Road Trip

Another item that I donated for our quilt guild's auction was a road trip to Grounds For Sculpture(http://www.groundsforsculpture.org/) in Hamilton, NJ and The Pennington Quilt Works(http://www.penningtonquilts.com/). There were 3 bidders and so off we went. Grounds For Sculpture is a very cool , mostly outdoor museum. It was built in 1992, where the NJ State Fairgrounds used to be, to showcase the sculptures of J. Seward Johnson. His sculptures are of people that are very life-like. Sometimes you can't tell if it's actually a person or a sculpture. In addition to these types of sculptures peppered throughout the park, there are several vignettes that he has adapted from Renoir paintings.

All in all there are over 250 sculptures by many different artists displayed in this amazing botanical setting, with specimen type plantings. Sometimes you round a corner and surprise, there is a piece of art. Sometimes they are in small isolated areas or through a little door. One of my favorite ones was created by Joan Danziger, called October Beginnings. It was maybe 2 feet high - so child-like.

A bonus was the flock of resident peacocks. It must have been mating season. A couple of the males had their feathers arrayed full out. You could hear them shimmying those feathers trying to attract the attention of the uninterested females. It was hard to tear ourselves away from the "show".

We then drove about 20 minutes from the Sculpture Garden to the Pennington Quilt Works. This is one of my favorite quilt shops. They have tons of fabric- most of it very current. Tons of batiks, Amy Butler, Moda and more. I was told that they really try and move their fabric. First it starts out in a collection, then it moves to the color section. As soon as the fabric has been there for a year, it goes into their sale section. Nice.

Another bonus is that in the same strip mall as the quilt shop, there is both a knitting/needlework store and a bead shop. Heaven!

Discharge Dying How To's

When you think of fabric dying, you assume that you will be changing the color of a fabric by adding color to it. Discharge dying isn't about adding color to fabric, it's about removing color from fabric. It's really a technical term for bleaching. The first step in learning about this process is using products containing bleach to remove the color from black cotton fabric.

As part of a fundraising auction for my quilt guild, I offerred to give a workshop on discharge dying along with lunch provided by Terry Kramzar, at my home. Adequate ventilation must be provided. Since it was a very wet and rainy day, we did our experimenting in my garage with the door partially open. I decided to make it an experiment and discovery day. The discharge products included Clorox bleach in a spray bottle, Soft Scrub with bleach, Clorox Toilet Bowl Cleaner, Clorox Bleach Pen and Lysol Mildew Remover.

All kinds of crafty items were made available for making designs on the black fabric. These included quilting stencils, foam brushes, sponges, plastic needlework canvas, bicycle parts, foam rubber stamps, bubble wrap and stick-on letters.

Let the games begin! It is so energizing doing this type of experimenting with a group. You feed off of each other and as one person tries something, another tries it and does it one better. Everyone tried the different discharging materials, different lengths of exposure time and different crafty items. It was surprising that even though everyone brought their own black cotton fabric, they all pretty much discharged to a rust color. I thought we might get more variation. One of the fabrics was more of a black tone on tone and that bleached to a different color. A poly-cotton , more poly than cotton, became grey after extended bleaching.

After being exposed to the bleach, the discharge process must be stopped, or else the fabric can become very fragile. This is important to know: YOU MUST USE A SOLUTION OF SODIUM THIOSULFATE (Bleach Stop or Anti-Chlor) TO STOP THE BLEACHING PROCESS. This is available from Dharma Trading (http://www.dharmatrading.com/) . You only need a teaspoon for 2.5 gallons of water. This product removes all of the excess chlorine. There is a lot of erroneous information out there, that you can use vinegar. VINEGAR WILL NOT STOP THE BLEACHING PROCESS! After soaking the the Bleach Stop for a least 25 minutes, soak in regular water and then wash in your regular laundry detergent.

We had a blast! A makeshift clothesline in my garage shows how prolific everyone was and the amazing variety. The consensus was :

Favorite Discharge Agent: Clorox Toilet Bowl Cleaner.

Favorite Design Aid: Stencils and foam stamps

To Show Or Not To Show

So you think you may want to enter a quilt show, but you're just not sure if you are willing to put your creation out in the public eye and if it is of quilt show caliber. Should you do it? There are lots of things to consider.


