Mountain Scenery

I mentioned in an earlier post that my friend Holly Wilkes creates amazing tapestries of mountain scenes. She lives up in the mountains and wakes every morning to fabulous views of mist, sunrises and nature unfolding in front of her. As a result, her work breathes with the mountain air and is awash in glorious colors. She captures the unfolding imagery beautifully. In the image here, you can see that she has a really good feel for creating depth in her work.

Readying Quilts for Delivery to Waterworks Visual Arts Center

In taking quilts to trunk shows and delivering them for exhibition venues, I needed a way to wrap them that would be easy to handle by non-quilt enthusiasts and preferably would help use up some of my large stash of fabrics that I no longer use.

Here is what I came up with.

Your comments would be appreciated. How do you wrap for delivery and studio storage?


First, I create a two-sided cover from a one yard (or 1 1/2 yard) by the width of the fabric with two fabrics sewn back to back. Before sewing the fabrics together, I add a label to one of the longer sides. I use either a business card or create a label with my name and contact information on it. The label is sewn onto the cover inside of vinyl so it is permanent and indicates a bit of what is inside.

I pillowcase the two fabrics, and sew around the case, leaving an opening near the label to turn the case inside out. Once the cover is turned right side out, I machine sew the opening closed. I created long ties the length of the fabric. I put the ties on the end of the cover with the label and sew them on at their middles with some space between the label and the ties, so they can be tied around the bundle of quilts. I sew the ties on with a rectangle with an X in the middle for security over time.


When ready to use, I wrap the quilts one at a time, face out, around a swim noodle, being careful not to get creases into the face of the quilts. Then the cover is wrapped around them and tied with a bow.


Since I have multiple bundles of quilts to deliver, I took a 4 x 6 inch card and wrote the names of each quilt inside on the card, cut a hole into the card and slipped it onto one of the ties of the bundle before tying it. That should make it easier on the curator in hanging the show to know which quilts are in each bundle. I will also group the slats for each bundle together as well.

Here is another bundle ready to go.

And here are the five bundles with 17 quilts inside, 3-4 quilts in each bundle.

I am delivering the quilts tomorrow and am really getting excited about the exhibition that opens May 21 with an artists reception on Friday night May 27 in Salisbury NC. Hope you can come.

Do you have other techniques for storing and/or packaging for transporting your art work? Please let us know.

Nancy

Great News!! Made My Day!!

Just received word that Kousa: A New Dogwood's in Town will be in Sandra Sider's upcoming publication: The Studio Quilt, no. 6: State of the Art.

A detail of the quilt is shown here.

Originally planned for 30 artists, Sandra is including 60 because of the great response and quality of the submissions she received.

This makes four books that will carry some of my work in the coming 12 months. The first out will be Susan Brubaker Knapp's book. Point, Click, Quilt! coming out next month. Susan's book will feature her extraordinary work, projects using her techniques, and a gallery photos and art work from other artists who use photos for imagery for their quilts.

Martha Seilman's book: Art Quilt Portfolio; The Natural World will be published in 2012. She selected me for one of the featured artists for the book and it will include both an interview and discussion of my work, my inspirations, my work processes and several of my quilts. I am very humbled by this terrific honor.

The last book will be the next publication of SAQA's Portfolio series of work by the Professional Art Members. It will be available as an on-line e-book on the SAQA site and as a printed book. This should be out in October 2011.

Grading a Quilt

Nope, we are not sending the quilt to school for one of the infamous tests.


At yesterday's meeting of Fiber Art Options, grading came up. Some of our members were not familiar with the term or concept. Those with some tailoring background were familiar with it, and why it is used.Grading is a tailors term and technique to soften the edge that is created under the top fabric when sewing multiple fabrics together.


A hard edge is produced by the layers ending at the same place. This hard edge is sometimes seen on the front of the quilt where the edges of the four layers (binding, batting, and top and backing) of the quilt show through.


The top photo shows the hard edge created by the four layers ending on the same line.


The hard edge can be softened by angle cutting the four layers so each ends at a slightly different place.



I have a pair of very special scissors for this job. In fact I have both a pair of Mundail's and Gingher's. They are very sharp, have one long skinny pointed blade and one blade that is rounded. On the Gingher's, the blade is beveled to allow for ease in grading. So I use the Gingher's for grading.


The Mundails are great for cutting out behind an applique as their finger holes fit my fingers better.


In the second photo, you can see the angle to hold the scissors to do the grading. The scissors are almost flat to the edge.


And the final photos show the graded or beveled edge of the four layers to reduce the hard edge. It is a bit raggy because I square up the quilt after quilting it. So the sewn lines are a bit harder to grade.


Do you grade your edges, or have you found another process to reduce the hard edge showing through on the front?

Happy Quilting,

Nancy

Rose Has Got Some Hips II Quilted

Image on the left is what Rose looked like before she was quilted.

Image on the right is after quilting.

I am not sure which orientation I like the best, the hips facing up or facing to the right.

Which way do you like the best?

Thanks your comments.

Nancy

My Husband Brought Me My New Love

For me, the most difficult part of making a quilt is sewing straight lines, and even worst, cutting the puppy square. Small pieces are okay, but larger pieces that are longer than my 36" rotary rulers have always been difficult.


I whined to my DH that I really needed a bigger T-square. He knew exactly what would solve my problem and bought me this dry wall T Square.


Used with a gridded cutting mat and a rotary ruler to check on different sides, it is fantastic.


Best of all, it is 54" long which covers the length of my current work. It is metal so I can use the rotary cutter with it easily.


Using this T-square has cut my time by two thirds what it used to take me. I'm in love!!

Nancy

Treasures from Trash

Just finished quilting 2 new quilts and pulling the basting threads. YAAAA!


Every time I do this, I have a lovely pile of clipped threads where I start and end my stitching and the pulled basting threads.


I used to save them, thinking that I would use them. Humbly I know that that will never happen. So now I just want them to go somewhere they can be used. They are perfect for felters.


If you are interested, let me know and I will send the first person who asks for them where US mail reaches.


Send your name and snail mail address to me by email and make a donation to your favorite non profit -- honor system.

Enjoy
Nancy