Stitching Hands Studio

Janelle Rebick

My friend, Janelle Rebick, is this month's featured quilter at QuiltWorks.  Janelle is a multitalented fiber artist and a member of my book club, The Undercover Quilters.  I hope you enjoy this slideshow!

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Sunflowers Moon Stars

Today's musing over at SunMoonStars was about this method of creating a sun/moon/star burst.  I found myself so intrigued I dropped everything and started making.  The star below was the first one, the pieces above came afterwards and need to be finished.  I do need some sunflowers for my Second Chances quilt, so I made several of them to give it a try.  The version top left is a little what-iffing with a square center and I may add more points.

I've already added the first star made with this method to the top right (above).

The center was created with an off cut from the moon.  The points are made with the backside of this great Kaffe Fassett print.

I really like it!

Kapitoil Quilts: The Grand Finale

The culmination of the Novel Idea program was a big success!  Teddy Wayne came to QuiltWorks to see the quilts in person and got a private tour with the quilters.  It was so much fun to meet and discuss with him how his work influenced us.  Above Erin Biskup, on the left, talks about her quilt with Teddy and Chantal, one of the librarians who were part of his entourage.

Pris Brubaker discusses her quilt.

Everyone got a kick out of Jill Monley's Oil Futures quilt.

Teddy taking a close look at Jean Egle's quilt.  Jean used hand calligraphy to write on the gold ribbon of fabric running through her quilt.  

Mary Ann Lisk also got a quick chance to talk with Teddy.  Mary Ann works at the shop which was in the midst of a very busy first day of the Central Oregon Shop Hop.  She had to get right back to work!

Teddy and me!

And the whole group!

On Friday night, the lecture at the Tower Theater was presented to a sold out crowd.  My book club and a few guests, including Chloe, went out to dinner and then to the lecture.  It was such a great evening.  Teddy is a funny guy so the presentation was full of laughter.

I was totally surprised to see slides of our quilts projected on the screen for all to see!

There was a special presentation of Mary Ann Lisk's quilt to Teddy as a thank you.  Sorry for my blurry photos, but I thought they were important to show.

As we left the theater I intended to get a photo of that great Tower sign.  We stopped at the candy shop and I thought I'd go in for a moment and get the photo afterwards.  When we came out, 10 minutes later, the sign guys were already changing it up!  So, what's next?  I'm working on my next book quilt, On the Divinity of Second Chances.  In a couple of weeks the QuiltWorks quilters will get together to choose another book to interpret in cloth.  I may not be able to help myself!

Telamadera Fusion and The Undercover Quilters (plus one)

A week ago, my book/quilt group, The Undercover Quilters, had a great idea to do a group workshop.  Two members had taken classes in Telamadera Fusion with Alma de la Melena Cox.  Alma's book is now out and called Collage Fusion.  If you are interested in this technique, all the particulars can be found there.  We thought that those two could teach the rest of us how to do the technique and we'd have a fun gathering too!  Above is the piece that Martha did in her original class.  I just love this design and have the pattern, so I may make it some day.  I forgot to get a photo of Erin's, but hers is wonderful too.  Telamadera is the fusion of the Spanish word for fabric-tela and the word for wood-madera. 

The Undercover Quilters are a fantastic group of 12 women.  We meet every month to discuss a book and once a year make a quilt based on a book.  In this case, 7 of us could make it and Chloe joined us for the fun.  The first thing to do is prepare the wood by transferring your pattern and wood burning the lines.  All but one of us chose to do the wood burning.  It's not an easy skill and you can see my lines are certainly not perfect.  I like the texture of it though.

The next step is to paint the wood.  We used regular craft acrylic paints.  The most fun were the metallic shades. If you hover your mouse over the pictures below you will see who made what.

The next step is to choose fabrics to fill in the spaces and cut pattern pieces from Steam a Seam to fuse them down.  The fabric is cut so that the painted background peeks out from behind.

The next step is to add more details with paint.

The piece above is Cindy's.  She was the only one who chose to not add the wood burning detail. She did add some lines with a Sharpie pen.  I love her painted dots and the clever use of novelty fabric.

Chloe and I brought ours home to finish the painting.  The last step is to cover the surface with 10 coats of high gloss varnish.  We had to order our varnish, so these pieces are still as you see them here.  When the varnish is added, the lustre of the fabrics really comes out and it just looks incredible.  I'll post photos when they are finished!

