My View: A Few Books To Pique Your Creativity and a Giveaway!

It is not even the Ides of January and I'm feeling the overload! How about you? Hopefully your overload is in creativity and inspiration. I'm afraid my good intentions evaporated before the mists of that first January morning dissipated. It seems that I am slogging through this new year watching British mysteries and period pieces and spouting words like 'slogging' and 'bloody hell.' I'm even sipping Earl Grey tea as I write this.

Even in this land of Florida sunshine, there has been a shortage of old Sol. A couple sun rays arrived in the mail yesterday from American Quilter's Society.

I must admit that when I first saw the words 'Sunbonnet Sue' on the front cover of the first book, I groaned. I am not a fan. They are cute, vintage 1930s which doesn't seem to be my favorite era. And the cutie is so not what I want hanging in my house or covering my beds. I've seen them clad in pastels and dressed up as cowgirl or cowboy and wasn't impressed.

Dutifully, I looked again and am sooooo glad I did! Debra Kimball has put together a creative and fun group of Sues. The book is International Sun Bonnet Sue.

The book blurb describes well what you'll find inside "49 enchanting Sunbonnet designs capture the essence of places from around the globe. Each Sue is dressed in her country's traditional costume and holds a symbolic souvenir."

It was the Kimono Sue quilt, inspiration for this book, which drew me in. These little Japanese Sue figures are adorable. The fabrics and details the author chose definitely make these figures inviting. The symbolic souvenirs that they hold really give the figures character.

What a great project for using up scraps, or a great reason to delve into your assorted collection of fabrics. Bright colors, muted, whatever worked from batiks to flower prints. This book is light on technique. It is applique in whatever form you wish to use. What it features are the patterns for each of the 49 Sues along with photos of the author's fabric choices. There's even a little Sherlock Holmes clad Sue. If you enjoy applique -- whether needle turn or the fused or raw edge techniques -- you'll find these are patterns that will make you smile. Each turn of the page lightened my attitude and made my fingers itch to get started.

There is but one finished quilt and that is simply squares set together with sashing and each square has a figure appliqued to the middle of it. Not terribly exciting, but I'm sure once you begin making these little girls, you will find a host of ways to display them. A children's room seems the most reasonable place to display these Sues. I can see them adorning wall hangings, maybe arranged in a circle or on a table runner or even potholders or placemats. A bell pull perhaps? I know once you begin making these sweeties, you will find excellent ways to display them. Maybe even a birthday banner?

The second book may resonate with many who are determined to try new techniques this year and MASTER them! New York Beauty Simplified by Linda J. Hahn may be just what you need to ease into points, paper piecing, and curved piecing. Linda, in her introduction reassures us Subversive Stitchers that "The technique you are about to learn is very untraditional; we are going to break some rules. I have a very relaxed style and I do not like to stress or agonize. It is my opinion that quilting should be FUN and not stressful."

Circles, half circles, quarter circles, serpentine arrangements, and more fill this book. She also offers a variety of photos of many quilts to show off fabric choices. Perhaps it is simply my mood, my need for inspiration, but I found this book upbeat and easy to follow and most of all, calling to my creative urges to give it a try.

Going along with curved piecing, AQS previously sent me a book "Vivacious Curvy Quilts" by Dianne S. Hire. Seeing Linda Hahn's book, brought the curvy quilts to mind and I pulled the book out for a second look. I don't know why I filed it away without sharing it with you -- maybe the holidays intruded. But it is worth examining.

The art quilter may find Hire's intuitive approach and nontraditional quilts more inviting that a traditional quilter who gets high on perfect points, symmetry and matched seams. Yet, if you're venturing into a free style of quilt making -- this book's for you. Hire writes, "One of the most important things to have on hand when creating in an intuitive way is an open mind."

Evidently circles and curves are in my future and a bit of Sunbonnet Sue whimsy.

