Kristin Shields Quiltmaker

The Undercover Quilters :: 5th Anniversary Celebration

Glass Beads by Jane Davis, inspired by The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato.  Jane made some wonderful blown glass beads and placed them on velvet for an elegant quilt. 

The Undercover Quilters is a quilting book club based in Bend, OR.  We have 12 members, and the only rule is You Must Not Quit!.  We read and discuss a book each month.  Every year we choose one book from the past year to inspire quilts.  Some past books have been:

• 2010: The Good Good Pig by Sy Montgomery  
• 2011: On the Divinity of Second Chances by Kaya McLaren 
• 2012: Love to Water My Soul by Jane Kirkpatrick 
• 2013: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh 

Members don't have to read the book or even make a quilt.  This year we sifted through all of the books we've read since the beginning of the group, leaving out those that had already been done or none of us liked.  We still had about 30 choices so everyone got something they liked.  Only 8 of us made quilts this year mostly due to life changes for the others.  This group of quilts is as varied as the makers themselves.  Enjoy!

**Click the photos to enlarge

The Zookeeper's Wife by Sally Black, inspired by The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman.  Sally has been doing some fabulous work with portraits.  Her leaves are 3 dimensional, bringing the viewer right into the scene.

The Help by Susan Mondry, inspired by The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  Susan's piece has some important symbolism that needs an explanation. Susan writes, "I wanted to integrate the friendships that developed in the book with all of the women of various color.  I used hand dyed skin tone fabrics and wanted to represent the women growing closer as they worked on the book together, thus the size of the pieces getting smaller as they move to the center.  The friendships in the book were so unique and special, as are the friendships of the women of The Undercover Quilters."  Pretty special, isn't it?

Benny & Shrimp:: Like Chalk and Cheese by Kristin Shields, inspired by Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti.  This title needs a little explanation.  The story is about Farmer Benny and City Girl Shrimp.  As it says in the book, they are as alike as "chalk and cheese", meaning NOT AT ALL!  My quilt depicts the Swedish winter, the deliniation between rural and city life, and the sense of time passing.  Throughout the book, they both consider their biological clocks and how they are ticking away in their mid-thirties.  

Heartbeats by Betty Gientke, inspired by The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker.  Betty's quilt is made with sumptuous silk fabrics and depicts many hearts beating.

Wild by Wanda Barkhurst, inspired by Wild by Cheryl Strayed.  Wanda has created many different paper pieced animals and other sights that the author saw on her trek on the Pacific Crest Trail.  

The Empress by Cindy O'Neal, inspired by The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan.  Cindy has developed a real talent for faces.  On this piece she writes, "I struggled initially with deciding on a color for the face and finally decided to use all of them, focusing more on value rather than color.  I love the results!"

The River by the Bay by Martha Sanders, inspired by Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.  Martha has become well known for her 3 dimensional quilts and this is no exception!  Martha writes, "In the last story, Olive and Jack find friendship and a new beginning.  Here, Olive and Jack sit at the river by the bay.  It's a cloudy, windy day, somewhat like their lives have been."  Martha used watercolor pencils to draw the image of the figures.  Then she took it a step further and copied the image onto fabric.  The print is on the front of the quilt (enhanced with thread painting) and the original is on the back and serves as the quilt label.

 This 5th anniversary finds The Undercover Quilters in a stage of development that is much farther along than we might have been without this group.  We have all tried countless new techniques, developed lasting friendships and created some wonderful exhibits.  It's been a fantastic 5 years, with many more to come!  This last photo was taken at our group quilt reveal in early August.  Susan's quilt was the perfect opportunity for a group photo of a different kind.  If any of my readers is curious about starting a book/quilt group or is part of one, I'd love to hear from you in the comments.  

PS: I discovered while writing this post that many of the other quilt exhibits have never been posted about here on the blog.  That's something I plan to remedy.  I will take care of that in the coming weeks.  It's going to be a very busy early fall, but I will try to post at least every week about all that's going on.

Love in Bloom :: The Language of Flowers Quilt Reveal

Ta-da!  Love in Bloom is finished, just in time for quilt collection tomorrow.  Our guild show is on Saturday and it is our plan every year to have that be the debut display for our book quilts.  Last night was the quilt reveal meeting.  Our quilts this year are inspired by The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.  More on that below.

I had lots of fun with the embroidery here.  The story is set in San Francisco, so I wanted to have the bridge, the city and the flower fields on the other side of the bay. Not realistic, but that's okay.  It's folk art!

The city wouldn't be complete without some city buildings, a few painted ladies and a cable car.

The flower fields are signified with tiny french knots and the bay seemed a little lonely, so I added the sailboat.  The border is full of flowers that I'm calling dahlias. In the language of flowers, dahlias are for dignity.  