There are many quilt shows with varying degrees of selectivity. Most quilt shows put on by local quilt guilds will show all the quilts that are submitted for consideration. Then, at the other end of the spectrum are the top echelon of quilt shows that are extremely exclusive with a rigorous screening process. There are shows for traditional quilts and there are shows for art quilts and then everything inbetween.


The first thing to know is that most of the time you have to pay an entry fee. This fee can range anywhere from $5 to $40. The lower fee would be for a local show with no monetary prizes. The higher fee might be for a national/international show, where you might be able to win money.



The first question you have to ask yourself is if you want to share your quilt with the public. Then, is it worth paying out money for what you are going to receive? And the next question is - what am I going to receive? The answer to this last question is based purely on my experience. I have had quilts in local shows, national and international shows and exhibitions.

If this is your first experience, a local show may be the best place to start. There are lots of local shows. Many quilt guilds mount a show, usually every other year. Membership in the guild is usally not a requirement. You may be entering the show for many reasons:

• Share your quilts with the public (family and friends included)
  


• Get a critique of your quilt that might include workmanship, color selection, design choices



• Recognition



• Win a ribbon/money

If you are looking for a critique, make sure there will be judges. Whoever puts on the show, usually hires NQA certified judges. These judges go through a very rigorous training course that includes mastering many quilting techniques.

My best experience in entering a show was my first show. It was a local show put on by the quilt guild that I belonged to at the time. The year was 1994 and I entered "Whitney Lake" It was machine pieced, hand appliqued and hand quilted. The 2 comments that I still remember (and that was over 10 years ago) were that 1. The binding was empty 2. The plaid fabric triangles should match.

After the initial sting of criticism, I have made sure that I have never had an empty binding again. The matching of the plaids was a personal choice and I chose to ignore this comment. It is really your choice in how you view the critique.

After years of making quilts of my own design and teaching, I decided to enter larger shows with more exposure. I also entered some of my quilts in exhibitions. Both of these types of events involve submitting photos and being accepted (or juried in). They also usually involve an entry fee. To enter any of these types of shows, your quilts really need to be your original design. And you need to match your style of quilting with the type of show. Places to look for shows to enter include magazines, such as Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. There are also a few great websites to look for potential shows: www.lyrickinard.com/where_to_show

http://www.fiberartcalls.blogspot.com/

www.festivals-and-shows.com/quilt-shows.html

If you know other great sites, e-mail me and I will add them to my list on my sidebar.

The benefits of participating in a large show/exhibition are many. Although I have found judges comments to be limited , just based on the number of quilts they are seeing. Recognition is a great thing too. Exposure to a wide audience, sometimes in many different areas of the country, is the most exciting thing for me. This exposure can lead to being included in magazines, calendars, other exhibitions, teaching opportunities and even commissions.

So you have to decide if this is what you want to do and if this matches your goals. I have to tell you, it's a great feeling to see your quilt hanging in a show and watching people viewing it. (Ribbons are the icing on the cake, but many times I have seen quilts win a first prize ribbon in one show and win nothing in another. Judging is very subjective and should not deter you from your path.)

Alzheimer Quilt Exhibit

This is one of the greatest honors I have ever had - having a quilt in the traveling exhibit, Alzheimer -Forgetting Piece By Piece. It started almost 4 years ago. Ami Simms' mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. For those of you who don't know who Ami is, she's an internationally famous quilter known for her great sense of humor (http://www.amisimms.com/). In her energizer bunny kind of way, Ami wanted to do something to both raise money and awareness about Alzheimer's. She worked in the medium she knows best - quilts. She called it the Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiative.

So she first put out a call for quilts that would help to educate the public about this terrible disease. She chose 52 of them to put together a travelling quilt show. I was so thrilled when I found out that mine was one of them. My father, Leonard Krisel, died in 1998. He passed away from a heart attack, but he had Alzheimer's. It was a blessing at the time. Mentally and physically he was in terrible shape. Making this quilt was an opportunity for me to honor my father and revisit his life. "Leaving Us" was designed as a 3 panel quilt, depicting 3 stages of a person's life who has Alzheimer's. A tree full of life and family is the first panel. As the dementia starts to take hold, cognitive functions are lost. And at last, the only thing left is a shell of a person, who is still a father, a grandfather, a human being.

