Hull Artist Studio Tour

On July 7th and 8th I participated in the Hull Artists Studio Tour. This was a great event that featured 22 artists opening their studios to the public. I had a fabulous time showing my art quilts, Zentangle (TM) inspired art, and my original designed fabric pocketbooks and totes. This event occurs twice a summer and I'll be participating again on August 25th. Here are pictures of my "front room" all prettied up to show my work.

 Wholecloth quilt - this is inspired by the sea. It is one piece of fabric with intricate stitching. All of the stitching is done freehand by machine without any computer assistance.

Staccato Sunrise (Sold) Pieced, machine quilted and beaded. The machine quilting is detailed showing the motion of the grasses as well as the ocean and the sky. The sun is represented by a mariners compass block that was bisected to show motion.

The seascape series below was constructed and quilted in a similar manner. On a smaller scale, these pieces are stretched over a deep 1 1/2" canvas frame.

 10" x 10" seascape 1

 10" x 10" seascape 2

10" x 10" seascape 3

 detail - seascape

 detail - seascape

Detail - seascape

This is a small (5") quilted piece.

Below is the tree series. Zentangle (TM) inspired art from pen, ink and pencil. Each piece measures 3 1/2" square.

And let's not forget the kitchen ladies quilts -

 quilted, beaded and mounted on 1 1/2" deep canvas stretchers.

And the purple sunset! Machine quilted and fibers.

More pics of the front room turned studio for the weekend!

That's all .....see you in August!

Sanibelle Quilted

Sanibelle Quilted!



Sanibelle - drawn with Pigma Pen and pencil



The Diva Challenge this week is to create a tangle submitted by one of the blog’s followers. The tangle selected is “Sanibelle” and was designed by Tricia Faraonce. This design is a natural to adapt to quilting. 

This is the Diva challenge tangle I made this on a Zentangle® 3 ½” tile.



This is how I draw it:

I use teardrop shapes instead of the scallop followed by straight lines. I feel that I’m able to create a smoother line this way. Also it is easily adapted to a continuous line for quilting if you retrace some of your lines along the way. This is shown on the bottom left of my sketchbook page.

And again here is the tangle quilted out. I used Signature and Bottom Line threads on a Sew Batik fabric.

 

Hey Lefty

The Diva challenge this week is to create a Zentangle (r) tile using your non-dominat hand. Well this really was a challenge - I found that I had to turn tile a lot to make up for my uncoordinated left hand!

That was fun, sort of. I don't really feel like doing another one though!

Last Saturday I had a group of Certified Zentangle Teachers (CZT) at my house to network, learn, and socialize. We had a great time! Plans are already in motion to get together again!

Here's the group!

And we had a surprise visitor - Maria Thomas - co-founder of Zentange (r) !

I gave a short demo on how to machine quilt tangle patterns. A very mini-version of the class I'll be teaching at MQX in Providence RI this April. I gave people a chance to try out the longarm sewing machine - it's harder than it looks! Here's Maria trying her hand at the longarm.

Jeanne Paglio showed us how to make tangled earrings. Here are the ones I made - I'm going to make more of these earrings - it was so fun!

We also heard from Dr. Meredith Yuhas on the clinical study she is conducting on Zentangle.

I've been hard at work in the studio this week making earrings and planning some awesome quilting projects. I've also spent some time on marketing my sewing patterns - you can check them out here.

And..... on Monday I'll annouce a great giveaway!

Biggified - Quilted

Last weeks Diva Challenge was to “Biggify” your tangles. The challenge was to use your preferred paper size and draw the tangles bigger. This was my favorite biggified tangle. I use the standard 3 ½” square Zentangle® tiles.

I like to translate Zentangle style into quilting. I took the biggified tangle enlarged it a little more and then made a mini-wholecloth quilt. The quilted piece measures 5 ½” square. It is made from fabric, Signature 100% cotton thread – in rust and variegated rust, and two layers of batting. This is the finished piece.

Anyone with a sewing machine can learn how to quilt in the Zentangle style. If you'd like to learn how check out the class I'm teaching at Machine Quilter's Exposition in April! - for more information click here. No prior Zentangle(r) or quilting experience required.

Here are some pictures of it the biggifed little quilt being quilted. I use a 12 foot long  Gammill longarm  machine and I’m working on little 5 ½” pieces! This type of quilting can also be done on a home "domestic" sewing machine!

Here's a picture of the whole Gammil machine set up - this picture was taken to show the traditional style trapunto pieces that are displayed in the foreground. The picture was taken on a day when my studio was clean!