Taking a break... choosing my priorities

My husband, Randy Erickson, and Christina Fairley Erickson

My dear friends, I've decided to take a break for a little while from blogging. After working hard last week in my new class, then getting the "Salsa!" exhibition installed at the Mighty Tieton Warehouse Gallery, I've looked around at my priorities and have realized that I need to spend more time with my family and with making my own artwork, rather than being on the computer so much. I've loved sharing with you and will be continuing to read (and comment) on my favorite blogs. Thanks for all the support and encouragement you've provided for me.

Warmly,

Christina Fairley Erickson

Color Explorations & DWW #7

Welcome to Design Wall Weekend!   If you have a blog relating to quilting, fiber art, or related topics, please check out our rules and post your link below!

Photo of a gerber daisy I took today.

Today's been very exciting for me... I'm spending my birthday realizing a goal of mine- to be in the ongoing, long-term coursework at the Gail Harker Center for the Creative Arts.  I started in "Studies in Design, Experimental Machine and Hand Stitch Level 200" yesterday.

We mainly have been working on color theory and dyeing the last two days.  The photo above is a great example of color.  You probably know and can see how the complementary colors of blue and orange make this photo extremely vibrant.  But the photo also works well because it has red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow, and yellow green.  The spectrum of the color wheel from yellow-green through to red-orange are all included, which are analogous colors.  Also, the blue, red-orange, and yellow-orange combine to make a split-complementary theme.  Now, if the colors were all in the same proportionate amount, it wouldn't be nearly as effective.  but the dashes of yellow-green and red-orange really help the photo POP!

A few of my embroidery threads and yarns that I'm hand-dyeing.  The dye is wet on the thread here and will look different once it has been rinsed out.

Beyond playing with dyes on paper and practicing color schemes, we started hand-dying our thread today.  I played around with variegating between colors, from dark to light in one color, and with using a split-complementary color scheme on the thread.  

Some of my notes and a color study of creating neutrals from
complementary colors (Red-Orange and Blue-Green)

Tomorrow we will get started on dyeing our fabric and hopefully get to stitching.  I have three more wonderful days of this session... then it's home and off to set up the Tieton, WA "Salsa!" exhibition, which will be opening Memorial Day weekend.  I'm pretty confident that I'll be freemotion quilting as soon as I get through my show opening!

Design Wall Weekend #7 -- What do You Have on Your Design Wall?

What kind of blogs should link up?

I think that it's best to have content that matches the content and interests served with the blog that's hosting the party, so please only link up if your blog post is about any of the following:

• Quilting and fabrics 
• Fiber art of any kind
• Hand & machine stitch or embroidery
• Mixed media art
• Book-making, art journals, and sketchbooks
• Tutorials for any quilting, fiber, mixed media, sketchbook and other arts
• These can be works in progress or finishes

From my sketchbook- Creating shades by adding black to a pure color (orange) and mixing a triad of
Yellow-Green, Yellow-Orange, and Violet

Rules for the blog linking party

• Mention Fiber Artist Journey in your post, either with a link or button-use the direct link to the specific post - not just your main blog website (this helps with your search engine position.)   If you have buttons on your sidebar that works great, please just at least mention something in your post, for example "I'm linking to Fiber Artist Journey, see my sidebar for their button."  If you need help on how to add your link, read this.

• Please take the time to visit other links, everyone loves new visitors and comments!  Try to comment on at least two other blogs in the party.

If you would like to add a button to your blog you can copy the code which is below my buttons and add it as a gadget on the layout page of your blog. Here is a tutorial on how to do it.


Other Great Blogs to Link Up with and Check Out!

Leah Day's Freemotion Quilting Project

Nina Marie Sayre's Art Quilt Blog

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Balzar Designs - Art Journal Every Day

Richard and Tanya Quilts

Quilt Matters

Sew Many Ways

La Conner Quilt Museum New Collection of Antique Quilts

As a special supporter (or "Stashfest Friend") of the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum, I was honored to attend a tea this afternoon.  A lovely group of supporters, board members, and quilt aficionados enjoyed getting to know each other a little bit and were the first to see a new collection of antique quilts that the museum recently acquired. Here are a few which I thought you might enjoy!

This pattern called "pickle jar" is pretty intricate and the colors are so vibrant.  Hard to believe that this incredible quilt dates back to 1910!

This 1932 "bluework" quilt is exquisite.  The patterns were so different from anything I've seen from that era. The part I was most surprised with was how the quilter used a dense field of French Knots to create the filling/dark shading of the cross.

Here is part of the area filled with French Knots.

Here's a close-up of some of the incredible embroidered blocks.

This log cabin block quilt from 1865 is particularly unique because it's a two-sided quilt... quite unusual for that time period.

