The Miami Valley Quilters’ Guild met last night, and they announced the winners from last weekend’s show. Our guild doesn’t use a panel of judges to pick the winners. Instead, each person that comes to the show is given a ballot as they enter, and they get to vote on their favorite quilt in each category. I always enjoy learning what quilts the average viewer picks since they are a mix of quilters and non-quilters. It is often very different from what trained judges might pick, but each group is looking for something different, [ ... ]
Archive for the Category »my art quilts «
May 09
2012
The Miami Valley Quilters’ Guild met last night, and they announced the winners from last weekend’s show. Our guild doesn’t use a panel of judges to pick the winners. Instead, each person that comes to the show is given a ballot as they enter, and they get to vote on their favorite quilt in each category. I always enjoy learning what quilts the average viewer picks since they are a mix of quilters and non-quilters. It is often very different from what trained judges might pick, but each group is looking for something different, [ ... ]
Category: awards, my quilt guild, Quilt Queen
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May 07
2012
I have added Surrender and Quilt Queen to the “My Quilts” page. I’m sure I’ll be tweaking the information a bit from time to time, but for now you can read about each of these quilts on their own pages:
“Surrender” can be found at http://mariaelkins.com/index.php/quilts/surrender/.
“Quilt Queen” can be found at http://mariaelkins.com/index.php/quilts/quilt-queen/.
Category: Amalya, Quilt Queen, Surrender
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Apr 26
2012
Hooray!!! I’ve finished all the quilting, and we’ve celebrated with Dairy Queen! Now I just need to label it, sleeve it, photograph it, document it…what else? I’m afraid all that is going to have to wait a bit since I have two other deadlines to work on first. BUT, I did finish it in time to send an entry form for June’s NQA show. This is a non-juried show that accepts the first 400 entries, and the “received by” deadline is April 30. So, as long as they haven’t met their quota yet, I’m hoping this quilt will [ ... ]
Category: Amalya, family, my art quilts, Surrender, work in progress
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Apr 25
2012
I had a few available hours today, so I dove in and made a start on the background. The basic outlines are now in place. Tomorrow I finish it off!
This was the fourth month of SewCalGal’s 2012 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge. This month guest teacher was Don Linn. He introduced a method of tracing your design onto tulle or netting with a permanent marker, and then using the marked tulle to trace the design onto your quilt with a washable blue marker. Since I was working on a deadline for this project, [ ... ]
Category: free-motion quilting, Surrender, work in progress
10 Comments
Apr 24
2012
I gathered up my courage and finished quilting the mom’s face and hair. It is a small, but important area. I really wanted it to look nice. I tried giving myself some convincing self-talk so I would quit procrastinating and get it done. In the end, it took the motivation of an impending deadline for me to jump in and do it. So, it is with great relief that all of the main elements are now completely quilted.
But now I’m stuck on that background again. I can’t figure out how I want to quilt it. I don’t [ ... ]
Category: Surrender, work in progress
8 Comments
Apr 23
2012
Eleven hours, minus breaks and meals. What a luxury! I was able to lavish most of the day on my quilt. I finished the baby, his baby quilt, the arms reaching for him, and his mom’s clothes and hands. Tomorrow morning, when I’m fresh, I’ll tackle the mom’s face and hair, and then I need to go to the drawing board to plan the background sky. I feel good about how much I got done so far. I feel so much less pressured, although I confess I did quite a bit of stress eating today. Mostly good food like [ ... ]
Category: Surrender, work in progress
7 Comments
Apr 22
2012
I was able to squeeze in an hour or so this morning before church. I spent the time adding some brown background to the right and left of the baby quilt. I also added some additional shadows within the quilt to try to emphasize the idea that it is bending over the edge of the table. Not sure I quite achieved that look, but I have decided that I’m done fiddling with it.
This evening after Bible study I prepared my backing fabric and batting, and then I pin basted the quilt sandwich. Because the cotton/silk blend fabric is more [ ... ]
Category: Surrender, work in progress
4 Comments
Apr 21
2012
Backgrounds. I’ve never liked them. Like I said before, backgrounds are boring. Maybe it’s because I spent so many years just drawing with pencil or Conté crayons, concentrating on just the main image. Somehow that seems fine for a simple drawing, but it doesn’t work so well on painted images.
So, I always end up with the same dilemma. I never quite know how to how to deal with the background, especially in a piece like this. The main image is completely painted, but if I do a watercolor wash for the background, I risk having it bleed into [ ... ]
Category: Surrender, work in progress
12 Comments
Apr 20
2012
Today was a wonderful day for working. I put in “Cinderella” and worked steadily while the mice sewed a ballgown. Then I popped in “Tangled” and continued my adventure while Rapunzel went on an adventure of her own. It was so nice to work uninterrupted for several hours at a stretch.
I decided the baby needed to be laying on a baby quilt. I just had to figure out how to work out the various bending lines. I solved the problem by laying a plaid towel on my dining room table. This let me get the basic lines [ ... ]
Category: Surrender, work in progress
7 Comments
Apr 19
2012
I squeezed in two more hours today. I wanted more of a tonal difference between the mother and baby, so I adjusted the colors of the clothing. Then I finished putting in the arms. I wanted them to be rather vague, sketchy, and somewhat translucent.
Now I have the dilemma of what the baby is laying on and what is in the background. I don’t know why, but backgrounds are boring to me, so I always forget to consider them until the main image is finished. I know my art teachers would lecture me for doing this.
I imported the [ ... ]
Category: Surrender, work in progress
6 Comments