I made the quilt using dupioni silk and spent lots of hours sitting at my sewing machine, thinking about my Dad, and blanket stitching all of the leaves. I used a gold paint pen to write on the leaves. The poignancy of my quilt led Ami to choose it for the cover of the CD depicting all of the quilts. I was beside myself with joy.

Ami's belief in this project, led her to invest lots of her own money to self-publish a book - Alzheimer's - Forgetting Piece By Piece. (All of the profits are donated to Alzheimer research.) It is a wonderful art book with all of the quilts and the authors words about their creations. (You can purchase a copy at http://www.alzquilts.org/.) Ami also started on-line auctions for small quilt pieces to raise money for research. In all. she (along with the help of many people) has raised close to $300,000. Impressive! (Unfortunately, her mother passed away at the beginning of November, 2008).

Initially, the quilts were supposed to travel for 3 years and then return home. But there were more and more opportunities for them to travel. When asked if I would mind letting her keep the quilts for a longer time, my answer was YES! Who would see my quilt if it was sitting in my closet?

I was reminded of all of this recently, when I found out that The Upper Cumberland Quilt Show in Tennessee (http://www.quilt-festival.com/currrentnews.htm) was hosting the Alzheimer quilts in September and they were using my quilt as the poster. MY QUILT IS FAMOUS and it makes me so proud to be part of this group and to keep my Dad's memory alive.


So many of us have been touched by this cruel disease. You don't need to be a quilter to relate to these quilts. Check the schedule (http://www.alzquilts.org/) and bring a few tissues with you.

The Wonders of Rick Rack

A little while ago, our quilt guild ran a bus trip to NYC. The plan was to go to the garment district and The Americna Folk Art Museum. We used Paula Nadelstern's website, http://www.paulanadelstern.com/, for our shopping plan. We pretty much stuck with her abbreviated 3 hour version and walked our feet off. With side trips to the folk art museum, The City Quilter (http://www.cityquilter.com/), lunch and Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes (http://www.magnoliacupcakes.com/), featured on Sex And The City, our day was packed.

Our favorite stop was Daytona Trims (http://www.daytonatrim.com/) on 39th St. Kelly Meanix, queen of rick rack turned us (Christine Kamon and me) on to this wonderful and fun trim. Daytona had yards and yards and yards of rick rack in teeny tiny widths to giant widths in every single color you could think of. You would tell the store employee which one and how much you wanted and they would measure it right off the spool, cut it and stuff it in a plastic bag and record the price on the outside of the bag. It was intoxicating - 5yds/$1, 3yds/$1, up to $2/yd. We bought an assortment of colrs and sizes. We were giddy with joy! (I know, we need a real life.) Between the 3 of us, we sepnt over $150 on this old - but new to us - embellishment.

Our brains were working a mile a minute. Where could we use our new discovery and did we buy enough? Oh there's always mail order, if we run out! The wonderful thing about this rick rack is that it's cotton. It's got a nice soft feel to it. And it's behavior is bias-like. It curves nicely. Check out the swirls you can make. I can't wait until I can find the time to try it with other circular/wavey applications I have used it in a quilt that I am working on. And guess what? I did run out. And I had to call Daytona Trims to send me more. This is a block of the quilt called "Bubblegum Kisses".

Christine had a ball using many of the colors she bought on a quilt she made. I have posted a cropped image so you can get a feeling for the variety of rick rack she used. The quilt is called "Buttons, Beads and Rick Rack". The rick rack really curves nicely around the circle.

You can buy packaged rick rack at JoAnn's. They do have it in a variety of sizes and colors, but it is polyester and is a little stufffer.

Inspiration From Mexican Folk Art

Everyone finds their inspiration from different places. I have always looked around me for my inspiration. Whether it is from a building detail, a wallpaper design or a photograph. My current inspiration comes from Mexican folk art. My husband and I went to Cabos San Lucas last year for a week's vacation. One day we took a bus to San Jose del Cabo. Well, I thought I died and went to heaven! There was eye candy EVERYWHERE! The ceramics and tiles had designs galore. The handstamped silver just called out to me. The idea of milagros (charms for good luck, usually associated with illness) and the retablos touched my soul. And there were these wonderful little tin shadowboxes, some painted-some not, that are called nichos. And Frieda Kahlo's face was everywhere. She is their heroine and is much loved.

