A weekend at J C Campbell

Barbara, working on her jacket.

A weekend at J C Campbell

Barbara chose to do the diamond pattern that I had workout for my granddaughter's jacket. It really turned out great. I think I will make one of these for myself.

A weekend at J C Campbell

Louise working on her great looking jacket.

A weekend at J C Campbell

Louise was notified at the last minute that she had gotten into this class. She really didn't have a lot of time to get materials together. However, with the help of some fabric scraps in the storage room of the Fiber Arts Building she was able to put together this great jacket.

A weekend at J C Campbell

Lynne is working on the quilting of her jacket. It is shown below.

A weekend at J C Campbell

This jacket is being made by Lynne and has a hugh amount of quilting. Lynne is quilting 1/4" lines across and 1/4" lines down on the whole jacket. The sleeves have already been quilted and look great. This is going to be an elegant jacket when she finishes.

A weekend at J C Campbell

I taught at J C Campbell this past weekend. We were making a "Jazzy Patchy Jacket".
It's the first time I've done a weekend and let me tell you we hit the floor running. My group of women were so dedicated to this project. This is an easy jacket to make since it is done on a sweatshirt. However, there is a hugh amount of time spend on the sewing machine. Our neighbors, in the room next door, keep coming in to make sure were were still there. We were quite and glued to the machine. That doesn't we didn't time to enjoy each other. This is a photo of our group.

I'm very tired and have been on the computer all day working on a class I will be teaching at Quilter's of SC. I will finish this post tomorrow.

A weekend at J C Campbell

Frances working on the great blue jacket show below.

A weekend at J C Campbell

Frances chose a palette of blue with a little red here and there. She will be able to wear this jacket with anything.

A weekend at J C Campbell

Katharine sewing on her jacket shown below.

A weekend at J C Campbell

Katharine chose my favorite color for her jacket. A great palette of greens. It is shown here hanging at show and tell.

A weekend at J C Campbell

This is my jacket and a sample for the "Jazzy Patchy Jacket" class I taught at J C Campbell last weekend.

A weekend at J C Campbell

This is a sample I made for the class. It will go to my six year old granddaughter, Sydney. I started out on this jacket to make it like the blue jacket. As I worked on the sample I started playing with squares on point and came up with this design.

Focus

I have a very busy Fall, I leave tomorrow for J C Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC where I am teaching a sweatshirt jacket class this weekend.

I am going to come back through Lake Burton where I will leave some work for a Fiber Exhibit at Burton Gallery. In early October I am teaching a weekend class at QSC Retreat in Winnsboro, SC. QSC is the state quilt guild. We have two meetings a year with the Fall Retreat classes being taught by state quilt teachers. In November I will have my first one woman exhibit at the Art's Co. In Seneca, SC. More on that later.

Look at the post below for a look into the Focus meeting this week. Many of our group were teaching, working and being caretakers Wednesday. We missed them all.

Focus

Veronica Moriarty got a real welcome as a new Focus member. Last month was her first meeting with us and we gave her a big project. Veronica came through as we knew she would. This desert scene will become a part of the Everchanging River Exhibit. We have one member who has left the group and wants her piece back so Veronica very generously accepted the challenge. Veronica had to follow the lines of the river running into and out of the scene just as the member before her had. This was to keep from having to redo all those black background pieces for the exhibit. We really gave her a hard job.

Veronica crazy pieced the river as we had limited amounts of fabric left. She chose to do a desert scene with a waterfall coming down into the desert. Obviously this piece is not finished. After a few more changes she is planning to bead as well. Thanks for all your work Veronica.

Focus

This is the beginning of a new work by Janet Ginn. Janet is a pro at selecting colors and all these came from a bag of Slivers she purchased at the AQS show in Knoxville. See the scraps below.

Focus

This is a pile of fabric called "Slivers". Looks like scraps doesn't it? May be scraps but beautiful scraps. This is the pile of fabric that inspired Janet's new quilt above.

Focus

The beginning of Marge Edie's weaving quilt. Much more info below.

Focus

Marge Edie is what I call a technical quilter. She used both sides of her brain when she works. The right side is very creative and comes up with great ideas while the left side is able to put all these ideas into the computer and come up with great patterns to follow. This is a design that Marge came up with many years ago when she was weaving. She has decided to translate the design into a quilt. A lot of work but Marge thrives on this kind of challenge.

High Fiber

The subject for this months experiment out of "Fabric Art Workshop" by Susan Stein was sun painting. Sandra R. printed a photo of the cover of the Beatles album, Abbey Road. It is a photo of the Beatles walking across the road in a line. Sandra made a resist of cardboard using the image of the Beatles. She painted with psychedelic colors and satin stitched to outline the silhouettes. Super looking piece Sandra.

High Fiber

Sandra R. laid leaves and twine as her resist on preprinted fabric. She painted over it using watered down acrylic paint. What interesting results.

High Fiber

Penny L. used already printed fabric for her sun printing experiment. Penny use watered down acrylic paints and the results was just as good as the one's using Setacolor. The original fabric sometimes interfered with the images layered on top of the fabric. I thought they made very interesting patterns.

High Fiber

Penny L. sun dyed over fabric that already had been printed or dyed. The yellow strip show the original fabric.

High Fiber

This is a batik that Barbara H. brought. She has wanted to do something to this piece for a while. I think I cropped most of them off but Barbara had stamped some young women dancing. Barbara wants to show the young woman as well as the older woman.

