Gallery show

The Orange Lizard quilt will be hanging at the Redscout gallery in San Francisco starting next Thursday! The theme of the show is "An Unexpected Leap." I can't wait to check out the work of the other artists, but first I'd better get busy sewing a sleeve on that monster.

A new stencil quilt -- and a new class!

I'm teaching a Stencil Quilts class at Berkeley's New Pieces in September. Enrollment opened today, and it's filling up surprisingly quickly. This is the sample I made for the class -- it's hanging in the store now!

The class is on two Sundays, September 18 and 25, 12-2pm. I'd love to see you there!

The fabric is an Indian wood-block cotton front with  a reverse-applique Joel Dewberry print. There's a splotch in the woodblock repeat -- you can see it twice about a foot in from the left. I considered positioning the stencil to hide the splotch for a moment. Then I completely changed my mind and decided to feature it.

I'll teach my technique using whole-cloth fabrics. I love the patchwork in my other stencil quilts, but I want to focus on the stencil technique in class.

I'll be teaching the technique I've developed for all my stencil quilts.

Green Stag

Orange Lizzard

Harvey Milk

Dialing up the FMQ

Finishing up a whole-cloth stencil quilt, I've decided to push myself on free-motion quilting.

The stencil is a ginkgo twig, very similar to the design on the back of my marquee quilt. The back fabric  is a Michael Miller green and yellow print.

If ginkgo leaves grew on vines (which they don't), they'd look exactly like this. I swear.

The top fabric is an Indian woodblock print. I'm binding the quilt now -- more photos when it comes out of the dryer. 

Just a little late for Harvey Milk Day

I finished my first portrait quilt this weekend. In celebration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, it's a portrait of Harvey Milk. I'm not much for big street festivals, as large crowds tend to make me anxious, but I can quilt!

I used a Denyse Schmidt small red check print on the back...

with five Marianne stripes across the width.

The design is based on the famous photograph by Daniel Nicoletta of Harvey Milk standing in front of his Castro Street photo shop. Dan graciously allowed me to use his image for my piece.

Harvey Milk. Photo by permission of Daniel Nicoletta

When I contacted Dan he told me that Elva Smith, the mother Scott Smith (played by James Franco in the film), was a dear friend and avid quilter until her death about a year ago. It was another reminder of progress and continuity. There is a famous refrain among quilters that nothing is ever new in quilting -- in the long history of the art, someone has done it before. While I strive in my work to be inventive and original, I am mindful of the work and creativity of those who came before me. Similarly, this time of year I remember the gay rights pioneers who came before, who fought, sacrificed and sometimes died to make the world a better place for all of us.

Ready to sandwich a new stencil quilt

My next stencil quilt will have a pink, orange and gold applique. The patchwork is triangle-ish, and the stencil will be big.

It was another cut, sew, recut and repeat process, with the final two cuts in 4 inch strips and points aligned. It lends a hint of order to the chaos. The strips of solid orange and pink will not be visible in the finished quilt. (Well, maybe the tiniest corner... we'll see.)

And here's the background for the stencil: the red bricks I posted  the other day. Seeing the two pieces together you may have noted that I'm not going for subtlety here.

I'm going to try something different this time. For the other three I completed the reverse applique of the stencil before sandwiching the quilt. This time I'm going to do the quilting and applique at the same time, then cut out the background pieces around the stencil. I'll let you know how it goes.

I love the energy of the shattered triangles and the richness of the reds. I may have to come back and make each pattern into its own quilt after I'm done cutting this one up!

Hero's nemesis; or, the orange lizard

If a had to choose a favorite among my three stencil quilts, it would be this one. I love everything about it, starting with orange and blue (the colors of the California poppies and blue lupine blooming all over the hills right now.) The background is a disappearing nine-patch of royal blue and deep turquoise prints and solids. The stencil is a grid of half-square triangles in orange shot cotton and prints.

I'm also pleased  with the sense of menace and movement created by the dinosaur entering the frame from the side.

The back is also pieced in orange and blue collected from trimmings and extras from the front. Once again, The quilting along the stencil outlines has a surprising impact on the back.
The stencil design was inspired by a piece of clip art I saw on SLOG (the blog of Seattle's Stranger newsweekly). My favorite things on SLOG are the Savage Love letter of the day and Mary Traverse's regular Dinosaur News updates, in addition to lots of other delightful nuggets. Mary was kind enough to send me the full image of the articulated skeleton. Thanks Mary! And thank goodness the Stranger has its priorities straight and put her on the dinosaur beat.
I quilted the blanket with concentric zig-zags emanating from the T. rex's gaping maw. It was as close as I could get to a menacing roar without spelling it out.

