Telephone Line Game Reveal- at long last!!

After a whole year, we were reunited with our original pieces from the telephone line game/ challenge we did last year.  As a reminder, each of us made a 9 x 12 quilt and passed it to the next person in the line.  She made a 9 x 12 quilt inspired by it, then sealed the original piece in an envelope and passed them on to the next person, who only saw the second piece and made a quilt inspired by  that- and so on until we had each had a turn on everyone's series.  There was confusion, and delays and finally last night we opened all the envelopes!

In each group, the original piece is the one on the left in the first picture.

Elaine's group began and ended with flowers!

Mary Ellen did some sashiko on her original piece.  Somehow, the series came back to her color scheme!

Susan used a pattern for stained glass for the antelope she began with.

Cynda's original was a colorful abstract made with vintage fabrics. 

Lori began with a landscape, and most of us followed suit.  Most of us. 

Mary's circles  morphed into flowers.

Martha's lime green abstract went from kitties to flowers.

Kathi's kantha stitched original went through quite a transformation to finish as a portrait of herself!

Chris' winter cardinal became a lovely journey through all four seasons.

 We all stood in awe of the amazing work on display.  Each of us got a wonderful assortment of beautiful work from the rest of the group!  Next time, we'll mix up the order a bit.
If there is a next time. 
















 We hope to display these both in the Museum Quilt Guild quilt show in October and in a gallery exhibit sometime in the next year.

Susan has set us a new challenge for this year, using the picture she's holding. The challenge is to interpret this in the style of your favorite artist.  Doesn't that sound like fun!??

 Oh!  I almost forgot Mary Ellen had a show and tell.  A RAFA member had challenged the group to use scraps of ultrasuede she shared with the group.  This is what Mary Ellen made.  The quilting is her first attempt at ruler work.  

We look forward to another year of challenging each other and sharing our art!

Stitching it together

It's been a while since we've posted.  (oops)  In all honesty, the last couple of meetings have been a small group, and there hasn't been a lot to share with the world anyway. 
In September we did some stitching, inspired by Laura Wasilowski. Martha led this activity, after showing a couple of the pieces she had used to try out the techniques. 


On this one, Martha used stitching to enhance some of the motifs in the fabric.  She said after she did it she realized the threads were too close to the same colors, so it isn't very successful or interesting.  

 
This is a free form piece, where the only thing drawn on the fabric was the stems.  This follows along more with the ideas in Laura's book,
Joyful Stitching".  Laura uses wool as her base, but Martha liked this piece of fabric she created with fabric paints. 












Martha decided that  Laura's Leaf on Wool "stitch along" would be a perfect way to try the technique.

Leaf on Wool by Laura Wasilowski

Most of the ladies made the outlines at the meeting, and were excited to get home to finish!





While we were stitching, Cynda came in just long enough to show us her current project, which she was hoping to finish that evening.

This was based on a photo she took, and is a gift for a friend.  This picture does not do it any favors.  It's a beautiful piece!

In October, we had a sort of help session, where everyone brought something they are stuck on for suggestion.
Mary Ellen and Lori had done more stitching

Mary Ellen plans to stitch hers to a long piece to make it a door hanger or runner.

Lori really enjoyed doing the seed stitching in the background.




















Lori enjoyed the technique so much she did one of the other projects from Laura's book. 
















Martha also finished stitching her leaf, but feels she left too much "air" in some of the sections. 
















The help me portion of the evening was full of great projects.

Mary Ellen painted this in a class given at RAFA with Pam(?) DeGroot.  She has done some of the stitching, but wasn't sure what to put in the bright green or dark areas behind the flower.  














Most of us agreed anything she puts there would detract from the painterly quality of the piece, so it needs nothing.  She will add some texture to the center of the blossom.

 

Lori was looking for advice on how to quilt this baby quilt for her niece.   Except for the largest motifs, we all thought outlining the animals and simple meandering everywhere else would be the easiest option.  The large motifs need to have a little quilting on the animals' details to ensure sufficient quilting. 

 Kathi made this fun little doll, but wasn't sure what to do for hair.  We all thoughts tiny pigtails would be perfect!

















 Kathi also showed this piece she did with some friends.  They all had a large piece of painters canvas and used chip brushes to paint on it while it was on the floor- using long stick as handles.  Kathi looks forward to playing with this now.





Martha had finished stitching on her free form piece, but was having trouble deciding how to finish it.  Martha had thought of putting it onto a canvas, but wasn't sure how to finish the edge for that.  A layered finish was suggested. Kathi also suggested checking out Lyric Kinard's article on this, published several years ago for Quilting Arts magazine.  (you can still get it through Lyric's blog)
The suggestion to float it in a frame was made as well.
Stay tuned.











Mary Lee was looking for ideas on how to quilt this panel she got, which she hopes to hang on the front of her house for Halloween this month.  spider web was suggested, then there was a thread discussion.  All machines have a favorite, it seems.












Our Telephone Line game is still in progress.  We are talking about making it a party when we can reveal them- maybe at the first meeting of the new year!  It will be an exciting meeting, to be sure.