Cherrywood Fabrics Van Gogh challenge - a finish!

I have really enjoyed seeing the last two challenges hosted by Cherrywood Fabrics.  There was the Wicked challenge (see pics HERE) and last year, the Lion King challenge was phenomenal!

While at Road to California in January, I was intrigued with the idea of entering this year's challenge - inspired by Van Gogh.  But I don't think I actually purchased the fabric bundle until QuiltCon in February.  I lacked the confidence and was worried about lack of time as well.  In the end, the colors won me over.  Who could resist the lovely blues??

In true "Jen form", I waited until nearly the last minute to start my challenge piece.  I chose Van Gogh's "Starry Night over the Rhone" as my inspiration and got to work.  Here are some progression pics of the process I used.  I basically used the same technique as My Monet quilt, you can find the tutorial HERE, but I'm sure you will get the gist from the pics below.

My rough plan:



I like to draw out a rough plan, like a road map to see where I am going.




I started blocking in the background colors. I even kept some of the "fringe" edges where the fabric had been ripped.  I figured that rough edge would help me with a blended look along the horizon.



Finally, I started laying down the first "brushstrokes".  These were pieces of fabric fused with Steam a Seam Lite and then cut into random wavy strips.




I just kept adding more and more layers of these little pieces.




More and more layers of detail.  As you can see, I started with larger pieces and moved on to smaller pieces to add details.




Once everything was where I wanted it, I fused the pieces in place with my iron and started quilting in long wavy lines.




Normally, I would have added tulle to the entire quilt before quilting on top of those tiny fused pieces, but I wasn't sure if tulle was allowed in the challenge and I really didn't have time to find out.  Boy, does tulle make things easier!!!  It keeps all your pieces in place and lets the quilting foot just glide over everything.  Without the tulle, some of my fused pieces wanted to flip over and get caught.



In fact, I started free motion quilting this project, but after a few minutes of my pieces getting mangled by the foot, I switched up to my walking foot.  I ended up quilting nearly the entire quilt with my walking foot.




When I first started quilting, I was a little mad at myself for "ruining a perfectly good quilt with too much stitching", but as I added more and more layers and colors of thread, I felt that was in keeping with what I was trying to accomplish as Van Gogh inspired.  I love how it turned out in the end.




What do you think?

I found out today that my quilt was juried into the finalist group.  But I have to send it off to be judged and only then will I know if my quilt was accepted into the traveling exhibition.  I'll find out sometime next month.  I really have my fingers crossed.  I just think it would be so neat to have a quilt traveling around for a year to a bunch of shows!  I may not sleep until I know if it was accepted.

Thanks for reading today!  I hope you found it interesting.

Jen

My Monet art quilt - a Blogger's Quilt Festival entry

Welcome those of you visiting from the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side.  My I present my entry for the Art Quilt category: My Monet.

I created this quilt for the 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge.  It was inspired by an art lesson that I taught about Monet's Houses of Parliament series of paintings.

I had so much fun making this quilt!  And I must admit, it came out MUCH better than the painting I made during the art lessons!!  I am embarrassed to even show that.

I think it is Purpilicious!

Quilt Stats:

Size:  This wall quilt measures 19 inches by 15 inches
Design: is inspired by Monet's Houses of Parliament series of paintings, and an art lesson taught through the Hands on Art program at my daughter's school.
Techniques: I used fusible to create the scene, then quilted the daylights out of it!
Quilting: by Me!  I used a variety of threads for the quilting.  Basically anything I had that was purple; I know several of them were Auriful.  The gray threads were a So Fine Superior Thread.
Fabric: various Kona cotton solids.

If you are interested in a more detailed step by step how I made this quilt, I took photos along the way and here is the tutorial so you can make your own Monet.

I hope you will consider my entry in the art quilt category.

Thanks for stopping by,

Jen

How I Made My Monet - an "How I Do It" Tutorial

Thank you to everyone who left a nice comment on my post for Monet inspired quilt.  I have just nicknamed it "My Monet".  I am no good at naming quilts.

I snapped pictures throughout the process of making it, just in case one of you want to make your own "My Monet."  So let's get started.....

Step One

We need to make our canvas.  In the process we are also going to create a horizon line for our picture.

First you will need to cut pieces for your sky and water.  The fabric for the water should be darker in color than the sky.

