Kristin Shields Quiltmaker

Snow Day

 

It's been another crazy, busy week.  I finally got a breather today, but woke up to a fantastic snow storm.  It was so pretty today that I took two photo walks and haven't gotten to the sewing yet (I will in just a minute though).  Tomorrow I'll post about the sewing stuff that's happened lately!

Benny & Shrimp :: Like Chalk and Cheese

Last night was the quilt reveal for The Undercover Quilters Book Club.  Our August meeting is always fun.  Even though we see each other's quilts in progress throughout the year, the final reveal is always a surprise.  This year, our 5th Anniversary year, we decided to change things up and each do a different book from the past 5 years.  We got to choose our favorite from about 30 possible titles.  My book is Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti.  The story is about farmer Benny and recent widow and city girl Shrimp, who are about 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.  

I enjoyed the making of this piece.  It's created on crinoline and has acrylic paint to soften the edges of the randomly sewn background patches.  I experimented with metallic thread (and love it now!) and did a lot of the stitching with the top just on batting.  Then I added a backing and did a few quilting lines to stitch it together.  The final hurdle was the black machine stitched trees, which I was so afraid to do.  In the end, about a week ago, I just got out a bit of sample cloth and practiced a bit, held my breath and did it on the quilt.  It was not so difficult, but every time I try something new I break a little more out of the box.  That's something I hope everyone tries!

All of the quilts from our books will be on exhibit at this Saturday's Mt Bachelor Quilters' Guild show in Pioneer Park, 10-4.  Hope to see you there!  If not, I'll be posting photos next week.

What I did today

It's been another busy few weeks.  Mark had to have 2 back surgeries in the past few weeks!  The first time, it didn't quite fix the problem.  In fact, the problem got much worse.  He's doing a whole lot better now, in fact, better enough to assist me today in a little photo shoot!

I needed to get a good banner shot for the Mt Bachelor Quilters' Guild website.  This was the vision I had from the time I started the blog and I'm so glad it worked out so well. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the mountain is looking quite resplendent in its winter finery. You can check out the blog here and consider joining us!  The quilt was made as a joint project by several members of the guild a few years ago.

I am working on a few more Christmas ornaments for the shop.  I'll post here and on Facebook when I get them finished.  I hope you have an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving and start to the Holiday season!

The Spirit of the Wood

My Novel Idea quilt is done!  The Spirit of the Wood was inspired by The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, which was chosen as the Deschutes Public Library Novel Idea Book this year.  This fabulous story was itself inspired by the Russian folktale of The Snow Child or The Snow Maiden.  It is set in Alaska in the 1920's and tells the story of a childless couple who somehow come to know a small girl who survives in the Alaskan winters in the company of a red fox.  Previous posts are here and here.

I read this book during the snowiest part of our winter, just after Christmas, and it was magical.  There are so many passages that are evocative of the time and place, so many opportunities to be creatively inspired.  I took notes and could have made a dozen different quilts.  It was very hard to pare it down to the things I most wanted to have in my quilt.  In fact, if I had the time I have two other ideas I'd love to make into quilts!

The fox was the very first thing I wanted to have here and it was a bit of a challenge to try to get an approximation of the colors and the eyes.  Faces are always a challenge for me, but in the folk art tradition, eyes do not have to be symmetrical and perfect.  In this quilt, the Spirit of the Wood may be the fox, the owl, or even the trees.  I needed a title that wasn't just "The Snow Child" and spent a 1/2 hour browsing the pages to find something that would fit.  How perfect is this name given that embroidered "S"!  

While there were many different animals mentioned in the book (I made a list of over 30), I didn't notice owls.  However, this one just begged to be included and adds the touch of color I wanted up there by the moon.

The "S" could signify snow child, snow, snowflakes, snow angels, stars, swan feathers, spirit or even Shields.  I think it looks a bit like a cloud in the sky.  

Subtle elements I included are the snow angels and swan feathers, both important to the story.  In addition to the wonderful plot of this book, there are many references to hand sewing and embroidery.  I tried to emulate Mabel's hand stitched snowflakes.

The book title is couched to the bottom of the panel with some of my hand spun yarn and embroidery floss.

The panel itself is made from a vintage table runner that already had the crocheted edging.  I cut it in half and dyed it in indigo last summer, before I knew about the book project.  I love reusing vintage textiles this way.  In fact, the "S" fabric is an indigo dyed vintage hanky, the snow is made from two different vintage (and well used) kitchen linen towels.  The edging at the top is an indigo overdyed linen table cloth.  It's the only part that was machine sewed because I was running out of time and my fingers were too sore to contemplate hand sewing it down.  The trees and fox were hand dyed by me (except the trunks which are a commercial batik).

I hope you enjoyed this mini tour of The Spirit of the Wood.  This piece will hang in the QuiltWorks gallery for the whole month of April.  The reception is Friday, April 5, 5-7 pm and there will be 50-60 quilts in this Snow Child exhibit.  I've seen many of them and it's going to be amazing!  We hope the author will have a chance to see the quilts when she comes for her lectures the first weekend of May.