Slow Stitching Update

I've been doing lots of slow stitching lately.  It's my take along and evening crafting activity now that the carpel tunnel syndrome has reared it's ugly head again.  I can't knit much, but I can sew!  Above is one of my next book projects.  The challenge for my book/quilt group, The Undercover Quilters, is to create a quilt based on the book, On the Divinity of Second Chances by Kaya McLaren. I had been thinking for a long time that I wanted to incorporate ideas from the classes I've been taking over the last year with Jude Hill.  So, this one is woven, with some tricks thrown in.  All of the fabric is indigo dyed, mostly by me though there are some pieces from Glennis in here too.  

All of the vertical strips are from a vintage flour sack cloth.  The horizontal strips are various things such as the lace table runner above, a thrift store shirt and pants (linen), Kona cotton crush, a very fine vintage cotton hankie, and more bits and bobs.

The two shibori pieces above are from Glennis and set into the cloth with mosaic weaving.

The strip above is from a piece of indigo fabric I got last summer at the Olympia, Washington Farmer's Market.  It's just overlaid on another strip.

The double weaving is made with Japanese indigo fabric that I believe I ordered on Etsy

Now, I"m to the point where I get to add the focal points of this quilt story.  I"m making a tree with a swing and the moon in the corner.  Most of the other fabrics for this quilt are also hand dyed by me with synthetic dyes.

Moving on, there is another quilt/book challenge that I'm participating in.  The truth is, I can't read a book now without thinking about how I would interpret it in cloth!  This one is Kapitoil by Teddy Wayne.  This is the new Novel Idea book for our county library system.  Everyone in the area is encouraged to read the book.  In April there will be many library events to celebrate and a lecture by the author.  QuiltWorks has coordinated the quilt challenge to coincide with the author's visit.  He's already been informed and is excited to see the quilts.

The main character in the book, Karim, is a computer engineer from Qatar working temporarily in New York City at the turn of the century.  The book is a humorous account of his attempts to fit in to the culture, but always his good nature and integrity come through. I really enjoyed the book.  Karim's life has been heavily influenced by the Beatles songs his mother used to play for him.  I had many thoughts about what I'd like to do, but settled on depicting the song Imagine by John Lennon.  This one is smaller and I will hopefully have plenty of time to finish it by the end of March.  This quilt also has a lot of indigo and hand dyed fabrics as well has hand dyed embroidery floss.

Above, some of my indigo stash.  I have a lot more fabric, but those are all the precious indigo threads I dyed last summer.

In other slow stitching news, the piece above is from Cloth to Cloth 2 last summer.  I finally got around to adding some of Jude's trees and the pre embroidered sun fabric given to me by a friend.  This is a doodle cloth.  I have been adding stitch to it without any real plan.  I"m not sure where it will end up.  Below are two very small postcard size pieces I made just to try them out.  I will give these to the Wendy's Wish program at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.  They are in the middle of binding.

Well that's it for now. I'm still making the string blocks even though there will be a limit to the amount of postage to Australia I can afford.  Extra blocks will go to my quilt guild.  Later!

A woven composition

 

Checking in from the land of lung infections.  Chloe had pneumonia (still coughing, but recovering nicely) and now I've got bronchitis.  Yuck!  

This piece is my composition made from weavings from the Cloth to Cloth 2 class.  I'm so sad that it's over, but Jude is making plans for future classes and you know I'll be there!  I had so much fun learning about all these techniques.  I'm now quilting it and will then embellish with more stitching.  By the way, can you tell that the star is made by weaving.  It's one of the most interesting techniques Jude taught.

My book/quilt group, The Undercover Quilters, has chosen our book for this year's quilt project.  It's called On the Divinity of Second Chances by Kaya McLaren.  If you haven't read it yet, you must!  It has so many possibilities for interpretation in cloth.  Anyway, I've got some ideas for what I want to do and I'd like it to be done in the style of a spirit cloth.  One of the themes of the book is the moon and what she sees.  Recently, I saw on a blog a wonderful rendition of the moon with a face.  For the life of me, though, I can't remember where I saw that.  If any of you remember a moon face done in cloth, please direct me there.  I'd like to include cloth weaving and lots of stitch.  For now, it's just in the thinking phase.  I haven't made any sketches or played with fabric yet, but I will document the process here as it evolves.  So long, I've got to rest!

