Last October, SAQA announced a call for a new virtual online gallery: Street Art. “Born in controversy and the dark of night, this exhibition invites you to explore and create your own version of a now vibrant and respected art form: Street Art.”
I submitted ‘The Writing is on the Wall’ and I’m thrilled to say it was accepted.
The Street Art online gallery (thumbnails below) can be seen here on the SAQA website. You can click on any square image to launch the slideshow. Be sure to click See Details under each image to find out more about each piece, including additional images and artist statements.
“The selected pieces offer a great variety of artistic expressions from graffiti to tags, from frescos to optical illusion, political and controversial pieces, and even some stencil paintings.“
I’m not necessarily following Karen’s daily topics, and I certainly don’t have time to work on this every day. But it will give me some focus to keep working on my decluttering. I also hope to pick up organization tips from other participants.
I decided to focus first on my main problem – letting clutter accumulate on all my surfaces, and not putting things away. Here are my “before” photos of my work areas.
Yesterday I tackled the sewing machine area. I followed Karen’s suggestion to set my timer for 15 minutes, and started putting the clutter away. I really focused on putting things away where they belonged, rather than just moving them to another cluttered area. After 20 minutes my sewing machine area was clear.
Check back in a few days as I tackle my other cluttered surfaces.
The next challenge that caught my eye was the current Curated Quilts mini challenge. The colour palette is shades of red and pink, the theme is Energize.
I gathered together all my red and pink fabrics and bias tape.
Then I created a pattern of wildly curving stripes, similar to ‘Curves Gone Wild’. This time I may have pushed the edge of the envelope with extreme curves. That last pink bias curve required a lot of pressing, spraying and pinning to get it to keep its shape.
Here is the finished quilt. It is 12 x 12 inches. The title is ‘Heat Waves’.
I see that I forgot to post a final photo of my ‘Curves Gone Wild’ quilt. (I posted it on Instagram on November 1, then forgot to post it here).
Here it is. I quilted curvy lines with my walking foot, stitching very slowly, so I could move the quilt back and forth as it moved under the needle. Finished size is 32” x 16”.
‘Curves Gone Wild’ by Terry Aske
Then, because I was one of the organizers of this exhibition by the Fibre Art Network titled “ON THE BIAS”, I got swept up in monitoring all the entries being submitted and didn’t have time to make anything new for a while.
As mentioned in my last post, I didn’t want to cut this piece down to the required size of 16″ x 16″. Instead I decided to add more curvy strips to make it 32″ x 16″ (the other size option for this exhibition).
I kept the center portion intact as I really like how those fabrics look together. I added 3 wider curves to each side. Then I fused 1/4″ black bias tape between the curves. And I think I’ve settled on a title for it: ‘Curves Gone Wild’.
The next step is to quilt it. I’ll start by quilting with black thread through each side of each strip of bias tape. Then I’ll quilt each coloured section, probably with matching thread.
Check back in a few days, and see how it’s going.
I’ll be linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
It took me a few days to decide which fabrics I wanted to use. I started with the yellow fabric then added to each side of it. I was very happy with how all the fabrics looked together.
My construction technique is the same one I used for this quilt. In a nutshell, I drew my design on freezer paper, cut the freezer paper apart and ironed each piece to the back of the fabric. I cut the fabric around the freezer paper templates, adding 1/4″ seam allowances. I reassembled the pattern by overlapping the seam allowances and using the freezer paper to hold them together. Working from the back, I stitched in the gap between the paper templates. Then from the front, I trimmed each seam allowance very close to the stitching. This leaves raw edges, which will later be covered with bias tape, another design element.
back – pieces stitched together between FP pieces
front – seam allowances trimmed close to stitching
However, once I had sewn all the pieces together (except the last ones on each side), I discovered my measurements were off and I had made it wider than the required 16″ size. I didn’t want to remove any of the fabrics because I like how they all look together. So now I am going to add more curvy strips to each side to make it 32″ wide. (The required sizes for this exhibit are either 16″ x 16″ or 16″ x 32″.) So this is what’s on my design wall now.
Check back in a few days, and see how it’s going.
I will be linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
For a couple of weeks, I’ve been mulling over several ideas for the next exhibition by the Fibre Art Network titled “ON THE BIAS”.