One more book! Recently in a Subversive Stitchers facebook discussion, someone mentioned that they enjoyed making Temari balls. My first response was "Huh?" "What?"

But of course I Googled and discovered that these Japanese Thread Balls look like a fun project. If you are looking for something to do when not quilting or sewing. Or you are looking for a way to use up some yarns and threads and do something exquisitely beautiful -- check out "TEMARI: How to make Japanese Thread Balls" by Diana Vandervoort. It is published by Japan Publications Trading Company, 1992. It isn't a new book, but definitely a fine book on the subject. There are also some Temari sites online that may help you get started, but Diana's step by step directions, tips, and suggestions take the guesswork out of this project.

I just can't stop! One more book. I mentioned it when discussing my 'Confetti Cats' project on Facebook last year, but it is worth revisiting. It is Noriko Endo's "Confetti Naturescapes" Published by Dragon Threads, this book combines the beauty of an impressionist's painting with the frugal use of snippets of fabric in a 'confetti' landscape. This book is a 'must own' for anyone who has gasped in admiration at Noriko's work. It is filled with photos of her quilts. And accompanying those photos are descriptions and explanations of techniques and what she achieved with various techniques and approaches. For example on her Mother Nature quilt she tells about "Using the technique of free-motion embroidery on the machine has allowed me to introduce texture on the tree trunks."

Noriko has created an art book that is also a learning tool for all who delve inside it. Linda Teufel mentioned that she is interested in offering a copy of Confetti Naturescapes as a giveaway to a lucky winner. If you're interested in trying your luck, please leave a comment and we'll draw a winner on February 1.

Just talking about these books has brightened my day, maybe that's what brought the sun out! I do hope you are all having a blessed and creative 2011! I'm writing this line at 1:11 on 1-11-11. A once in a lifetime moment -- but isn't every moment once in a lifetime?

Books are available through AQS, Amazon, or Dragon Threads.

My View: AQS Quilt Art Calendar

The 2011 Calendars are available from American Quilters Society! As usual they are a quilt lovers collection of beautiful prizewinning quilts from around the United States.

Klaudeen Hansen researched and selected the featured quilts. The front cover is of Sylvia Gegaregian's "In Full Bloom" which won Best Use of Embellishment at Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara, CA. Gegaregian is from Portola Valley, CA.

Alternating pages of quilt photo and calendar keeps a quilt always in sight. I particularly like the information given about the quilts. Not only the maker, where he or she is from, the size of the quilt and who quilted it and what method used. It also tells a bit about inspiration, pattern origins, what award(s) have been won and even why the quilt was made. I always want to know more about techniques and materials used in these quilts, but I realize this is a calendar first, photo art second, and the cutlines are down the list of priorities.

Under Hendersonville, NC quilter Judith Heyward's 86-87-inch Swamp Hibiscus quilt it reads: "The beauty of the swamp hibiscus plant is so perfect, but each bloom only lasts for one day! Usually Judy designs spontaneously, but this particular quilt came toher as a complete vision in a 'wow' moment! Machine pieced, appliqued, and quilted. Best of Show winner at Cobblestone Quilt Show, Charleston, SC; Best Use of Color winnre at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show, Hampton, VA."

The background colors used on the pages sporting quilt photos is bright, some neon and well chosen to enhance the display of the quilts.

Judith has generously agreed to let Subversive Stitchers post a photo of her lovely Swamp Hibiscus quilt and includes the comments made on her website concerning the inspiration for this quilt.

"...And now I have entered a new faze of my life. We have moved back to the mountains of North Carolina--in Hendersonville. We love it here and I know that it is already begining to influence my quilting life. One of my recent quilts, Swamp Hibiscus, was designed early one morning as I was seated in my new living room and reflecting on how very fortunate I was to be able to return to this beautiful part of the world. In a way that was quite unusual for me, the design for this new work came to me as a completed quilt and I knew I would absolutely love it when it was finished. I feel as if I have new eyes now--eyes that are more open than ever before. And there is much to see all around me." -- Judith Heyward  

The assortment of quilts meets every technique, color, and construction inspiration and is not limited to traditional or contemporary. Many are a mixture of familiar patterns with a twist that takes it into a whole new realm of quilting. A helpful tool to keep you organized, this calendar also serves to inspire and entertain, filling the need for beauty that we all can never quite quench.