I wanted my quilt to be small enough to hang  on a wall, so my pieces are 7 x 20.5 inches for the sky and 9.5 x 20.5 inches for the water.  In art and photography there is this "rule of thirds" that people talk about, referring to dividing your subject matter into thirds instead of in half to make it more pleasing to the eye.  So, your sky should be roughly a third of the overall height of your quilt.

Sew these pieces together with a 1/4 inch seam.  This is the only seam you will sew in this whole project!  Press this seam open.

Step Two

Gather a bunch of scraps in varying shades of purple and red-violet, dark gray, light gray, white and orange.  Apply your favorite fusible to the back.  You will notice that I just used scraps of fusible as well.  I always seem to have random shapes of fusible laying around.

Now, I did NOT use all this fabric.  When I started the project, I wasn't sure how much I would need.  I was just using scraps, so it didn't really bother me that I had some left over from this project.  I would guess that I actually only used about half of what is shown above with the exception of the dark and light grays.  You will need enough of these scraps to make the size of Parliament bldg (dark gray) and some background bldgs (lighter gray), so you will want a nice medium size scrap of those colors.

**I did not use the yellow shown above, but you can if you want.

Step Three

Grab your dark gray scrap.  Mine was roughly 9 x 7.   Draw your Parliament bldg on the fusible ** Remember that you will need to draw it in a mirror image since you will be flipping it when you fuse it.  So the right side of your drawing will become the left side of the bldg when you flip it. **

Cut out your building.  Save your scraps!

If you are from the UK or have visited the Parliament bldg, fell free to be more detailed in the roof line.  I do not have first hand knowledge of the bldg myself, and this piece is just a silhouette so I improvised.

Step Four

Using your lighter gray scraps, draw a distant skyline and cut it out.  Save your scraps!

This skyline is meant to be across the river in the distance, so you don't have to be very detailed.  Imagine a foggy evening; you aren't going to see anything in great detail.

Now we need to fuse them to our background.  Because the Parliament building is in the foreground, place it below the horizon line.  ** The bottom of the building needs to be below the horizon line, but make sure that no part of the roof line is below the horizon line (we don't need to see any water behind it).**

The skyline in the distance is part of the background, so place it directly on the horizon line (your seam).

I also chose this moment to cut out a sun from my orange scrap for the sun and place it in the sky.  It is just nice at this point to know where your light source is, because coming up next is the shadows.

Step Five

Take your dark gray scraps and cut them into skinny strips of varying lengths.   You will want some that are as long as your Parliament building, and some that are rather short.

Also cut your scraps of lighter gray into strips, but keep them separate.

Step Six

Use those gray strips to create a shadow in the water of the Parliament bldg and skyline in the distance.

Fuse them in place.  I found it extremely helpful to use a Teflon pressing sheet from now on with these skinny strips.

The pressing sheet will help keep your iron free of any fusible residue.

Pressing sheets are easy to use, you just lay them over your piece and press.

You will need shadows for your skyline in the distance too.  I kept my lighter gray strips for the shadows of the distant skyline.

The darker scraps should probably be closer to the horizon line.

Step Seven

Now we need to start layering the other colors, so take all your darker purple and violet scraps and make skinny strips in varying lengths.

I liked a bunch of my strips to be long.

Starting with your DARKEST color of purple, place them in the water in a way that is pleasing to you and fuse them in place.

Keep layering the dark colored strips in the water and put a few in the sky too.

 Step Eight

Now switch to your lightest color.  Take your scraps and cut them into strips.  This time you will want more short strips than long.

Starting the the lightest color purple, place them around the sun (not too close), and fuse into place.

You will also want to add a few of the light color strips in the water as reflections.

Keep layering the lighter and medium color purple strips in the sky and a few in the water.

Next, add short white strips close to the sun, and tiny orange pieces closest to the sun.  Add some to the water too, and don't forget the reflection of the sun in the water.  Fuse in place.

Step Nine

Back and baste your quilt.  I used spray basting for this small sized quilt.  Now get out your threads and get ready to quilt!

Because the buildings are roughly in the center of the quilt, I started my quilting there.  I used dark gray thread and made vertical straightline/matchstick quilting lines.  I then did the same to the background skyline, using a lighter gray thread.

I heavily quilted the water and sky horizontally in wavy organic lines using different colors of purple thread.

Here are some close ups of the quilting of the final project.