My nine-year-old wants a dinosaur quilt, but he insists on a red one. So the orange lizard is now available on Etsy.

Milestones

It's turning out to be a big week. Two big things have happened: I've finished three new quilts, and I've decided to set up shop on Etsy. More on Etsy later, but first I want to show my first stencil quilt.

I'm calling it the green stag quilt.

The quilt features a green deer reverse appliqué on an undulating neutral background. It's one in a series of “stencil quilts” that I have designed and created (I'll have pics of Hero and his nemesis soon!). I posted about my technique recently. It involves creating two patchwork quilt tops, sewing the layers together along the lines of a stencil, then cutting out the top layer to reveal the stencil beneath. The raw edge of the appliqué frays, softening the edge of the image and creating a weathered effect.

I was inspired by an antique quilt whose well worn top began to disintegrate, revealing and even older and more worn quilt inside that had been used as batting.

The green stag is a patchwork of squares and rectangles in the disappearing nine-patch pattern, while the background is a series of improvisationally pieced curves intended to create a sense of rolling landscape.

The reverse of this quilt is made with a soft chambray fabric with a meticulously pieced green circle and ivory sashing. You may recognize the green circle from the missing patch in Sharon & Bill's baby quilt.

The quilting highlights the shape of the appliqué and echoes the undulating curves of the background patchwork. On the solid quilt back, the subtle shape of the deer makes a surprising counterpoint to the bold green circle. 

I've listed the Green Stag quilt for sale on Etsy, along with my Seeing Water quilt. I'll be listing two additional stencil quilts later this week.
I'm planning on sprucing up my storefront soon, but I'm at something of a loss. What do your favorite Etsy stores look like? What makes them your favorite?

Two backs

This weekend I finished two quilt backs. I find piecing backs to be very liberating. I usually approach quilt tops by planning every detail first, even before I think of specific fabrics. It's on the backs that I start sewing with only a broad idea of the finished project and see where my hands take me. Although both of these tops finished with a precise look and geometry, I planned only one step at a time. For both I started by piecing scraps from the respective quilt tops, cutting and recutting as I pieced, then forming the whole around those upcycled blocks. The first is for Hero, the unicorn.

I patched together triangle trimmings from the quilt top and pieced them into a single 12-inch circle.

The back is Kaufman Kona Crush in Ivory. It has a wonderful crinkled texture that feels and looks great. It doesn't seem like it's very widely carried, but my local quilt shop sells it in several colors. I had better luck working with the Crush fabric when I pinned liberally. The crinkled texture results in easy stretching, especially working with these long blocks of it. (I really don't like pinning, but I find I hate ripping seams even more.) The sashing is Kona solid Ivory, and continues the tone-on-tone theme from the quilt top.

The other back is for Hero's arch enemy. I know we're not supposed to keep secrets here, but I've been working on Hero and his nemesis at the same time. I think maybe there was just so much yin in all those magical cream pinwheels and pink unicorns that I needed to stir up some yang to keep the project going. The bad boy is orange in a field of blue, and I'll have photos soon. Anyway, the quilt back uses trimmings and scraps from the quilt top as well.

Although it ended up being quite a bit more involved than I originally bargained for, I'm happy with the result. Here the solids are Kona Royal and Orange, and Kaufman Carolina Chambray in Pacific

The unicorn's progress

It doesn't seem like much of a unicorn yet.

But you will just have to trust me that there is tremendous unicorn potential.

Oh, and I have started calling him "Hero."

Secret project, and more

I've finished my entry for the Project Modern monochrome challenge, save a few stitches along the binding and maybe a label.  I'll have pictures for you in a couple weeks.

Next up: unicorns, beasts & botanicals.

13 pink prints x 50 triangles per print = 650 pieces of unicorn

When I showed Hamish my sketches for several quilt designs he noted that my unicorn was 'going non-ironic.' I'm still trying to wrap my head around how a pink pieced unicorn quilt made by a 42-year-old man can escape irony. But maybe he has a point.