Okay, there is one quilt that each time I see it makes me head for the sewing room or start searching for the right fabrics. There is something about African prints that speak to me and the way Jan Hall of Des Moines, Iowa incorporates them into her 52x56-inch Africana VII -- The Dark Continent quilt makes me drool, drool, drool. Sorry, I don't have a photo to show you. I have a request in to AQS, but so far no response.

The paper choice, glossy, yes, but a bit lightweight for my taste, is not flimsy just not rich. Not quite up to the qulaity of the quilt images printed on it. Overall I would say it is a good product for the $13.95 price. The spiral binder makes it much easier to use. Not exactly keepsake quality, but the quilts will inspire you for the whole year -- maybe your own creativity will increase.

My View: Fibreart Montage by Judith Baker Montano

As you can see by a recent guest blog by Judith, she's an interesting woman, talented Canadian fiber artist, photographer and dedicated preservationist. She travels the globe spreading good will, and sharing her techniques and talent. Not to mention that she loves her home town, family, students and fabric art community.

That sweet smile and can-do nature has made her a valuable spokesperson for several major companies including the Kanagawa Silk Company of Tokyo, Japan and W.F.R. Ribbons a USA distributor for Mokuba Ribbons also of Tokyo. She designs for Treenway Silks and Robert Kaufman Fabrics Company and has author several other books as well as tutorial videos and DVDs.

Whatever she is working on, crazy quilting seems to creep into the design. She has turned this Victorian technique into a contemporary art form. Now Montano has written a compelling book: Fibreart Montage.

This 266 page book focuses on combining quilting, embroidery and photography with embellishments. It is part memoir, part instruction, part inspiration, and part discussion of products, materials and tools. Published by Dragon Threads of Worthington, Ohio, the title speaks of creative fibre works used in the quilting, needlework or fibre art field. And Montage -- "A picture or other work of art composed by assembling overlaying and overlapping of many different materials or pieces collected from different sources."

It is divided into nine sections that begin with a simple 'Getting Started' section that addresses skills the reader may have learned, supplies and tools including computers that the reader may already have. It progresses to what Judith may be best known for -- crazy quilts.

Building upon the crazy quilt technique, section three addresses the collage and tells more about the cottage quilt she wrote about in her guest blog. Since photography is an important aspect of her collage quilts, section four gives basic rules of photography, editing and choosing photos and storage. Of course included in each section are exceptional four-color photography and examples of her work.

Each section builds on what came before in the book. Thus section five references silk dying, painting silk fabric, ways of dying using plastic bags and the intriguing title "Dyeing with dye blobs." From here Montano moves on to landscapes and seascapes as well as underwater scapes that incorporate some unexpected fabrics and techniques that bring them to life.

Never fear, it wouldn't be complete without a section on patterns and an embroidery stitch guide. Throughout the book you'll be treated to a luscious display of her photography, watercolors, pen and ink illustrations. The book reads like a conversation over tea. Informal and friendly, a joy to read.

When describing constructing an aquarium scene, she doesn't miss any aspect to consider when planning it. For example she writes, "Remember that everything in the far distance is hard to see and therefore you will be working with the finest threads and using very simple stitches...." Materials used in this scene include anything and everything from netting to "Thai silk that has been punctured with the Embellisher machine." Every minute detail is included, no short cuts.

The book construction uses a convenient spiral binding so the book will lay flat for easier use and enjoyment.