I've seen many quilts in the quilt shows that add a piece of tulle before quilting this type of quilt, but I haven't tried this technique yet.  I did want to mention it though as it is supposed to keep the fused pieces flat and in place during the quilting process.  The tulle is also a bit slick and I've heard your quilting foot will glide over it more easily.

If anyone has used that technique, I would love to know more details!

So that's How "I" Did It!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.  If you make your own Monet, I would love to see it!

Thanks for reading,

Jen

My Monet quilt - Pantone Quilt Challenge entry

Behold!  My last minute (and only) entry for the 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge.

I've been planning this one for weeks, but was just able to get to it this week.

This wall quilt measures 19 inches by 15 inches and is inspired by Monet's Houses of Parliament series of paintings.  I used fusible to create the scene, then quilted the daylights out of it!

Now before you think I am the bee's knees for coming up with this idea.  I must admit that for a couple of weeks there, I was surrounded by purple Houses of Parliament.  It was one of the more recent projects that I taught to my daughters' classes at school through the Hands on Art program.  When Anne at Play-Crafts announced the Pantone color challenge the same week I was painting and teaching this purplicious project, I knew it was fate that I would attempt to make one in quilt form.

How did I do?  If you like what you see, head on over to Play-Crafts to see all the other awesome entries.

If you are interested in a more detailed step by step how I made this quilt, I took photos along the way and here is the tutorial so you can make your own.

Thanks for reading today,

Jen


Linking up with:

Inspiration Sunday (6) - via the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach

One of the coolest exhibits at the International Quilt Festival was one called "Twelve by Twelve".  It challenged 12 artist to make a small quilted art piece based on a theme word or color palette chosen by each member, in turn, every 2 months.  They plan on publishing a book Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge.

Part of what made it so cool, was that it was the same 12 people, creating for 4 years by my math.  All that was required of them was they create a 12 inch by 12 inch art quilt within the theme for the 2 month time period.  I like the idea of dabbling in art quilts from time to time, and a 12 x 12 size is not a huge commitment.  It would be extremely fun for a bee!

Yeah, yeah, lady, show us the quilts....

Surprisingly, we were allowed to photograph the quilts.  I wanted to go crazy, as they were all wonderful, but I tried to show some restraint:

This theme was "BlueWhiteBlack".  Starting at the top left, going down, then right: "Blue Meditation on Balance" by Deborah Boschart of Crofton, Maryland; "Hello! It's you again!" by Kirsten Duncan of Townsville, Queensland, Australia; "My Tree" by Francoise Jamart of Louvainla-Neuve, Belgium; "A Feeling for Snow" by Brenda Gael Smith of Copacabana, NSW, Australia. Back to top middle: "Winter Night" by Gerrie Congdon of Portland, Oregon; "Mt. Hood in Winter" by Terry Grant of Portland, Oregon; "Broken Dishes Completed" by Kristin La Flamme, of Waipahu, Hawaii; and "Stacked Blueware" by Terri Stegmiller of Mandan, North Dakota. To Top Right: "Stolen" by Helen L. Conway of Merseyside, UK; "You Know How I Feel" by Diane Perin Hock by Healdsburg, California; "Streaming Blue" by Karen Rips of Thousand Oaks, CA; and "Reboot" by Nikki Wheeler of Poulsbo, Washington.

Here is a close up of "Mt. Hood in Winter" by Terry Grant

It is so interesting to see where each artist took the theme.

This group's theme was "Mathematics".

The top one is called "Fractal Tree" by Deborah Boschert of Crofton, Maryland, the second "What Were the Odds?" by Kirsten Duncan of Townsville, QLD, Australia (she attempted a random placement of colors, but the human mind tends to desire patterns in randomness).

This Mermaid was part of a "Water" Theme:

She is called "Splish Splash by Terri Stegmiller of Mandan, North Dakota.

I admit, I took a lot of pictures of tree quilts.  This one was part of the theme "Community".  I just love the colors.

It is called "Brunswick Street" by Kirsten Duncan of Townsville, QLD, Australia.  Seems I snapped a lot of her quilts.

They even had a "Dandelion" theme.  This one was my favorite of the group:

"Blowin' in the Wind" by Diane Perin Hock of Healdsburg, California

I know I only snapped a few of my favorites, but you can see more at the Twelve by Twelve website, or in the book that is available.

Well, are you inspired to try your hand at your own art quilt?

Jen