Showing posts with label Inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inspiration. Show all posts

Sunday, February 21, 2016

World of Inspiration

I am in great danger here of sounding like I am stooped over and creaking out, "when I was young..." I will try to keep it in check!

But I do think it is older generations who can best appreciate how dramatically different, and improved, life is now. Personally, I love the "United Nations" of stitching that we have available to us these days. It is so interesting to see what stitchers around the world are making, and get a glimpse into how they live.

Clicking through some of the blogs I follow, I came across the brilliant work of Russian quilter Ksenia Shlyakova:

"Snow Queen" by Ksenia Shlyakova
used with permission
It is a long time since I've shown other people's work on my blog, but Ksenia's quilts inspired me so much. And so does Ksenia! She is 22.

Here comes that creaky voice. What were you doing at 22? I was coming to the harsh realization that after four years of grinding through a science degree, the last thing I wanted was to spend the rest of my life in a lab. Several more years of "finding myself" ensued. Ksenia studied lace making at her art school, but realized after graduation that her passion was making these stunning art quilts, and she dove in and works on them full time.

I still can just hope that I may do something as good some day, but the thing that inspires me the most is Ksenia's commitment and focus. I love to read about people who are completely committed to their art or craft, and when that art is quilt making, that 's even better! It really motivates me to dig in deeper.

Click here to read the whole article, and see several more of Ksenia's quilts.

Don't read Russian? I certainly don't. Google's Chrome web browser will translate it for you. After the web page has fully loaded on your computer, you will see two small dark squares appear in the upper right corner:


Click the squares and the page will magically translate for you. Brave new world! (...creak...) Some pages translate better than others, I've found. Ksenia's name is spelled a few different ways, and the gender shifts around (the author's name is Alexandra), but it's still relatively easy to understand.

Don't have Chrome? It is a free download here. Blogger works best with Chrome. But in any case, the photos are universal.

I am always interested to see where my photos end up as well. My favourite is this South Korean website, which used my very first practice bullion rose, done on scruffy muslin and a little unravelled at the top, in their stitch dictionary! Well, I was pretty proud of it, I must admit. And I appreciate all the traffic. :D

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Red Centre - Month 9

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks! My apologies, but I think you'll find the wait was worth it today. Here are the latest photos of Valerie Giles' Australian Aboriginal version of Sedona Star. Valerie has approached the applique months in a completely different way:

Wombat

I love that background fabric! I asked Valerie how she made these. She tells me that she started with a chalk outline on black fabric, and then fused the patches of Aboriginal fabrics onto that. Isn't it great the way she maintained the continuity of the fabric pattern across the different patches? On the wombat the fused patches were finished with a hand blanket stitch, but on some of the others she did a machine satin stitch with variegated thread:

Koala

Then the black background was embellished by hand with running stitch, back stitch and "many, many French knots" in No. 5 perle cotton. The whole applique was then stitched to the background with a machine satin stitch in black thread.

I really love these, and I think it would be fairly easy to apply this technique to other shapes. Some of the animals are adapted from a book by Julie McKenzie, and some are Valerie's own design.

So here's the whole quilt all the way through Month 9:

The Red Centre

It's looking great. Thanks so much, Valerie, for sharing your work!


Related Posts:

Click here to read last February's post about Valerie's inspiration for her version of Sedona Star




And click here to read about the original Sedona Star designer Sarah Vedeler's inspiration!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Time to Get Over Myself

Do you know that I have now done 15 posts about Sedona Star, and I have yet to completely finish any of the months?  The sticking point all along has been the fusible applique.  Well, I am over it!  And I have this brilliant quilt to thank:

Go! Bedazzled

Isn't it beautiful?  This was made by Sandy Lawrence of Phoenix, AZ.  It is another Sarah Vedeler design.  Sandy was lucky enough to take a class with Sarah when she made this quilt, and another class with Diane Gaudynski for the quilting!  As you can see by the ribbons, the quilt won First Place for Machine Embroidery and Best of Show at the Arizona Quilter's Guild show in 2012.  No surprise!  You can click the photo to see it larger.