 Here's the back side of the log cabin quilt.

This incredible piece has feathered triangles and appliquéd flowers and leaves as a large wide border. It's in pristine condition... for a quilt that will be celebrating two centuries in a few decades.  It was made in the 1840s.

 Here's another piece from the 1840's.  What makes this quilt special is that it is a very early example for broderie perce. This technique is done by cutting out a part of a printed fabric and appliquéing it onto a background, such as the center piece you see here.  The fabric was also used to make the large diamond shape border around the quilt.

The full 1840 broderie perce quilt.

This cherry quilt from the 1890's is Mennonite.

 A wonderful and unique example of redwork from the 1890's.

Hope you enjoy this step back in history.  It's amazing to see what was done so many years ago... how women expressed their artistic selves, even when it wasn't considered art.

I'm staying up on Whidbey Island for the rest of the week, while I attend my first session of the Level Two series in hand and machine stitch and design at the Gail Harker Center for Creative Arts.  I'll do my best to keep up with what all I'm working on this week, 

Exhibition Struggles and Design Wall Weekend #6

This is being a tough month.  It's not like I didn't expect it... but here I am in the midst of it and I'm feeling a little in overwhelm.

First, as most of you know, I'm share the head of exhibitions for the Contemporary QuiltArt Association and we have our "Salsa!" exhibit opening Memorial day weekend.  Our jury met on April 28 at my home... you'd think that once the pieces were picked out, it should be smooth sailing, right?  Wrong.

One of the wonderful things about the venue we're going to be in, the Mighty Tieton Warehouse Gallery, is that they're going to print a catalog of the exhibit. So, as soon as I know the juror selections, I needed to get the photos of accepted pieces to their printer, which meant I had to download 114 photos (a full and detail shot of each piece) from the place where the artists had submitted them.  However, I soon found out that not every artist had sent high-resolution photos.  This meant I had to contact those artists who had sent low-res photos and help them get high resolution ones to me.  I even ended up taking photos for one artist!

Once the photos were sent over, I had to start working on compiling all the information for the catalog... artist's statements, sizes of artwork, materials and techniques used, photographer, price of piece, year completed, as well as artist and title of the piece.  We have 57 pieces in the show, so that's quite a bit of info to put together.

On Saturday, we pick up the pieces at our CQA meeting.  We're working on figuring out a way to best hang the works... the gallery has a wire hanging system.  At this point, we're planning on using a heavy-duty fishing line to attach the quilts and art cloth from the wire.  However, we will need to tie the fishing line onto all the hanging sticks and haven't fully worked out how we will adjust the length of the fishing line to make sure each piece is at the right level and even.  My husband and I have even gone to a couple hardware stores to try and see if there was some sort of hardware that we could put the line through and pull it and it would catch and not slip.  At this point, it looks like we're going to just be adjusting it by hand and tying it off.

On the 20th, we head over to Tieton (about a 2 and a half hour drive) to hang the show.  I'm not sure how long it will take considering the tying aspect.  Then our Opening will be on Saturday the 25th, so another long drive that day (I may stay overnight for that one since it goes from 12-5 and there is an artist celebratory dinner afterwards!)

Oh, did I forget to mention that my two-year long program at the Gail Harker Center for the Creative Arts starts this month too?  I will be going up to La Conner from May 14-19 for my first class. We'll be meeting approximately every three months and have a good deal of homework in between each session.  However, as you can see from the photos here, Gail's student's create some amazing fiber artwork!

All this said, I've decided to back off of my initial goal this year to create a 5 x 7 piece each week.  I'm a little disappointed, but I am working on my artwork daily, so I suppose that's the real goal.  Since I'll be staying up at our cabin on Whidbey Island next week while I go to classes in La Conner, I plan to bring my freemotion quilting sampler quilt that I'm working on for Leah Day's Craftsy class to work on in the evening.  Having six days away from my husband and kids to just work on my art will be a real vacation!

Speaking of Leah's Craftsy class, she has just released "Freemotion Fillers Volume 2."  In celebration, if you go to her blog, you can click a link to get 50% off any of her three Craftsy classes (click here to get the page with the 50% off)!

OK, let's get going with Design Wall Weekend:

Design Wall Weekend #6 -- What do You Have on Your Design Wall?

What kind of blogs should link up?