The Undercover Quilters:: The Good Good Pig

 

My book/quilt group, The Undercover Quilters, was just beginning last fall when we chose our first book to interpret in cloth.  It was The Good Good Pig, by Sy Montgomery.  The subtitle is, "the extraordinary life of christopher hogwood".  While this true story centers around an amazing pig who was allowed to live out a full life, the other characters are fascinating too.  Of our 12 members, 11 chose to make a quilt based on the book.  Today, the group of quilts was featured in a special exhibit at the Mt. Bachelor Quilters Guild show.  Our group is full of talented and creative artists.  When we get together, once a month, it's always a fun time filled with delicious food, laughter and lots of great ideas. 

 

"The Ladies" by me.  In the book the Ladies were described thus, "The Ladies looked like a small flock of cheerful nuns- if nuns had crimson combs and orange eyes and scaly yellow feet.  With industry and precision, the Ladies pecked at bugs and seeds around the barnyard, stole scraps from Christopher’s bowl when he wasn’t looking, and generally kept the pig company when Howard and I were in the house writing."  My Ladies are a bit more flamboyant than the description, but colorful ladies came to mind and so wouldn’t ladies have purses, hats and pearls?

 

"In a Pig's Eye- view from Pig Plateau" by Martha.  Martha finished her quilt yesterday!  This was amazing as it wasn't even layered when we saw it on Thursday evening!  

 
  

"The Ladies" by Susan.  Susan did a take off on Freddy Moran's chickens.  Her chicken wire fabric is just fantastic!

   

"The Apple Tree" by Cindy.  Cindy "cavemanned" her strips to create the curved piecing.  It was so much fun to see this quilt evolve over time.  Her quilt comes from a quote in the book, "And that was how I spent the afternoon: lying beside someone I loved, watching the clouds and the dragonflies and the sun streaming through the leaves of the apple tree."  ("Someone I loved" refers to Christopher.)

 

"Christopher raids a garden"  by Sally.  Sally left evidence of Christopher and The Ladies leaving the garden.

 

"Where's Christopher?" by Betty.  Betty chose to show Christopher on one of his many journeys around the neighborhood in search of food.  He was famous for trampling gardens.

"Oh there you are, I've been looking for you" by Erin.  There's lots of beautiful hand stitching on this one.  Christopher is depicted in wool here.

 
  

"What is Beer but Liquid Grain" by Janelle.  Christopher loved to drink beer.  Janelle got permission from Sy Montgomery to use an actual photo of Christopher to work from.  In the original photo he was drinking a Schlitz, but one of our local brewers creates Black Butte Porter, Janelle's favorite. She got permission from the Deschutes Brewery to use their label in this quilt.  There is so much thread painting on this one- it's amazing!

 

"No onions, lemons, oranges or tomatoes thank you!" by Sandie.  Christopher ate most everything, but did have an aversion to these four items which are placed out in the four corners of the quilt.  

 

"The Good Good Pig" by Wanda.  This quilt is amazing for it's attention to detail.  First of all, it's a book.  You can't see them here, but the bottom has layers of fabric like pages of a book (complete with book mark).  The title is at the top (doesn't show well in this photo, but it's at the top of this post).  The image of Christopher is from a real photo of him.  Wanda created it with tiny little squares of fabric- mosaic style.

 

The Ladies and Tess, the border collie, feature too.

 

Surrounding Christopher's head are many words and phrases referring to pigs.

 

There is also an amazing variety of selvages with words that apply to the book.  

 

"A good good pig goes to heaven" by Jane.  This quilt depicts the endless buckets of slops that the community brought to help feed Christopher.  He dined on everything (save the dislikes mentioned above).  Jane says she always imagined her quilt with Christopher ascending to heaven with all the slops a pig could want.  

 

At our monthly meetings, members would bring their quilts to show progress, invite discussion, get ideas and help with design issues.  Many members tried new techniques on their quilts.  We traded feedback and supplies.  Having a theme to build our quilts upon has been wonderful.  In the intervening 10 months we read and discussed many other books.  Last fall we had a crazy idea to create a quilt every 3-4 months.  We quickly realized that wasn't feasible and have it down to 1 a year, just right for a group of busy women.  We are ready to pick our next book  and I can assure you the coming year will be just as much fun as the last!