The Word of the Day is Ombré

 

I only made two purchases at PIQF, the small bundle of Tilda FQs, and the Fibonacci's Fancy quilt pattern from Material Girlfriends. On the right is a purchase from Stash Fabrics that I got in the mail of the very last two ombrê confetti colors that I needed for the Ombrê Triangles quilt.

Here's the same picture with the Tilda FQs spread out a bit. This is more from the Bloomsville group which I really do love a lot. What do you think, another sort of ombré fabric for the blue/green in the Fibonacci pattern? Might be too much.

And now that I have a rainbow's worth I had to take a group picture of course before they get all cut up!

Others at PIQF

 

I didn't take too many pictures at PIQF, but here a few of them. First up in the New Quilts of Northern California exhibit is "Mixed Box" by Karen Bolan. The transparency effect is so great in this one, achieved by using a jelly roll. The pattern is available here and I think I have just the jelly roll waiting around to be used for something like this.

Next in the same exhibit, "A Traditional Block Revisited" by Susan Dague, quilted by Sue Fox. Why this isn't a picture of the complete quilt I'm not sure, but I hope you get the general idea. I really liked the colors in this one and the super interesting and vibrant composition. It reminded me of my Kitchen Sink Quilt, and yep, she'd also taken a class with Maria Shell.

This is a detail of a quilt that used word fabrics and I think selvedges with phrases on them as a sort of sashing in-between QST blocks. I didn't get the name of the quilt or maker for this one. A very fun idea.

This very excellent use of ombré fabric is "Mobius Meets Ombre" by Helen Klee, quilted by Martine Zaun . It was made with a paper piecing technique taught by Audrey Esarey (Cotton&Bourbon on Instagram). 

I thought the choice to use an ombrê fabric on the border also was just perfect. Great visual impact.

I was happy to see Therese May had a quilt in the NQNC exhibit too. This is a detail of one of her digital sketches that she's had printed on fabric and then made into a quilt, "One Hundred Twenty Cat Faces." It's a very different look, but still instantly recognizable as hers.

I really liked this interesting block, I think it was EPP? Great maximalist colors and patterns in the fabric choices.

Here's "Getting Pickled" by Suzan Lynne Peterson, from an interesting group exhibit, Talk Ten Travels, based on a vintage household magazine from the 1940's, Household & Poetry in Cloth. I loved the vibrant mustard yellow to go with the Coleman's label and the energetic hand-stitching. This one just made me laugh with delight, I guess I was surprised at a perfect giant pickle.

I noticed that there was a whole lot of allover matchstick quilting happening on many of the quilts. It's kind of like the new version of allover stippling. Matchstick quilting gives a flatter surface with a very different texture. It almost becomes like an overlay of a not-so sheer fabric. There were some quilts with even more dense stitching than this quilt. I really like the spacing between groups of close together three lines of stitching on this quilt.

PIQF- My Version

 

Today was the day I was able to go to PIQF with friend Jaye. I was glad to get to visit the SAQA booth where some of the Prism Play show rejects were all displayed together. I thought it was quite fun to see them because these aren't the ones I've seen in the actual traveling quilt exhibit photos. Two of mine are in this first picture. 

This was a lot less quilts than the traveling Prism Play exhibit which has 62 quilts , but still got all around the color wheel pretty completely.

I think really good choices were made by the local SAQA exhibit group and I was happy that two of my quilts got an outing.

It's always good to see any of the Social Justice Sewing Academy completed quilts displayed, they had a whole row of them this year. I was happy to see that there were two quilts that had blocks that I'd embroidered. This block is one that I stitched on way back in 2018.. I wish I'd taken a picture of the whole quilt because it looked so good. Look at that beautiful quilting and the great piecing in the sashing. Gorgeous! 

And here I am cheesing it up in front of my Safe At Home quilt in the New Quilts of Northern California exhibit. Photo credit goes to friend Jaye. I neglected to take a picture of the other quilt I had hanging in the Stretching Art and Tradition exhibit, but it looked pretty good. All in all, a fun visit to PIQF, less quilts than the pre-pandemic normal, no international quilts😞, and a different group of vendors to choose from. Even m ore fun was running into friends from CQFA and BAMQ.

At PIQF This Year

Heads up, at this year's odd summer-time PIQF, I've got four quilts that will be on display at the Santa Clara Convention Center from July 24-27 as part of various exhibits. 

In the New Quilts of Northern California exhibit, be on the look out for my "Safe At Home" quilt.

Over in the SAQA exhibit, we'll be showing off some of the rejects from the now touring Prism Play show, and two (out of three) of mine will be displayed.  It was hard to say yes when they asked, but I did, so I hope you'll have a chance to check them all out.  This one above is named Aqua Centrum.

And this one is named Chartreuse Sinister.

And finally, in one of the special exhibits, Stretching Art & Tradition 24, my quilt 5-4-5-7 will be displayed.

Class With Uzoma Samuel

This was my view in the front row of Fabric Portrait class with Uzoma Samuel, who came all the way from Lagos, Nigeria to teach at PIQF.  The wonderful friend-Jaye-made bag and a bag of fabric "in great variety" as per his supply list. I thought it was interesting that we didn't need to bring a photo of someone we wanted to do, or a background piece of fabric, or anything to draw on fabric with.