What I really love about this quilt, and what has finally converted me, is the way Sandy has made the machine embroidery into a separate design element of the quilt.  The embroidery is not just a way to hold the appliques down.  For instance, most of the hits of turquoise that you see in the quilt are thread.  Imagine the quilt without it!  I love the Southwest colours she has used.  If you look at the large photo, you can see areas where more than one colour of thread was used around the edges of the appliques.  Sandy has also done embroidery within the shapes. 

There are so many great ideas here!  Even with my basic machine I can think of some interesting combinations to try.  Now I am so keen to get started again!  Alas, I am still waiting for my new iron, so it may still be a while.

Now it looks like I won't be paper piecing Month 2 after all!  But I'm still glad I did it, because it made me very aware of how the dark fabrics show through the light appliques.  I will have to do some careful trimming, I think.

Sandy, thanks so much for the photo, and all the inspiration too!


Related Posts:

Paper pieced practice block

Adjusting the template for paper piecing

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Inspiration for Sedona Star, Part 2

Sedona Star

For those who have been dying to get a good look at the official Sedona Star photo, here it is, photographed by Gregory Case.  Click the photo to see it full size!

Yesterday I told you about the great synchronicity between Valerie Giles' version of Sedona Star, inspired by the colours of The Red Centre in Australia, and the colours of Sedona, Arizona, which are both very spiritual locations.  It seemed to me that there is a lot of potential for synchronicities in the design, with its reference to Sedona, and the repetition of the number nine throughout the quilt.  I have speculated about the potential meaning of it all previously, but I thought it was time to get the real story from the designer herself, Sarah Vedeler.

I asked her about the significance of "Sedona" in the title, and what was up with all the nines?  Here's her reply:

Sarah Vedeler
"In January of last year, Ricky sent me an email saying "We need to talk!". It wasn't until March until we eventually connected - March 16 to be precise, the Wednesday in the middle of Spring Break, and I was just about to get into the car with my daughters to drive up to Sedona for a couple of days. Having had the conversation with Ricky, I spent the entire 2 hour drive up to Sedona thinking up ideas for what the quilt would look like - and started to design it in Corel Draw when we got there (after taking the girls for a hike - which was the purpose of the trip!). So the quilt has always been associated with Sedona in my mind.

"As for there being 9 of pretty much everything... I created 2 initial designs (very basic outlines) that I submitted to Ricky and Alex to see what they thought. One had 8 points, the other had 12 points. The 12 point one was too big - so I started to shrink the design and play with the number of points to see what would work. 9 points did the trick!

"So there's really nothing very mysterious about it!!!"

LOL!  Isn't that great?!  I guess when you send your design out into the world, you never know what meanings people will give to it.  Thanks Sarah!

Like Valerie, my colourway also developed a lot more meaning for me than may have been originally intended.  I am 100% in favour of pretty things whose only purpose is to make you happy when you look at them.  However, I also think that if your design develops additional meanings, be they spiritual or simply happy memories, that can only add to the overall joy in the quilt.  For me, joy is the only reason to make a quilt, and anything that increases that is a good thing!

I know it is ridiculous for me to keep talking about a colourway no one has seen yet, but I really am still waiting for fabric!  Although I didn't change my mind about the colours, I did change my mind about the fabric, so that is the reason for all this delay.  But, with so many TQS members managing to finish each month in a few days, I don't think I am that far behind.  I'll be caught up soon enough!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Inspiration for Sedona Star, Part 1

Valerie Giles, whose Month 1 photo of Sedona Star I featured a couple of weeks ago, has already finished Month 2 as well:

The Red Centre - Month 2
It was not my intention to follow Valerie's quilt every month, but I've been learning more about the story behind her inspiration for her beautiful colour scheme, so I had to post about it again.