I usually do not come home with many souvenirs from vacation. But we definitely needed that extra fold-up suitcase that we brought. I couldn't pass up this beautiful bathroom sink for $60. It fit into one of the carry-on bags and we protected it with clothes. I carried it like it was a baby. When we got to the airport, I was a little nervous going through security. As it went through the X-ray machine, I heard the security guy call over one of his co-workers. He said to him, "You know how I say that people try to carry on everything but the kitchen sink - well look at this lady's bag, she brought the kitchen sink!"

I couldn't wait to create a quilt based on my Frida nicho. I had been thinking about making a shrine quilt. It's called "A Shrine To Planet Earth" and reflects the admiration and wonder that I have for this amazing planet of ours. The quilt also sends a message to preserve and protect. I used lots of cotton, silk dupioni, organza, buttons, beads, and metallic threads. This quilt hung in the Museum of the American Quilt Society (http://www.quiltmuseum.org/) this winter and will be on display at the Quilter's Heritage Celebration in Lancaster,PA (http://www.qhconline.com/) at the beginning of April.

My husband, Don, and I are off to Mexico again next week. We're going to a town called Puebla which is famous for making Talavera tile and is the place where mole sauce was created. We're taking some cooking classes, so maybe I'll have a recipe or two to share upon my return.

Hasta luego!

The Reveal

My small art quilt group, "Layers" had our 2nd challenge. There are 6 members in our group and everyone eventually will have a turn to create the challenge rules. This time the subject - :

"Everything Old Is New Again". The rules :

• Size:40"x40"
• Quilt must contain a square in the design
• Quilt must be a charm quilt with no solid fabric
• Quilt must have some form of applique
• Applique can be fused or hand done
• Quilt must contain the colors:pink,red,blue,yellow,brown,orange abd turquoise in any amount
• No whining or crying
• 3 months to complete the challenge

Coming up with a design was easier for some people. Some of us definitely broke the whining rule. (me being one of them.) Until I had my brainstorm for my idea, I had an issue with the size. I usually work on smaller wallhangings. I was on vacation for a month in Key West and had about 1 month left to go before the challenge was due and I did not have a plan yet. I was on my daily morning walk and looking in the window of one of the art galleries. I saw a print with peace signs on multi-colored backgrounds. Eureka! The peace sign - it's new again. Brightly colored batiks - Key West colors - 10" blocks - applique. It all worked and fit the rules. The result is my quilt titled: "Peace Comes In Many Colors". I embellished it with buttons and as many peace charms as I could find.


I sewed the buttons on with my sewing machine. I put the buttons in place, dropped the feed dogs and adjusted the zig zag stitch to the hole separation distance. I zigged and zagged 10 times. For the placement of the buttons for the peace sign, I drew the peace symbol with a Sharpie marker on a piece of water soluble stabilizer. I pinned the stabilizer to the quilt and sewed on the buttons. The solvy actually ripped off cleanly with having to resort to using water.

The members of my group agreed that I could introduce them and share some of their quilts. Kelly Meanix, in charge of the challenge, had the most difficult time. About a week before the challenge was due, she was inspired by her husband, Bob. Bob uses his creative material (wood) to make notes. So, Kelly decided she was going to use her creative material, fabric, to write on to voice her frustration with the challenge and to make her daily "To Do" list. You can see that the entire quilt is covered with her writing.

Christine Kamon tapped into her stash of rick rack, much of which she purchased on a road trip to the garment district in NYC. She used every size from a petite to the giant.

Jane Hamilton was lucky enough to work on her Bromeliad creation while visiting with her cousin in Tuscon. We had to go on a treasure hunt to find her square.








Lisa O'Neill and Terry Kramzar (www.TerryKramzar.com) were also participants. Wait until you see their creations.

What's exciting about this entire process is that we all worked from the same set of rules. It was amazing that the end results were so entirely different. Stay tuned for exhibit locations.