Monthly Archives: October 2011

A Cardinal for a Cause

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As a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, it pains me to say this, but Congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals on winning the World Series.  Although the cardinal on my quilt looks a bit like the ones on the St. Louis uniforms, it was inspired by the cardinals that visit the bird feeder outside our kitchen window.

I made Winter Cardinal (9 inches by 12 inches) as a donation to the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative.  Both of my parents suffered from Alzheimer’s, so supporting the search for a cure is very important to me. Continue reading →

Prairie Night Quilt

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I recently joined an on-line quilt challenge group, Fast Friday Fabric Challenge.

“This group of fiber artists and art quilters will be issued one challenge per month, with one week to complete a small work. Challenges will attempt to stretch members in their skills and creativity, encourage thinking outside the box, will teach new techniques and concepts. Challenges will be hosted by a different member each month and will incorporate color and design concepts, techniques, surface design, embellishments, work within themes, and any other art quilt concepts a member can imagine. “

The first challenge I participated in was to select a color palette from a painting and then create a small quilt using that color palette. Continue reading →

Creating a Quilt, Part 2 — Finalizing the Design

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In my previous post, I walked through the initial design process I used to create the quilt Prairie Grasses.  I started with this photo, drew sketches to simplify the design and started on looking at value studies.

My first two value studies, shown below, were of the original sketch.  I liked each of these, but I thought it would be more interesting to combine them in some way.

Continue reading →

Eye of the Quilter

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I was happy to learn that my photo “The Fossil Hunter” will be part of the Eye of the Quilter exhibit at the International Quilt Festival in Houston in a few weeks.

The photo is of my nephew Mike which I took while we were on a fossil hunting expedition at an Illinois state park.  Mike had a great time running around to find the biggest rocks he could carry.  Even though we didn’t unearth any fossils, we had fun exploring and digging. Continue reading →

Creating a Quilt, Part 1 — From Photo to Sketch

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I recently completed the class “Inspired to Design” with Elizabeth Barton through Quilt University.  The class is about the process of creating art quilts, starting with an idea, working up sketches, using value studies, creating color schemes and finally constructing the quilt.

I really enjoyed the class and I completed a quilt based on one of the designs I worked on.  In this post and the next two I’ll walk through my steps in creating this quilt. Continue reading →