I didn't realize that The Red Centre is actually a place - the area in central Australia around Uluru, or Ayer's Rock.  When I asked Valerie about her inspiration, she wrote me this: 

"I guess my inspiration comes from the trip we made in 2010 to Alice Springs and Uluru.  The emotion I felt at seeing the Rock was overwhelming.  The colours change constantly and the textures are so beautiful.  I absolutely love all our indigenous fabrics and at Uluru we got to see the ancient rock paintings, so my aim is to get as much of this into my very first block of the month."

I love that story!  Thank you, Valerie.  And I also love that the colours of central Australia are very similar to the colours around Sedona, Arizona:

courtesy of  www.dailyventure.com

I was so impressed by the synchronicity between Valerie's quilt and Sedona itself, which are also both significant spiritual locations, that I finally contacted Sedona Star designer Sarah Vedeler to find out what her inspiration was.  She sent me a great reply, but you will have to wait until tomorrow to read it!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Alternatives for Sedona Star

I know that I had a string of posts last month with no pictures at all, for which I deeply apologize!  I'll try not to let it happen again!  Given that I still don't have any Sedona Star photos of my own to show, I did get permission from a couple of TQS members to show theirs.

I chose both of these because they are dramatically different from Sarah Vedeler's original design.  First up is Susan McFarland of Oxnard, California.  She has gone completely scrappy!

Scrappy - Susan McFarland
I love scrap quilts, and you can already see that this quilt is going to be amazing.  Just by repeating a few elements, like the red circles and green outer borders of the points, Susan has been able to go completely random with the rest.  I know I would never deliberately choose some of the combinations here, but it all works, and I bet it is a blast to make!

Next I have the work of Valerie Giles of Mt. Barker, South Australia.  She is using her collection of Australian indigenous fabrics, which is certainly an advantage.  But the thing that struck me was her log cabin points:

The Red Centre - Valerie Giles

Valerie is the only one in the Show & Tell so far who has used a traditional light and dark log cabin scheme on the points.  This gives them a more three dimensional, architectural effect, if you will excuse the pun.  What great out-of-the-box thinking!  I have to tell you, I am very sorry that I didn't think of this myself.  I also love the warm colours, so it will be great to see where this quilt goes next.

Big thanks to both Susan and Valerie!  The other reason that I chose to show these quilts here, is because both of them strongly tempted me away from my original plan.  I love those scraps, and those points!  I think that my Month 1 will actually have the distinction of using the fewest number of fabrics.  But for now I will stick with my plan.

In any case, I have decided to abandon the Kaffe Fassett shot cottons, and use Kaufman Kona Solids instead.  I was disappointed with the shot cottons, they were not as interesting as I had hoped.  The Kona solids will give me a better range of colours, and they are heavier so I expect they will be easier to use.  So once again I am waiting for fabric to arrive.

My idea with the solids is that they will allow more scope for creative quilting.  How the quilting will be done is still in the air, of course.  I called a local Bernina dealer for a quote on the 820 and 830 today.  Holy crow!!  I had no idea.  Well, I still have year!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Martha Schellingerhoud

Martha Schellingerhoud was the speaker at our Rouge Valley Quilter's Guild meeting last night.  As soon as we walked into the hall we all saw this quilt hanging up on the stage.  Click the link, it is really gorgeous!  She told us that it has been chosen to represent Canada at a quilt show in France this fall.  I think it is a great choice.

Martha did her trunk show for us.  The thread of her narrative was how she has developed different techniques for machine quilting large quilts in sections on a domestic machine.  I immediately began to pay close attention!  She showed us several quilts based on square blocks, and described her technique of joining pre-quilted sections together with sashing, and then quilting the sashing after.  All this time I am looking at that big circular design up on the stage and thinking about Sedona Star.  I could see how the concentric rings could be pre-quilted and then joined with those flying geese rings.

And indeed, she told us that had been her plan, but then on this quilt she changed her mind and quilted the whole thing in one piece!  Sigh.  She was worried that it would not lie flat if quilted in sections.  So that idea went out the window!

But the trunk show was excellent, and her miniatures have to be seen to be believed.  There was one with over 700 pieces!

In any case, I still have a year to figure out how I will quilt Sedona Star.  I'm sure the right idea, or better equipment, will come along!
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