All the pieces in this exhibit will be either 16″ x 16″ or 16″ x 32″. Artists are invited to submit a piece representing their interpretation of the theme, as described in the exhibition overview: “Bias can be negative or positive, conscious or subconscious, scientific or philosophical. It can also be a play on words, which, for textile artists, has a special meaning. When fabric is cut “on the bias” diagonally across the grain, it is more fluid and has greater flexibility and drapability. Bias-cut edges don’t fray! “
I considered a number of different designs incorporating the concepts of positive/negative relationships, diagonal lines and secondary patterns. After making several sketches and false starts, I turned to the concepts of fluidity and drapability. And predictably, my thoughts then turned to bias tape!
Here’s my pattern. I used a thick felt pen to draw curvy flowing lines on freezer paper. (I started with a pencil but I drew the lines too close together. A thick felt pen helped me draw to a larger scale.) I’m showing it below in 4 different orientations. I’m not sure yet which way will be up.
Below you can see some of the fabrics I’m considering. I’ll cut the freezer paper along the lines, then iron each freezer paper section to the fabric as a cutting guide. Each line between fabrics will be covered with bias tape.
At this point, I don’t really know what the finished piece will look like. I’m going to design it on my design wall, making decisions as I go. I’ll select one fabric for the middle, then decide which fabrics work best next to the first one, and which bias tape will be positioned between them. I expect I’ll change my mind a few times as I go. But I can’t dither too much, because I have to have it finished before November 1st.
Check back in a few days, and see how it’s going.
I will be linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
I finished my little Sunflower art quilt for the SAQA trunk show.
On the left, you can see how it looked a week ago, fused to the chartreuse boiled wool. I added a few more yellow patterned fabrics, then I outlined all the petals with sketchy black stitching – look at the difference!
fused
thread sketching
I trimmed the boiled wool close to the edges of the sunflower and quilted it to a dark purple batik background. I love the way it looks!
Sunflower by Terry Aske
Fun fact – I took the inspiration photo in 2020 when visiting our friends in Panama. Terry and Hans brought some cut sunflowers to Jane and Barry’s. They were so beautiful and perfect. I took the opportunity to take photos from several angles. I knew I would use them in a quilt eventually.
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Thanks for stopping by. I will be linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
I’m working on my entry for the SAQA Trunk Show. The required size is 10″ x 7″ and all pieces will be mounted on a black 12″ x 9″ backing board. I decided to use this photo of a sunflower as my inspiration. I used a light-box to trace the outlines and create a sketch on semi-transparent stabilizer. Then I selected my color palette from my scrap collection.
inspiration photo
traced sketch
fabric scraps
I’m building the sunflower on a layer of chartreuse boiled wool. I’m using the sketch to cut out the fabric shapes and also to position them on the boiled wool. For the flower, I started with a layer of solid yellow fabric. Now I’m adding individual petals from striped and checked fabrics.
positioning fused fabrics
current state
I plan to have it finished later this week.
In other news, the SAQA annual online auction is now open for bidding. There are 470 small artworks donated by SAQA members. At 12 inches square, these pieces are perfect to collect, gift, and display. This is my submission – one of the famous NYC library lions ‘Basking in the Summer Sun’. I wrote a blog post in May about how I made it.
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Thanks for stopping by. I will be linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
After finishing my mini art quilt for the annual Fibre Art Network (FAN) Artwork Exchange, my next task was to make a name tag to wear while attending the FAN virtual conference next month.
Why wear a name tag to a Zoom event? The conference organizers said “We know your Zoom account will have your name posted but we would still like to include this as an activity and encourage you to wear it each day just for the fun of it. We would like this to be an interesting little project that will give everyone a sense of the style you work in.”
I really enjoyed the look of overlapping text in bright colors that I used for my X’s and O’s quilt. And my work surface was still covered with fabric scraps from my mini quilt, so that seemed the obvious place to start.
It was a challenge to make the letters small enough to fit within the 4″ x 3″ size of a name tag. This is what I came up with. The ‘t’ is about 2″ high, and the other letters are about 1.5″. Some of the overlapping pieces are tiny! I traced the letters onto fusible web and fused them to some of my favourite bright colours.
Then I cut each piece out, trimming minutely inside the lines, to leave a very thin gap between each piece. I used a dark eggplant fabric for the background. I was pleased how well the pieces fit together.
I turned the edges under and fused another piece of eggplant fabric to the back. I stitched near the edges and around my name. (I didn’t use any batting as I wanted it to fit into a standard plastic name tag holder.)
Here it is in the plastic name tag sleeve. I plan to wear this name tag to future in-person quilting events.
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Thanks for stopping by. I will be linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
