Inspired Quilt Art

2007-05-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

I'm a grown up girl now and I've got my own portfolio site now! Please click on over to www.inspiredfiber.com and follow my art and rumblings from there. I'll be taking down this blog after awhile since I'll only be keeping the permanent site up to date.

See you on the flip side at www.inspiredfiber.com!

2007-05-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

Space Odyssey is a complete departure from the norm as I'm not quite sure you can really call it a "quilt", but you can definitely call it fiber art! I have always been enamored by those infrared pictures of the nebulas in space like you see on Space.com. This piece combines my interpretation of those images along with a little fantasy as I placed a planet into the mix. Wouldn't it be cool to live on a planet in the middle of such beauty?

What makes this piece a departure is the fact that there is no quilt batting and backing. (this is the middle and back of the typical "quilt sandwich". Instead, this piece is made of the following "sandwich" (from bottom to top):

washable stabilizer
tulle (like a bridal veil)
strips of randomly cut pieces of fabric in different colors layered over each other
more tulle
more washable stablizer

Once I had this layered, I then scribbled all over the quilt in a semi-random pattern with free-motion machine stitching. This is required to keep all the layers together and ensure that the fabric strips don't shift. I needed to scribble over every piece of fabric to hold it in place.

Then I came back with decorative threads and free motion stitched in the shading and light source. From the detailed photo on the left you can see both the scribbling stitches as well as the decorative stiches.

This piece was a blast to make, and very light. There are places in the piece that you can see all the way through the piece and that makes it even more fun!

One tidbit of info for you fiber artists out there if you want to try this. Black tulle (used on this piece) will make your fabric colors more vibrant. White tulle will mute the colors and make them paler.

2007-04-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

This fiber artist has been quite busy starting her own technology company. In January 2007, I decided that working for someone else left me knowing that I could do so much more, yet with my hands tied not being able to do it! So, I resigned my position at Webroot Software and joined forces with two other great women technologists to form TriCalyx.

TriCalyx focuses on assisting small to medium businesses to optimize their online business through quality web design, search engine optimization (SEO), data integration and reporting. Among the three of us, we have several years of experience in this field, while each of us also bring unique skills to the table that complement each other.

The TriCalyx corporate web site debuted last week and was fully designed (including our logo) by me. Many thanks to the rest of the team for tireless hours generating content and doing numerous reviews.

While I've had oodles of time to quilt, I've been much remiss in posting my art to this site. Stay tuned for more art coming your way in the next post!

2007-02-07T14:26:00.000-08:00

I Dream of Lotus started as a study in how to draft a circular design. I am especially drawn to the Norah McMeeking's quilt designs based on italian mosiacs. She has seemed to master the art of designing-in-the-round and I figured with my mathematical background (and high expectations for myself) how hard could it be? I was soon to be sorely mistaken!

My design inspiration was a lotus blossom as if it were seen from above. I wanted to design something that would be meditative and would drive my seeking mind inward to find a bit of peace and tranquility -- something I have sorely needed during these last few months in a day-job!

First I calculated how many points I needed the flower to have in order to be symmetrical. I then drafted out equal-sized pie-shaped segments and marked them fully on the red background in washable ink. I then drew circles around the center every 1 inch out. Where the circles and lines met would be the intersection of the petals.

The entire background of the piece was quilted with free-motion stitching before the flower design was applied. As you can see from the detailed photo, the strips that make up the petals where layered on top at the end. To make the petals, I cut out bias strips and made tubes. These tubes were then sewn down the center along the intersecting points to form the petals. To get the layering effect, I needed to determine which petals where sewn down first so that the colors would interweave properly.

If you look at the detailed picture to the left closely, you can see the quilt stitching (a stippling look) underneath the entire design. The center area was cut it of fabric much like you would cut out a snowflake when you were a child. It was ironed onto design and then over-stitched in a freeform manner.

This piece was quite challenging and took several hours (days ... weeks ...) to complete. Much of it was trial an error since I had no pre-conceived notions of how it was to be done.

I'm happy to say that completing this work kept me very sane during some turbulent times! I'm also happy to report that creating it helps me to design to DO ONLY THAT WHICH I LOVE! So, I quit my day-job, am enjoying a few weeks off while I attract another one that is more in line with my principles and beliefs on how people should be treated. In the meantime, look for me to be turning out even more insanely complex fiber art!

2006-11-14T18:56:00.000-08:00

Tumble to Infinity is a testament to my desire to just wing it! This work utilized all the various scraps of material that I have accumulated over the past several years that matched the color scheme. ALWAYS save your scraps that are over 1" by 1". You can always use them somewhere! This work was created piece by piece. As I created, I never really knew what I was going to do next, and this is what eventually what popped out.

For this work I randomly sewed strips of fabric into radiating squares. All the radiating where then cut into 6.5" x 6.5" squares and put together into a pleasing color combination. The circles are simply these same radiating squares which looked much better as circles. The stitching was done with varigated thread which radiated out from the circles to echo ripples when a stone is dropped into water. The background was simply stitched in the ditch to give it texture. The border was stippled randomly.

