until you have the desired size. I sewed the strips to a flannel backing to give some body. Because the tote bag size is oblong, I didn’t make complete squares but just added strip lengths as needed.

“A traditional log cabin pattern would usually use two tones of fabric, working a pattern between lights and darks. As you can see, I abandoned that idea also, using random colors in my general gray and pink palette.

“To finish the bag, I added an additional pellon lining for more body, a heavy cotton lining with pockets and a pieced handle from more of my left-over strips.” [Sorry for the small photo of the completed bag].

Thanks, Merle, for submitting the description of your work. It not only shows your creative process but your thrift in reusing left overs from another project.

Juror’s Recognition #2

Another piece that received Jurors' Recognition this month is Floris Flam’s art quilt, Through a Japanese Window.

Here’s what Floris says about her inspiration and process:

“ I started Through a Japanese Window in a workshop with Roberta Horton where the focus was on the improvisational use of large pieces of ethnic fabric. I brought mostly Japanese fabrics to the class, though I added some coordinating prints and solids from my stash. I came away from the workshop with several large pieces of fabric pinned together, but it took some time to decide how to fill in the rest. I wanted to stay with the asymmetric balance one often finds in Japanese art and kept trying ideas on my design wall until I was happy with the result.

“The wall hanging is machine-pieced and the butterfly and circular shapes machine appliqued. One example of problem-solving that pleased me is that the motifs in the lower left weren't strong enough for the design on their own, so I appliqued them to purple circles, which I appliqued to the quilt. Similarly, the flat piping above the right side of the bottom border lent a needed linear element and visual weight to that section of the quilt, helping to balance the bowl of flowers and the butterfly at the upper left. I machine quilted using traditional Japanese sashiko patterns in several of the large areas and free motion quilted following the lines of the print in other areas.”

In another few days I’ll post about the third piece that won Juror’s Recognition this month.

This Month’s Juror’s Recognition #1

Yesterday was jury day at the gallery and a whole new show was hung. The jurors awarded Juror’s Recognition to three pieces in the new show. Over the next few days I’ll post the other two artist’s description of their inspiration and process.

Today, Paige Garber, one of the award winners explains her quilted wall hanging Red Happiness.

“My inspiration for the Red Happiness quilt wall hanging was, as you might guess a Japanese wood block face, which I bought at a yard sale. At the time I had a collection of red scraps of cotton fabric, and really it was just an extemporaneous exercise in framing the face with all these fun red strips, many of which had an oriental theme to them.
In fact most of my work is done on figuring out a next step and doing it and then figuring out the next. Rarely do I plan an entire composite before embarking on a project.”

Quilting the quilt

Traditionally, a quilt is defined as having three layers held together by stitching. While some contemporary quilts veer from this tradition, perhaps using only two layers or using something other than thread to hold them together (for example, staples were required for one challenge on the Quiltart e-list), most art quilts follow this format. After the quilter assembles her quilt top, whether by applique, piecing, or fusing, she adds batting and a backing fabric and uses thread to hold the layers together. Most of the quilters in our gallery use a domestic sewing machine to quilt their work, though we do currently have a hand-quilted textile by Cindy Grisdela in the gallery. Here is a detail shot of her quilt, Hint of Lime. You can see her quilting stitches.


The quilting stitches may form a general all-over pattern that is intended to hold the quilt together without distracting from the patterns formed by the fabrics. One commonly used approach is stippling or meandering. Here is an example from a quilt by Ann Graham, Waiting for Spring, where there is an all-over scribble of stitching, much as one might doodle with a pencil:


Cindy often uses more regular stitching patterns on her quilts. Her stitching can be so regular that viewers sometimes mistakenly think that the pattern is controlled by the sewing machine rather than by the experienced hands of the quilter. She says that she quilts freehand, without any marking, using her needle to draw the designs she wants to create with thread. Here is a detail of Red Totem that shows both the patterns of her stitches and the resulting texture:


I (Floris Flam) use several of these approaches in my quilts. Sometimes, like Cindy, I use freehand geometric patterns. Sometimes I combine straight lines of stitching with freehand patterns to create a play of textures and perhaps a sense of depth. I try to have my stitches follow the patterns in the fabric if the fabric lends itself to this approach, as it did when quilting the multicolored snow-dyed fabric I used in Autumn View:


You can see that approaches to quilting can be as varied as approaches to quilt design. We are lucky to have a broad range of quilting styles represented in our gallery. Please stop by and see our current show's array of quilts.