High Fiber

Several months ago Diane brought this piece for a critic. The bird was beautifully done but needed to be grounded. Diane added grass around the bottom of the bird and her chick. Lovely Diane.

High Fiber

Back in February I went to CA to visit my son's family. There is a wonderful bead shop near them that I always visit. I told everyone that I would get them $5.00 worth of beads and everyone decided that would do a piece using just those beads. Diane's beads were flowers, click on the photo to see it better. She did a great job.

High Fiber

Diane has been making blocks using the apple as her subject for all her projects from the workbook "Fabric Art Workshop" by Susan Stein. She will put them together in one quilt when we are finished with this challenge.

High Fiber

Marge Edie made samples for a transparency class that she was teaching at Lake and Mountain Quilt Guild. She wanted to put them together as one quilt and this is the configuration she decide upon. It makes for and interesting continuation of the hills.

High Fiber

Marge Edie has started a new piece from a weaving patterns. Marge has worked for several years making quilts out of weaving patterns that she used years ago when she worked as a weaver. This piece represents 1/7 of the whole quilt.

High Fiber

Judy painted this piece of fabric with Setacolor. She did a sun painting where she placed objects, in this case, letters spelling peace, egg plant leaves and round circles. Judy used paints with a little water and painted with a brush.

High Fiber

Beatriz is showing us this beautiful black and white jacket she made in a day bee class at LMQG.

High Fiber

This is one of the many prayer shawls Dawn is working on for her church. She does such beautiful hand work.

A quilt tribute to 911

I chose this image to begin my tribute to 911. It is my hope that "We will always remember".

Donna Campbell is now a member of Lake and Mountain Quilt Guild in Seneca, SC. The following quilt was made by her for her husband Rob Campbell.

A quilt tribute to 911

Donna Campbell made this quilt for her husband Rob to honor his service as a fire fighter and as a memorial to 911. Children from St. Francis Cathedral Catholic School in Metuchen, NJ were asked to draw pictures and write their thanks to firemen.

Rob Campbell was Chief of Fire for Edison, NJ at the time of 911. His dept was asked to dispatch rescue units to the site of of the World Trade Center where 343 firefighters lost their lives.

Donna and Rob attended funerals for the next nine Saturdays in respect for the fallen firefighters. Donna says, " Normally a fireman's funeral would have thousands attending. There were so many funerals to attend that some only had 200 present."

Donna says, "Making this quilt was a way I could memorialize the time I spent with my husband at the funerals of firefighter as well as a way of honoring his own service as a firefighter."

A quilt tribute to 911

This is the label Donna made for this quilt describing the meaning behind its creation.

Below are squares that were drawn by students. Donna and Rob chose the ones they liked best and she printed them on fabric.

A quilt tribute to 911

A quilt tribute to 911

A quilt tribute to 911

A quilt tribute to 911

A quilt tribute to 911

sun dying

This image is the result of the organza shadow being laid on wet paint and left in the sun to dry. The background design was made by a black plastic bag that I had laid behind the fabric to protect the table. I really like the lighter streaks to the left top of the shadow.

sun dying

"High Fiber" an art quilt group I belong to choose sun dying as the project for this month. I've sun dyed before so knew a little about what I was going to do. I took a piece of PFD fabric sprayed it with water and applied my paints. I laid out an Angle Hair Fern, this is a very delicate fine fern. I also added a a couple of large leafs from a coleus plant.

I decided to try something a little different and mixed up some paints hoping to get a color close to sepia. I laid a cut-out of a shadow from a photograph I took last February and a piece of organza that I had printed from the same photograph. I was delighted with the results. I predict that you will get tired of this image before I do.

The lighter image on this fabric was accomplished by laying a cut-out of paper on wet painted fabric. The darker image is printed organza.

Facing a quilt

Finished corner.
Well I've managed to post from the end to the beginning again. I just can't get it in my head that I need to start with the beginning and go to the end. I'm sure you can move these post around but I don't know how to do it. Please bear with me I may get it right yet.

Facing a quilt

Fifth step: Cut away any bulk at the corner. This eliminates bulk in the corner.

Facing a quilt

Fourth Step: Cut away the fabric and batting of the quilt close to the seam. Leave the fabric of the facing, do not cut. When you do this it allows the facing to fold over nicely without bulk.

Facing a quilt

Close up of step three.

Facing a quilt

Third step: After the seam allowance has been opened and pressed I stitch within and 1/8" of an inch to the seam allowance.

Facing a quilt

Second step" I press the seam allowance.

Facing a quilt

First step: I start with a 2 1/2" strip of fabric the length of one side of the quilt. I choose the same fabric or close to the background on the front of my quilt. I use a 1/4" or 1/2" seam allowance. I do this to all four sides.

Facing a quilt

The next art quilt, "Summer's Bounty" to the left, needed nothing to close it in or stop the eye. While I was making this piece I took it to Focus, my fiber art group, to ask their opinion.

Judy Simmon's a good friend and fellow fiber artist suggested that I face the quilt. She explained to me that you faced a quilt just as you would face a sleeve in a dress. It worked like a charm and unless there is a reason for me to boarder or bind a quilt I rarely do that any more.

Facing a quilt

When I first started making art quilts I either put a boarder around the finished piece and/or a binding. When I made "Pue de Dome" at the left, I felt that a boarder and/or binding would take away from the art work in the center. I decided that I would frame the piece as you might a painting.