You see on every page that this is a book that was written with heart and passion and a tremendous talent and wealth of experience. She's one of the masters and this is a valuable keepsake for anyone who has come to appreciate Judith Baker Montano's contribution to fiber art and the quilting community.

Cost is $36 for this hardcover beautifully illustrated book. Two thumbs up on this one, for sure!

My View: Learning from a legend via her book

by Dawn Goldsmith

A few years ago I checked out the legendary quilt artist Ruth B. McDowell’s gallery on her website.

Among her award winning and should-have-won-awards quilts was one that drew me to this woman and gave me a different perspective. I want to say the title of the piece was nude reclining, but it was a self portrait. When I clicked on the words my brain was trying to conjure up a woman who would post herself nude on her website. Most of us feel flawed and prefer not to flaunt it. How brave! Maybe a “Nude Ascending Stairs” kind of fractured image, I thought.

I stared at the quilt. Then laughed. Two ‘bare’ feet took up almost the entire little quilt blocking out any of the ummm more titillating parts. Yet, our feet are probably as intimate a part of our anatomy and the least seen, especially the soles. She was in essences baring her soul (sole). It was that moment that I knew I loved this woman’s sense of humor and sense of self. They shine through in everything she makes, this juxtaposition of empathy, caring and warped sense of humor that coordinates beautifully with her artist’s eye and passion for detail.

[Photo above: Daylily with ruffles. "Many modern daylily cultivars have a degree of ruffling along the edges of the petals. After doing the drawing for this quilt and figuring out how I could give a pieced interpretation of the ruffles, I went to my fabric stash to see what color daylily to make. It could have been anything from pale to deep yellow, orange, rose, red, burgundy or mauve. A lovely soft red hand-dyed fabric from Judy Robertson caught my eye. It had enough variation to make the large pieces interesting and could be selectively cut to make some lighter and darker areas as well. "]

But with my diploma still wet from graduating nine-patch piecing, and untried when it came to star patterns, I never considered making a Ruth McDowell type quilt until I picked up her book “Design Workshop, published in 2007 by C&T Publishing. It is a companion to her piecing workshops and takes for granted that the user is already familiar with her freezer paper piecing method as taught in her piecing workshops. But the book has value without any of those workshops or knowledge.

For me the ah-ha moment came when she discussed elements of pieced designs. I was raised by traditional quilters who took pride in perfectly aligned seams, points, corners, and lived by the word ‘precise’ when it came to quilting. Ruth pointed out that shifting end points wasn’t a mistake but a conscious choice, that in actuality these misaligned points could add interest and movement to a quilt. I didn’t agree when I saw her Lightning Strike quilt with the diagonal yellow bars not quite matching. I really wanted them to match. Needed them to match. Yet, in a diagram of a simple tulip pattern the striking difference jumped out between precisely pieced tips and the shifted edges of the same pattern.

She went on to write about moving diagonals away from the corners. Then she took my favorite little four-patch and discussed intersecting seams, demonstrating the effect of offsetting the intersection a bit. She pointed out that the continuous seam became stronger, visually, drew the eye to it, while the interrupted seam takes a secondary or weaker position.

The book includes a discussion of shifting focus in a landscape, fracturing to subdue an element, and using fracturing as a design element.

[Photo: Moo In the golden light of four o'clock on a summer afternoon, the colors of a herd of cows waiting by the barn stopped me in my tracks. Leaping from the car, I ran around photographing groups of cows, and later combined several images into this quilt.]

Perhaps art students understand all of this or it comes naturally to some, but this was new to me. I, who am excellent at misaligning and fracturing, embraced the fact that maybe, just maybe there was something in life beyond precision.

My life changed in only 14 pages, and 81 pages remained. Her section on preparing a piecing diagram simply blew me away as she taught about the various seams and intersections, what works and why, and some things to avoid that make piecing easier. She describes animals, nature, people, and landscapes in an effort to help overcome difficulties and learn the basics of each. Even a chapter or tessellation.