And then we were all handed a piece of artist canvas with the same portrait sketched onto it by our teacher. Each one was done individually, so they were all slightly different. 

Here's Uzoma zooming in on the eye and talking about how if you don't get the eyes right, your portrait won't really represent the individual person you're trying to portray. He had a lot of great advice about how to go about this. I liked that he had this projector with the actual photo, it was so great to have it to refer to the whole time. And then being able to zoom in on the different features was very useful.

Here's how my eyes started out. We didn't measure or trace at all, we used what he called "eye-gauge", you look at the photo you're working from and cut the shape you're working on. Just like when you draw.

It really was time consuming, finding the right shades to represent the 3-d-ness of the forehead.

Here's where I ended up. My left side of the nose got a little lost, so  I may go back and switch out some of the fabrics.

We all put our work up on the wall and it was fascinating to see how different they all were.

Some of the students had a selection of fabrics that were pretty challenging to work with in this context, but everyone gave it a real try. The other students were all really helpful and fun to be in class with, I found it very enjoyable.

I'm so glad I got to take this class, Uzoma Samuel had recently taught some classes in the Bay Area through the SJSA as detailed in the Bay Area issue of Quiltfolk, but I wasn't free. I'm so happy that he came back to the area to teach at PIQF.

Using this detailed approach to making a portrait is so different than other types of faces I've made in fabric. It's trying for more realism than I usually attempt or want to do. Maybe I'll re-do the small piece I did twenty-three years ago of my grandma in this method.

Very Brief PIQF

I only took a few pictures of a small part of the exhibits at PIQF during a break from the all-day class that I took on Saturday. Unfortunately I didn't get back to see the whole show, so please enjoy these. 

Above is a beautiful Therese May quilt called "Fractured Cat". I really love seeing how her style has changed and evolved over the years but is still recognizably hers. The matchstick quilting was really a great addition to this quilt.

"Modern Meet Manx" by Laura McHugh is a great quilt utilizing pieced blocks in a configuration I've never seen but is super effective visually. 

Hey, here's my quilt, "Lone Round Robin", a little bit rumpled from the journey.

I nearly squealed aloud when I saw this quilt hanging nearby mine, I just love these circles! Christi Sutphen's "The News is Causing Me to See Spots!'. Couldn't agree more with the sentiment.

Here's a bit of closeup of the corner. Great use of word fabrics.

I love these pieced shapes together with the embroidered vines/flowers. Mostly I was attracted to the soft yet vibrant hand dyed rainbow fabrics. The quilting is pretty terrific too. 

This quilt is called "Spinning Spools" made by Frankie Hey and quilted by Beth Handy. Here's a detail of the border so you can see the great appliqué and quilting.

This one is so great, the design is interesting,  balanced and lovely, but those colors are so beautiful and vibrant. 

This detail of "Finding Harmony" by Andrea Barrett shows off the well-thought out quilting design and the clever pieced-in circles.

More on the class that I took tomorrow.

Two Quilts in PIQF

 

I got the excuse to go to Golden State Quilting this week because I was dropping off my quilt, Lone Round Robin. It will be in at the New Quilts of Northern California exhibit at PIQF. That's right, after applying many times, I finally made it into this exhibit. 

Also in the NorCal SAQA exhibit at PIQF you'll be able to see my quilt Grid Work Free.

While at Golden State, I bought a red Miyako leather handle to make a furoshiki bag out of a square of fabric, 

two fat quarters of a great Carrie Bloodstone print, Color Wheels, some more of the fishnet print from Tula Pink's Nightshade Deja Vu for the Set Sail quilt and some more of the Painter's Palette in blackberry to use in the finishing of the Trinket Quilt.

Only One Bag Full

 

A big bag full of PIQF purchases all stacked up on my table. I took some pictures before I put everything away so I can remember where this stuff came from.

This Halloween FQ stack came home mainly due to the hilarious grinning bug print. 

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The others are also great together. I think I might make another table runner (I know I know), this time for our coffee table. Then that's 24 (2 per month) that I "can" make without too many eyebrows being raised.

In the same booth, Quilts by Kat, I met Kathy Allen who is the author of this super interesting book, ModernScot. She even signed it for me, how fun is that? What a brilliant idea, to make quilts based on the traditional tartan patterns. The booth was filled with examples from her instructions and they are really beautiful quilts, I can't wait to make one for my mom inspired by her family's tartan.

ThimbleCreek Quilts had this really nice selection of Alison Glass +-sign batiks packaged up, and sometimes I just can't resist a rainbow.... I almost almost bought this halloween quilt kit.

This was the first thing I bought, the barkcloth Charley Harper skull with a bird in the eyehole print will become a bag of some kind. The two Tula Pink solids were just because the colors sang together. Can you imagine an entire quilt made out of this fabulous combo? Or maybe we should change Christmas colors to this pairing? A Christmas quilt in these colors, that's the ticket! I may have to get my hands on some yardage...

And lastly, an interesting new-to-me tool, Scrap Tape, from the Batty Lady booth. It's a water dissolving stabilizer to make 2.5" "fabric" out of your scraps, sew, flip and then sew in to a quilt. Then the stabilizer washes out, stay tuned...I'm interested in how this will work. Super Scrappy Sashing in a solids quilt, or?