Below are the quilts from last night's reveal.  We have twelve members and 10 of us managed to make enough headway to get ours nearly done by last night.  The other two are encouraged to keep on going, but finishing a quilt each year is not the point.  The point is the friendships we've created.

Jane Davis and her lovely flowers in a vase.  The red flowers are created with wool applique.

Cindy O'Neal and her incredible portrait quilt.  Cindy is getting really good with the portraits.  Look for more fabulous-ness from her!

Janelle Rebick's quilt includes the thread painted bee.  So wonderful!

Betty Geintke's quilt has incredible silk work. It shines from within.

Martha Sander's daisies literally leap off the quilt.  This is going to be fabulous!

Sally Black's flowers were inspired by the design on her i-Phone cover!

Sandie Woodbeck's lovely flower basket was finished despite some recent health challenges. Isn't it pretty!

Susan Mondry's Language of Flowers was made with a vintage linen that had some flowers and their meanings- pretty cool!  She added some sweet patchwork and more vintage linens.

Wanda Barkhurst made this incredible quilt with fused bits of fabric that are 1/2" square, I believe.  She embellished her work with hundreds of beads and the cool looking fence.

And this is me.  My quilt was not quite done last night.  I'm so glad it's ready now though.  If you are in the area, the Mt Bachelor Quilters' Guild Quilt Show in the Park is this Saturday, 10-4 in Pioneer Park in Bend.  Hope to see you there!

MBQG Quilt Show:: Wrapping it up

Another Quilt Show in the Park has come and gone.  It was a really nice day~ perfect temps and lots of visitors.  Here are the last of the photos to show.  Just some of my favorites!

 







 

 

I had 7 quilts in the show , but they've all been seen here numerous times.  I did want to show Ryan and me with his quilt though.  Can you believe how tall he is!  

Next time back to process photos.  I've nearly gotten my sewing room cleaned up after a summer of neglect.  New plans and projects for fall are starting to jell.  And it feels like fall too.  This weekend highs will be in the 60's.   I'm not sure I'm quite ready for that!

PS:  I guess you all know me too well!  Yes, mine was Whimsy.

MBQG:: Challenge Quilts

 

This year I took on the responsibility for the guild challenge.  It was lots of fun to come up with an idea and see it through. I finally decided on the theme, "One Little Word".  Rules were to choose a word that has meaning to you, create a quilt inspired by the word and then to put the word in the quilt.  We had 10 entries and they are all wonderful!  See for yourself!

 

Left:  MUSE, an art quilt created with a 3D quilt on her lap.  Right:  SENEGAL, all fabrics are from Africa.

 

KIWILAND, made with some beautiful New Zealand fabrics.  The note at the top asks the viewer to find the kiwis in the quilt.

 

LEARN, this quilt has examples of an applique technique the quilter was working on.

 

CALIFORNIA, great scenes on this quilt of California life.

 

FOREST, beautiful color in these trees.

 

BUBBLES, no mistaking the word here!  This quilt was created by placing a sheer over the cotton fabric. Then she quilted and used trapunto on the letters.

 

FINISHED, a sentiment we can all sympathize with!

 

WHIMSY, folk art applique!

OPEN, by the owner of our newest local quilt shop!

I'll see if you can guess which one is mine.  We had a vote at the July guild meeting for Best Applique, Best Piecing, Best Use of Color and Best Interpretation of the Theme.  At the show we had a vote for Viewer's Choice.  I haven't tallied the votes yet, so even I don't know who won, but prizes will be awarded at the September meeting.  I'll be sure to do an update after that!

MBQG Quilt Show:: Next Generation

 

One of the great exhibits in our show is the Next Generation display, featuring quilts from younger members of the community.  This year we had a lot of entrants including my son and his two friends.  We got together one day a couple of weeks ago to get their quilts started and I offered some of my hand dyes to work with.  

 

Peter's quilt, "Tree House", was completely done by him.  He used fusible applique and did all the machine stitching.

 

Sam's quilt, "Thread Homestead", was also done completely by him.  I showed him how to do the curved piecing in the background and he add the fusible applique and did hand stitched quilting.

 

My son, Ryan, designed this quilt called " Stunt Truck".  He drew out the design and I helped with cutting, fusing and sewing.  Some of you may recall that my son is mentally disabled, so it was a bit of a challenge for him.  he did a great design though and is very proud of his work.

 

Sam and Peter show off their wonderful art quilts.  These brothers have been in 4H sewing for the past year and their skills are certainly coming along.  They are already planning something for next year!

  

Ryan and I with his truck quilt.

Another proud young quilter is Kendra, daughter of one our guild members and quilt shop owners.  She's been around quilting all her life and did this one three years ago when she was 15!  More photos of the show tomorrow!

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!