She speaks about beginning with a drawing, or a sketch from a photograph, and then she moves on into fabric. We who naturally collect fabric might need a few guidelines to make that stash as useful as possible and she addresses ‘building a stash.’ “You probably have more bright colors and medium-value fabrics than you may need, but not enough subtle shades and mixtures, large-scale fabrics, and light fabrics or very dark (not black) fabrics.”

[Photo: Baron Von Ruffhausen. My daughter Leah's Bernese Mountain Dog, Harvey, at about 7 months old. Loving, intelligent, polite and a confirmed pacifist, Harvey is also a giant - a Clydesdale of the dog world.]

She speaks of color choices, using plaids and how to use fabrics in landscapes. She walks you through her choices for Muir Woods, a lovely landscape piece she made in 1997. And then she uses the flamingo demonstration. Simple but effective in demonstrating how to visually read a quilt and place contrast where needed to bring out details. There are sections on backgrounds, borders, quilting and embellishment. For anyone who wants to move away from traditional and into the innovative, creative, one-of-a-kind ‘art’ quilt – this book is a fantastic intro to the world whether your background is art or quilt.

My View: Fussy Cut Mariner’s Compass by Ann S. Lainhart

Fussy Cut Mariner's Compass by Ann S. Lainhart
AQS Publishing 2009
[click here to buy]
US $24.95

Everyone has a life list of things to do before we die whether formal or just a few thoughts stowed away in the back of our brains. One of mine is to construct a Mariner’s Compass – just one. When I can do that, I will consider myself a quilter. Ann Lainhart is definitely a quilter many times over. She has created a book full of her Mariner Compass creations.

When I first leafed through the book, I admit, my thoughts went instantly to Jinny Beyers. Her fabrics would fit these projects beautifully. And her first award winning quilt, Rays of Light, the one that catapulted her into the limelight, featured a center not unlike what Lainhart has created. Perhaps the author was inspired by Beyers’ work. Well, I’m inspired by what I saw inside of this book.

Lainhart explains that the best materials for her “fussy-cut Mariner’s Compass must have a symmetrical design: that is, the printed motifs need to reflect one another in mirror image on each side of a center line” – real or imagined. And the fabric should have these symmetrical designs repeat. She offers examples of what can be taken from one piece of fabric and how to find the best positions for fussy cutting.

I particularly appreciated her Florentine Compasses quilt in which she features four Mariner’s Compass patterns cut from the same fabric, but the pieces are fussy cut from different parts of the fabric pattern. A great example of what a difference positioning can make. And, for someone who hates to waste fabric, it show me a judicious use of fabric.

The author devotes Chapter 2 to Drafting Mariner’s Compass. Most of her blocks are one of three sizes: “a 16-point Compass with two rows of points that finishes 12-inches in diameter; a 32-point Compass with three rows of point that finishes 18-inches in diameter; or a 48-point Compass with three rows of points that finishes 30-inches in diameter.”

Shades of my high school geometry class! Yet she insists that her method requires little math. Her encouragement gets me past the math angst. I move to her tips on preparing templates and the step-by-step block construction of Chapter 3. I’m encouraged that she teaches this technique to classes and her students find success with their own creations.

She emphasizes contrast in the various points, and gives valuable advice for piecing the blocks and finishing the compass. If you notice, the compass lies within a circle – not the easiest piecing project, but she helps with that, too. And even adds instructions for fussy cut backgrounds.

The book includes high-quality four-color photos of the author’s work as well as clear and concise graphics and directions. No crowding in this book. As with other AQS publications, there is a nice balance of white space and quality printing on glossy substantial pages. It almost passes for an art book and would look good on the coffee table.

I’m not convinced that I can succeed at this project (knowing my own limitations) and I’m still pulled toward foundation piecing for a Mariner’s Compass. But I’m sold on the fussy cutting aspect of this design and figure if anyone could talk me through it – Ann Lainhart could.