Fuller Craft Museum

Our friends from Boston took us to the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. There was supposed to be a bojagi exhibit, but it wasn't up yet. When I told one of the museum docents I was a fiber artist and had come to see the exhibit, she was nice enough to take me "behind the scenes" and show me the pieces that had come in. I REALLY enjoyed the work, but I would have loved to see it hung.

It was a gorgeous day at the museum. This is a picture of the view from one of the windows at the museum. It truly looked like a postcard.

It was such a pretty day; I really enjoyed the outdoor exhibits.

This is a ceramic piece by Eric O'Leary called Sight.

The museum just acquired this next piece by Joseph Wheelwright called Sweet Face.

I DID manage to find something I thought would look GREAT in my studio.

I love the name of this chair by Tommy Simpson. It is called My Mummy Made Me Do It!

They had an early piece by Michael James. I hadn't ever seen a whole-cloth quilt made by him, so this was a treat. I particularly like his quilting design. This piece was made in 1976 and is called Night Sky I. It is made of polished cotton.

I took this next picture because I absolutely love the vibrancy of color in this glass piece.

The piece was made by Toots Zynsky and is called Riamato. It is made of fused and thermoformed colored glass threads.

The Fuller is a beautiful little gem of a craft museum just outside of Boston. It is well worth a trip if you are nearby.

 

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Blue and White Quilts

I'm on vacation in New England, and today we were traveling around Boston with some friends. We ended up at The Charles (a hotel in Cambridge) where I found several old quilts. There were two in the main lobby--one from 1910 and one from 1880. The largest of the two was a beautiful faded red, white, and blue quilt. I tried to take pictures of both of them, but they were under glass with terrible lighting. None of those pictures came out; however, I did get pictures of several blue and white quilts on display in a huge stairwell in the lobby. There was no way for me to take a picture of the whole wall, because the stairs were in the way; but I did my best to show you how impressive the display was. There were nine blue and white quilts arranged like a giant 9-patch block on the wall behind an open staircase. These are the best pictures I could get. The quilts were gorgeous.

This was the bottom row of the "9 Patch," and the only straight shot I could get. (These are full-size bed quilts.)

From this picture, you can see the setup of the wall. You can see some of the quilts between the stairs.

This shows you the "9 Patch" arrangement. It was a really nice display, and I appreciate the fact that someone cared enough about quilts to display them so prominently in the lobby of the hotel.

 

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Traveling Hexagons

In my last post, I wrote about working on a BIG English Paper Piecing project. I'm not very good in the organization arena, so organizing my many hexagons proved to be a big problem for me. This is my solution.

I purchased a ring from my local office supply store (shout out to Hoffman Office Supply), punched holes in the top of sandwich bags, and threaded the bags onto the ring. I organized the hexagons by color. After each hexagon is prepared, it is dropped into the appropriate bag. This really makes it easy for me to pick out the colors I need for each row in my quilt. They don't get lost, they stay together, and I don't have to search through a whole bunch of hexagons to find the color I need.

I hope you give this a try if you've had trouble keeping track of YOUR hexagons! Let me know if it works for you.

 

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Hexagons To Go Go--Tutorial for Cutting

I am getting ready to do a bit of traveling and need to get some sewing ready to take along. English paper piecing is a GREAT take-along project. I have a hexagon project I started awhile back--just to refresh your memory...

Well, I have started working on it again and will be taking it along on my trips. I read somewhere that sewing the hexagons together in rows might be easier than sewing them the way I was doing it (in clusters of sorts). I gave the row method a try, and I like it. The picture below shows you what I've been doing. It doesn't look like a lot, but there are LOTS of hexagons in those four rows!

This piece is the very top of the design on which I'm working; the first picture is the center of the design.

To get the project ready to take along, I needed to cut some fabric for my hexagons. I have a system worked out that I'll share with you. I can cut a bunch of hexagons in a short time.

First, I cut one hexagon to size and use it as a template for cutting others. For my size hexagons, I cut a strip 2" wide and fold it over so that I have four layers to cut through. I place the "template" on top of the four layers.