The Snow Child Applique

Things are coming along with my Snow Child piece, though not quite as fast as I would like.  I have most of the applique done, but haven't been able to work on it very much this week due to other obligations and a nagging neck pain.  This pain is exacerbated by looking down as I always do when I'm hand sewing.  I am seeing a chiropracter tomorrow and hope for some relief soon.  

I have lots of ideas for embellishing this piece.  We are leaving on Saturday for a vacation somewhere warm and wonderful and I thought I might bring this for something to do on the airplane.  I have done a mixture of turned and raw edge applique. I'm also taking advantage of the edgings that some of the vintage linens came with.  I love working with these old linens.  They are so soft and pliable, so interesting to look at and it feels great to breathe new life into an old kitchen towel!

I've used harem cloth as a base layer and this will end up being the "batting" for this piece.  This is a technique I learned from Jude Hill.  It's lovely and light to work with, but really adds a nice bit of dimension to the stitching. It's also tames some of the squirrely linens and silk I like to use.  

I just sent in my entry form to participate in the Around the Block Fiber Arts Stroll on July 7.  I plan to demonstrate using vintage linens in small textile art pieces.  I did a demo on slow cloth last year and this will be somewhat similar, but I plan to have a lot of my newer pieces made with vintage linens. 

I will be back here in two weeks, unless I do a mini post while on the beach.  Aloha!

Happy New Year!

I think I will take a few more days to relax and enjoy the season.  Happy New Year to you and yours.  See you next year!

A Snowy Walk

Parade Weather **

If you don't follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr or Tumblr, or happen to get the local paper, then you haven't seen this photo yet!  I get a kick out of our daily duck parade everytime I see  it.  They go by the house multiple times a day, from the pond to the left of the photo, past our house and up the street to rest in the lawns of houses on the other street.  Why they do it is a big mystery to me.  They hardly ever stop in our yard to rest.  

Anyway, I admit to taking way too many duck photos since we moved in here.  I just think they are adorable.  It wasn't until I took this one that I knew I had a winner.  I posted it to Facebook and all the other sites above and after a while thought, what the heck, I'll send it to the Bulletin because they are accepting reader photos.  The Pacific Northwest has had an incredible weather week.  Heavy snow Tuesday into Wednesday morning when I took this photo.  None too soon as it turned to rain right after and became a squishy, sloppy, dirty mess.  So, I got an email from the chief copy editor on Wednesday night asking if I had taken the photo that day.  I said yes of course.  

The next day my photo was at the top of the article with three other snowy day photos.  Totally cool!  Well, my duck shooting (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) days are not over by a long shot.  Here's one the day after.  This is the "pond" that used to be the street in front of our house.

And here's a Hipstamatic shot I took this morning looking the other way, toward the river.  They come up from the river to the right of that house .  They are only heading back toward the river because I came out and disturbed them by taking a photo.  I'm sure when I left they went about their duck parade business.

Here's another one from December.  Well, I've said before how much I love a parade.  They are one of life's little pleasures and I'm just thrilled that we get to experience several per day here.

**Parade Weather is the title the Bulletin gave to my photo.  I think, really, that for a duck, any weather is parade weather!

Happy Winter Solstice!

My Solstice cloth is done. I love this one.  I just decided to wing (if you'll pardon the pun) the owl and I like it.  The trees were inspired by Jude's solstice trees last year.  The owl by Janet Bolton.  I had so much fun with this, expect more of these.  Click to see details.

I also like the back.  Iquilted it free hand, just changing direction on a whim.  I did Jude's technique of quilting behind something like the trees, but only going through the back layer. It looks more uniform that way, but doesn't interfere with the shapes on the front.  Signed it in stitch.  This is my new preference.  I am still working on that signature post.  Sometime soon, I promise!

This is our amazing winter view from the kitchen corner of the house.  It's sort of a mysterious view, but with the  leaves gone we can see the river and Mt. Bachelor.  This little lighted tree feels like a special gift just for us.  

I wish you a safe and joyous holiday, whatever you celebrate.  I think I might take a blog break.  Don't expect a whole lot of posting til after the new year, but I may pop in once or twice to share photos.  

Over the river and through the woods to Portland we will go

Friday was our first big storm of the winter and of course, the day I was heading over the pass to get Chloe for her Thanksgiving break.  The drive over the pass was super slow, but beautiful.  We spent the weekend in Portland before heading home.  It was so nice to spend some one on one time with this grown up girl.

Portland was in fine form, with some real sun and cold temperatures.  We did tons of shopping, walking and eating.

Portland is well known for it's food carts which pop in places all over the city.  We found one that was new to us and had some real gourmet waffles.

We saw this totally cool Kodachrome window in the Anthropologie store.  

Saturday night we went to an amazing production of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol.  The writing, acting and set were so well done.  I would love to see more plays at the Artists Repertory Theater.  Now we have a whole week off to bake, make stuff and hang out.  Bliss!