Exhibit in St. Cloud

The show in St. Cloud was a success. The quilts of Stitched and Voyage were hanging next to each other in the special exhibit area and attracted a lot of attention. Some of the comments made were:
- Simply beautiful, over the top
- Lovely! Such creative people! Nothing like a commitment to produce!
- Wonderful!
- Loved it!
- Awesome!
- Favorite exhibit of show!
- Gorgeous! Favorite? Can't pick just one
- Wonderful + inspiring
It was not possible to take a picture of all the quilts together, but I took pictures of all quilts of the individual artists. Pictures were taken before the show opened, so no visitors on it.

Wil Opio Oguta:

Ildiko Polyak:

Pat Archibald:

Betty Hahn:

Jean Marshall:

Gretchen Saunders:

Frances Murphy:

Elaine Maunder:

Shoshi Rimer:

Sandra Sullivan:

Paula Rafferty:

Kelly Hendrickson:

We are invited for the next annual show of the MN Quiltters in June 2017.

Here are some pictures from the exhibition at The Prague Patchwork meeting in April

Gillian

This is my first Treasures quilt. 

Porto is a UNESCO World heritage site and a favourite city of mine. I love all the coloured houses, the balconies  and the washing.

It is simply lots of little pieces of fabric appliqued on to a calico backround with some machine stitching

This is my second treasures piece

I've taken a detail from one of my photos of Porto.

I painted and printed some of the background and added machine stitch and appliqué

Gillian

Voyage 2016

'Treasures'

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

1.

'Colour Entrapped'

One of my quilting friends gave me some 'colour catchers'. I was fascinated by their delicate tints and the texture of the paper. This led me to start playing with them. Here is the result. Woven and appliqued colour catchers, machine quilted using rayon and holographic threads.

What I am working on

During the month of May I will be talking about stamps and stamping on the Fire-blog, a total of 15 blog posts. As I want to have them all done before May starts, I am in the middle of those posts at the moment. Most of the text has been done, but I still have to stamp a number of pieces of fabric. You will understand that I cannot show you any pictures of what I have done.

Work in progress

We said that we would keep each other updated about other ongoing work that we have.
I started a series of work a couple of years ago about the Middle East and my experiences there so this is piece number 5 - only three more to go for an exhibition at the show in Beaujolais!
Apologies but this image refuses to be in the correct orientation.
Pat Archibald

Fast Start ... Slow Finish

Finally completed my series "Forces of Nature" for the Voyage 2015 Abstracted Nature theme. I had the first three completed by March 2015. But after a move to another state, this final one which was already started was nowhere to be found! Finally it showed up when searching for something else and I was able to finish my original vision for this piece.

For this piece I chose several circular motifs from my won surfaced designed stash. Some are stamped, some are resists and some are sunprinted. I felt they provided the continuity of the circular motion of the hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. As a native Texan...this is not a stretch for a concept in this series! The "land" fabric is a pounded fabric which I felt had the beautiful look of a topographic map.

The hurricanes are unstoppable and often seem to have a mind of their own. Just when we think we know
the direction they will take and where landfall will be...it can change and head along a totally different path. Sometimes that is for the better but other times that change can cause widespread destruction. This lack of predictability is why I chose the title "Winds of Change"

WINDS  OF  CHANGE

Now to take a deep breath and start on 2016 Voyage!

Blister beetles

Nature Abstracted - Blister beetles

I looked online for insects because I wanted to play with a consistent shape that could be abstracted in many ways. Finding blister beetles in many different colours and shapes I decided to make my own.

In the apps ArtRage and MyBrushesPro, on my IPad, I played with colour and shape using only my finger and the many tools to draw. I drew about 20 different drawings and had 8 of them digitally transferred to silk charmeuse. Out of those I selected these four:

Blister beetle  I - In the Kitchen

Blister beetle  II -Fuzzy

Blister beetle III - Furry

Blister beetle IV -Kidlets

I stabilized the silk with Lightweight fusible Pellon, including my orange printed silk for the binding/facings.

I quilted it on my Pfaff Power 16 which is mounted on a movable track, using Hobbs cotton/wool batting.

The back is cotton, thread is Polyester.

I’m having so much fun with these beetles I see many beetles in my future!

Betty

VOYAGE ART TEXTILES

2015

ABSTRACT NATURE

'MONSTERA DELICIOSA'

1-4

A POLPTYCH

I have a lush tropical garden with banana, guava and avocado trees and a large variety of plants. Many are of South American origin with exotic leaf and flower shapes. I particularly love the huge Monstera Deliciosa leaves.They inspired me to create a polyptych that conveys the large size of the leaf. Each quilt is made individually using black, white and primary coloured fabrics. I used fused applique, free motion machine embroidery and quilting using rayon threads. Each piece was highlighted with acrylic paint.

 

Hand stitching

Over in California without  machine - so I am catching up with some hand stitching I am doing with a local stitch group for an exhibition. I am using some small pieces of rust dye fabrics that I produced years ago when 'rusting' was all the rage - never used them for anything so I am now using small pieces as backgrounds. 

Different activators were used to produce the rust from lemon juice to green tea! The unpredictable effects make the pieces ideal for hand stitching

Just started stitching on a couple of the pieces below - ideal little project to have with me whilst we are travelling around, tacked them loosely to a muslin backing first before deciding how to stitch.

Jean