This color combination is an analogous run of the following colors: yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue, blue-violet, violet, and red-violet. An analogous run is one that contains only one primary color (in this case, blue) and then selects from 2 to 6 other colors on the color wheel that surround the primary color. There cannot be two primary colors in an analogous run.

2006-09-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

Lifeline was designed as an acknowledgement to a particular stress in life. In this quilt I captured the way our pulse races and our blood surges when people are disrespectful and mean to us. With the yellow-green areas, I wanted to capture how these people can get under our skin so easily and undermine our health and our lives.

As I worked on this quilt, I realized that the yellow-green also captures the feeling of envy or jealously. Making this quilt really helped me realize that people who behave in this mean and disrespectful manner are typically trying to make us look unimportant so that they can seem big. Frankly, I think people eventually see them for exactly who they are.

The quilting in the red-violet areas shows the flow of blood as it surges through the body. In some areas it clots, which is shown by the circular forms in the red-violet areas. In the yellow-green area, I wanted to capture the beating of the heart as you would see it on a heart monitor. In this particular case -- ragged and wild.

Once again, this quilt was made as a project in my Color and Design class. The color selection this month was "direct complements". To create the contrast necessary for this quilt, I found I needed to select yellow-greens with light tints and for the red-violet I needed dark shades. I separated the sections via piping, and I also piped around the inner and outer borders. The piece was almost entirely constructed with raw-edge piecing which are fused onto a muslin backing.

2006-08-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

Windsong evokes the feeling of a feather blowing in the wind. The quilt encompasses every shade, tint and tone of the color blue-green and floats on a black background (with tiny white dots).

The ribbon effect is created through applying sheer organza in a twisted ribbon design. I placed the ribbon on the mid-plane in order to evoke a 3-dimensional feeling. The main image, made from random strips of blue-green fabrics, also incorporates shading to give the illusion of depth.

The main image is a floating applique that was applied to the background fabric using machine applique and monofilament thread. The black background is heavily machine quilted in a feather design using black rayon thread.

In this detailed photo, you can see one of the two medallions that form the circles. These were made by gathering a tube of fabric along one side and drawing it into a circle. They were hand-stitched on as the last element to be applied.

In this detail photo you can also see the metallic circular stitching on the sheer organza and the satin cording that was couched onto the edge of the organza with a multi-color rayon zigzag stitch.

Creating this quilt taught me a great deal about working with curves on a large surface. The quilt needed to be blocked for several days in order to get it to lay flat. Additionally, I finished the binding on this quilt in the pillowcase style. This was likely a wrong decision given the large size of the piece.

This quilt resides over my desk at work, and reminds me to stay calm during high times of stress.

2006-08-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

Bolder Nights was created as a study in neutrals for a color design class that I'm taking (one quilt per month!). This quilt utilizes many different black-on-black, grey-on-grey, pure black and white fabrics.

I didn't have much in mind when designing this quilt beyond just being able to make it through my first month's quilt without being laughed out of the group! One morning on my drive to work, I looked up at the Flatirons (part of the Rocky Mountains) that tower over Boulder Colorado and realized this quilt evoked the feeling I experience every evening as the sun sets over the Flatirons. Hence, the name Bolder Nights was born.

This quilt was a bold move as I started adding the clear glass beads on only one week before the project was due. There are about 800 beads on this piece, added by hand in about 14 hours (I saw many great movies that week!) The beads layer over metallic threads which make the "moon-burst". Yes, the entire "moon" is covered in these beads! The metallic thread was sewn in the bobbin, so it was all completed by sewing from the "back". Don't let this technique frighten you. It's rather easy as long as you've outlined your sewing area in monofilament thread so that you know which lines to quilt within. I typically do most of this type of sewing once the main quilting is almost complete.

I love the floating applique technique which you'll see on most of my latest quilts. The grey swirly pieces where completed with this technique. First the black/white teeth where paper-pieced, then the two grey sides were machine appliqued onto the center. First I temporarily glue the edge of the grey strips under (with an acid-free glue stick) then use mono-filament thread with an applique stitch. Once each piece is complete, I again use the glue stick to glue the edges under, then applique it onto the background. When you get some practice with this technique, you will find that even complex patterns can go together within minutes! (Remember that your freezer-paper pattern is ironed to the RIGHT side of the fabric in this technique, otherwise you'll glue your paper into your quilt!

I'm proud of this quilt. It currently hangs in my bathroom where I can look at it every morning!

2006-07-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my Inspired Fiber Art journal. In this journal I will chronicle my journey into creating inspired fiber art - quilts with attitude, I like to say!

I will publish images of each piece of art that I produce as well as discuss the process behind creating each piece. Perhaps those that read this journal will be inspired to venture out of their "usual" mode a little and try some new techniques with me.

I am interested in your feedback as that will help me learn more techniques and work toward strengthening my skills.

I would not consider myself a "traditional artist" by any stretch of the imagination. I could not draw a scene in perspective to save my life. And then I realized, neither could other very famous artists through the centuries! I do NOT believe that artistic talent is bestowed upon people at birth. I believe that we are all artistic in some way. I believe that true art manifests itself when we just do what we want and do not allow its creation to be dictated by how we feel others will perceive it.

I hope you like my art, but if you don't, I hope you at least let me know how you feel when you view it.

Stay tuned!

Kath