Next, I use my ruler to cut the segment I need. (For the size hexagons I'm using, I cut approximately 1.75 inches.)

After that, I stack the cut segment back onto the strip.

Now, I have a stack of eight layers with my "template" on top. Next, I use my ruler to make a cut at 1.75 inches again.

I line a small ruler up with the edges of the hexagon and slice off the corners of the fabric.

I continue to move the ruler around the hexagon "template" and cut all the corners off. When I'm finished, I have a stack of eight hexagons.

It doesn't take long to get quite a few hexagons cut.

I LOVE how all those little hexagons look!

 

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It's Fall and There Was a Quilt Show!

I found this great little tutorial for the cutest cloth pumpkins ever. Check them out.

You can find the tutorial here. The littlest pumpkins would make great place markers for a nice fall dinner (i.e. Thanksgiving). Just lean paper name tags against the stems--ADORABLE!

I had the opportunity to go to a quilt show put on by the Raintree Quilt Guild this past weekend. Since I'm in a fall kind of mood, I'll show you the fall quilts first. These first three quilts are by Karen Hampton. They are all for sale. Check out her website here.

Fall Trio

Pebble and Leaf

Northern Lights

This next quilt is called Autumn Vines and was pieced by Darlene Robinett and quilted by Linda Bolen. It was a block-of-the-month quilt at a local quilt shop.

Since I'm on a "fall kick"...today was SO beautiful that my husband and I felt like we just HAD to get outside. We decided to make a trip to the Huber Family Farm in southern Indiana. Here is a pic of my husband with lots of big, beautiful pumpkins. I LOVE the orange of those pumpkins!

Back to the quilt show...this next quilt was meticulously pieced by Karen Long Miller and BEAUTIFULLY machine quilted by Rita English. I think if you click the picture you can get a close up look at the quilt.

I have a soft spot in my heart for antique quilts. This quilt is a Boston Commons and was HAND pieced and HAND quilted by Minnie Boekenhoff; it was made in the 1930s. The granddaughter, Linda Bolen, (who owns the quilt) was told by her mother that this was a quilt kit. There is A LOT of quilting on this quilt. It was interesting to see the edge finishing. The edges are turned under and whip stitched shut with TINY little stitches.

It just looked so soft and cuddly. I REALLY wanted to touch it but refrained. I DID take a close up so you could see the beautiful hand quilting on this one.

I love a good quilt show, and I love fall. I'm a happy gal!

 

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Studio Tour--Peggy Brown

A group of artists from SAQA Indiana went to the Nashville, Indiana, home of fiber artist extraordinaire Peggy Brown this past weekend. It was wonderful to meet some new people and see Peggy's beautiful home and studio. Peggy was a wonderful hostess. (She even served us sherbet and cookies while we were there.)

Peggy was kind enough to share several pieces of her art with us. We saw finished quilts and paintings and even got to see some work in progress. We saw how she uses her watercolor paintings in her quilts. She currently has a piece in Quilt National (2013). If you aren't familiar with Peggy's work (or if you'd like to refresh your memory), check out her website here. Peggy told us she began her career as a watercolor artist. In the quilts we got to see, she used watercolor paints on silk and digital photography of her watercolor paintings (along with a lot of other things) to make her artistic visions come to life. Peggy was VERY generous about sharing her process with us. I loved the transparency and "glow" in the layers of her work. Here are a few pictures.

This picture shows Peggy speaking with us about her process.

In the photo above, Peggy points out the real leaves she has used in the piece.

Here, Peggy speaks about how she constructs her pieces.

I LOVE the "glow" that seems to come from within this piece.

Here Peggy shows us what she will be using for a background on one of her new pieces. She has used watercolor paints to create the background she wants. She also showed us pieces of painted tissue paper, painted interfacing, and a soywax batik piece that might be incorporated into the new work.

I might have trouble getting ANY work done if I had this view out of MY living room window!

Thank you, Peggy, for sharing with us.

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