A Quilting Treasure!

In 2001, I was asked to curate quilts from across Newfoundland and Labrador, for the seventh annual Waterloo County and Area Quilt Festival in Ontario, Canada. As a result of this venture, I met Gertie Little from Appleton, Newfoundland. Gertie is a very gifted, self taught designer and quilter. She likes a challenge and prefers to make up her own design for bed quilts, table runners and art quilts. Last evening at the Eastern Edge Quilt Guild, Gertie had her own show and tell. Over the next several days, I will be posting (with permission) photos of her work. These photos show community scenes around the province of Newfoundland.
Enjoy!

Work in Progress # 4

I have most of the building construction completed except for some surface additions. Most of my time today was spent stitching trees. The first photo was an experiment. In the second photo, the same tree skeleton was used with various bits of organza foliage put in place. It worked out well and I may use it. However, I like the tree still in the hoop. I added some foliage before cutting it out. Extra bits of foliage will be added to the back and front to give dimension.

You can see more trees in the last photo. They are not in a permanent placement yet and extra foliage will be added when stitched to the background.

Festival Of Quilts - UK

I've been looking for photos from the Festival of Quilts 2011, Birmingham, UK. Some of the bloggers have been posting photos from the festival. Here are the ones I've been able to find so far:

• Kay in Scotland took the photo of the over all winner, Octopussy, created by Janneke de Vries-Bodzinga of the Netherlands.
• Drinking Fabric (unique name) showcases some quilts from the festival. She has two posts. Part two is here.
• Some of the winners are also shown on A Quilters Journal. Have a look at the Wonky Houses. These are fantastic!
• Here are recent quilts as well as quilts from past festivals. More here and here.
• Dog Daisy Chains photos
• More photos 2011 Festival of Quilts - these are stunning!

Enjoy!
If you come across any other photos, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Sites to Visit

Today I have a variety of web sites and blogs for you to visit.

Judith Trager, an international quilt artist. See a brief video with Judith here.
Jamie Fingal, mixed media artist. Whimsical house quilt video
Sue Gilgen, landscape quilts and fiber art. Video one,  Video two.
Leni Wiener, raw edge machine applique and thread painting
Nancy Daley, fiber artist (paper making video)
Eileen Doughty, quilt artist. Check out her sculptures here!
Carolyn Lee Vehslage, quilted wall hangings
Ken Smith, textile artist from Australia
Mary Manahan, quilt artist
Judy Cooper, textile art

Work in Progress: # 5 Chimneys

I have made a little bit of progress with the picture. Yesterday I made a few chimneys. I didn't realize just how many chimneys are in the older part of the city. Often a downtown house will have several instead of one. In the second photo I removed some of the background foliage as I wasn't satisfied with it and make some more using different shades of thread. There are still lots of stickpins visible in the photos.

Work in Progress: # 4

This is just a brief update on the progress of the textile piece: View From The Rooms. I haven't progressed as much as I'd hoped this week as life keeps getting in the way! Today I must search for more shades of green organza as that really determines some of the shading for the trees. Here's a corner house. The corner is defined by machine stitching using invisible thread. A tall chimney has to go up from the side of the red roof. I can't wait to get this piece finished!

Thoughts on 'Work in Progress'

You know, it isn't until a photo is taken and made larger that sometimes mistakes are discovered! That happened to me with the photo in the previous post. Something wasn't working out. I took a good look at the photo and  some modifications are in order!
Now that I think about it, quilters do a similar thing when they view their quilts through a reducing lens.

Work in Progress: More Buildings #2

This is just an update on the progress of my work. Last evening I finished most of the buildings but without any details added. However, this photo shows a section of the background that is almost finished. As you see, stick pins are keeping some foliage in place. Think you can find these houses in Tuesday's post, View From The Rooms?
I did find another free pattern for Row Houses.  It's called Around the Corner and was inspired by Flavin Glover's Row Houses, a traditional log cabin.

View From The Rooms

I wasn't quite satisfied with the photo I am working from to do my textile piece so decided to visit The Rooms again to do more photography. Since it's not the tourist season yet, I had to get permission to go out on the balcony. This was the perfect time of year to get architectural details as the leaves are not out on the trees. St. John's has a lot of trees which masks details. Even though it was a dull day, I'm quite pleased with the photos.

The first one gives a partial view of the harbour.
The next photo is a closeup of some of the houses I'm doing. I'm glad I took newer photos as some homeowners have put new colours on their homes. I discovered that the pink house in my textile piece is now a toned down creamy colour.This is the downtown section of the city and has very old homes.

I included the third photo so you could see Cabot Tower on Signal Hill in the background.

Work in Progress: More Buildings

This is an update on my building construction for my large textile piece. I have lots of foliage done but I expect more will have to be made. This is still some of the background houses. I started on the foreground over the weekend.

Ideas for exploration! Visit these sites for small house construction projects:

Stitch has a mini house quilt to make.
House and Trees Wall Hanging by All People Quilt
Housing Projects from Quilt Ville
Free Embroidery pattern: Snow City but this could be easily stitched for any season. Just kick start your imagination!

Work in Progress

This year I've had a difficult time getting my head around doing any new work. Life takes over sometimes. Well, I finally started to get my act together and started something new. This is just a small tidbit of the textile piece I'm doing of St. John's, NL. I don't have all the detail in this part yet as there are no chimneys shown and the clapboard on the pink house still has to be done. If you look carefully, you'll see a blue stick pin holding a bush in place. These pieces haven't been sewn down yet.
In case you don't know, St. John's is well known for its colourful houses especially in the downtown section. Since we have a lot of rain, drizzle and fog, it's rather nice to see bright colours in the architecture around the city. It can be so inspiring.
Check out the colourful row houses.
Artist Katherine Munro has painted row houses on silk.
I also found me on the QNN tv website while looking for row houses. Where they got this stuff is a mystery but it's nice to see it there anyway!
There are lots of images including row houses here. This is the result of a search I did on the Bing search engine.
I'll keep you posted on my progress with the St. John's piece.

Appliqué Patterns

Here's one of my machine appliqué Fantasy Fish. I love using batiks as the colours are so bright.






As promised in the previous post, I've made a list of a few sites that have free patterns for Appliqué. Have fun checking them out.
Make Baby Stuff is just that, stuff for baby!
The Stitching Cow has a simple house to do.
Lots of applique patterns at the Sacred Spiral.
Bella Online has some wonderful applique patterns that Judie Bellingham found on her web travels. Something like I'm doing.
A simple butterfly at About.com: DIY Fashion
Wee Folk Art has applique done in felt but that doesn't mean you can't use cotton. In fact, check out the whole web site as there are lots of other patterns too.
Have fun with these!
If you like cats, there is a pattern on Craftown.
Block Crazy has free patchwork and applique patterns.
Teddlywinks has a couple of bear patterns to put on a small wall hanging or mini-quilt.
Applique pitchers in a log cabin quilt.
Welcome spring with this flower applique. More flowers here!
Using geometric shape templates in applique.
Stain Glass Spring Tulip

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me.