I think that it's best to have content that matches the content and interests served with the blog that's hosting the party, so please only link up if your blog post is about any of the following:

• Quilting and fabrics 
• Fiber art of any kind
• Hand & machine stitch or embroidery
• Mixed media art
• Book-making, art journals, and sketchbooks
• Tutorials for any quilting, fiber, mixed media, sketchbook and other arts
• These can be works in progress or finishes

Anna's hummingbird from my sketchbook - Acryllic paint, watercolor pencil, silver ink

Rules for the blog linking party

• Mention Fiber Artist Journey in your post, either with a link or button-use the direct link to the specific post - not just your main blog website (this helps with your search engine position.)   If you have buttons on your sidebar that works great, please just at least mention something in your post, for example "I'm linking to Fiber Artist Journey, see my sidebar for their button."  If you need help on how to add your link, read this.

• Please take the time to visit other links, everyone loves new visitors and comments!  Try to comment on at least two other blogs in the party.

If you would like to add a button to your blog you can copy the code which is below my buttons and add it as a gadget on the layout page of your blog. Here is a tutorial on how to do it.

Other Great Blogs to Link Up with and Check Out!

Nina Marie Sayre's Art Quilt Blog

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Balzar Designs - Art Journal Every Day

Richard and Tanya Quilts

Quilt Matters

Sew Many Ways

Golden Acrylics 1- Ink Jet Printing on Just About Anything

On Sunday, our local area Surface Design Association small group had a wonderful speaker/presentation by Barbara De Pirro on uses of Golden Acrylic products.  Barbara is a fantastic mixed media artist and gives different classes on using acrylics of all sorts.

If you're not familiar with acrylic products, there is a whole range of supplies that are great for working with on fiber and mixed media. Acrylic paints can be used on fabric, although it works best if combined with a fabric medium, helping to extend the paint and maintain the hand of the fabric (the way the fabric naturally feels. Acrylic paint is water soluable snd dries quickly (it is water resistant when dry.) You can also modify it with acrylic gels, mediums or pastes.

One of the things I'd never seen before was a digital "ground" that you can mix with all sorts of products, including glass bead gel, acrylic ground, fiber paste, mica flakes and more. This specially formulated acrylic allows you to make almost any reasonably flat surface into something that can be printed in your ink-jet printer. For instance you can get a crisp clean image on a metal foil, on specialty papers, and even on acrylic "skins" which you create by painting on a layer one of the products and letting it dry.

Fine pumice gel with Digital ground
has been run through the ink jet
printer to add this image

The sheet or "skin" easily peels up and is
translucent.  It can be added into
artwork, even stitched on.

Examples of using Digital Ground with different substrates and then putting through
the ink-jet printer

Starting with cheesecloth, covering with coarse
molding paste with digital ground, then
printing an ink jet image on it

You Might Also Be Interested in:

Making Fabric

More Procion MX 
Dyeing

Making Marks 
on Fabric

The Jury Process and Design Wall Weekend #5

I've been incredible busy getting ready for the Salsa! show this week.  First we had our CQA (Contemporary QuiltArt Association) jury meet at my house on Sunday.  Jurying a show is a fascinating process.

From my art journal  - Page painted with acrylics, Magazine photo, drawing with colored pencil

Torn paper collage

We have a PowerPoint slide show of all the full and detailed views of the entries, which we project onto a screen.  The first run-through is quick, just for the three jurors to get an idea of all the entries and the overall scope of the show.  Next, we go more slowly, allowing the jurors to choose whether their initial impression is to YES (have the piece in the show), NO (don't have it in), or MAYBE.  During this second run through, there is no discussion.  We then tally each of the jurors Y-N-M votes and any piece with 3 Yes' is automatically juried in.  Likewise, 3 No's excludes it from the show.

Torn paper collage

After that, the jurors go through and make decisions about each of the pieces with has anything other than a unanimous decision.  We also have jury helpers to handle other jobs during the process... secretary to take notes on the juror's comments to share with the artists; assistant to navigate through the slides; and a person who tallies the linear inches of width of each accepted piece to ensure that we don't exceed what the gallery can hold.

So, after getting the show decided upon (and my Salsa quilt was accepted!), I've had lots of work to prepare for the show.  I had to get notifications of acceptance and of regret out to each of the artists.  I had to get photos to the venue for printing in a catalog.  I had to get new photos from a few of the artists when I found they hadn't sent high resolution photos.  I had to get things sent out to our publicity chairperson. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Watercolor pencil and collage from a theater show "Teatro ZinZanni"

So, I haven't had time with my sewing machine all week, and I'm feeling a bit guilty.  I am working on preparing my freemotion quilting sampler quilt that I'm doing in conjunction with Leah Day's Craftsy course, "FreeMotion Fillers Volume 1."  Now that I have it all pieced together, I need to layer it with the backing and batting and then baste it.  I don't know that I'll be getting it finished this weekend, however, as I have a Contemporary QuiltArt Association Board retreat, as well as I'm hosting a Surface Design Association group where we'll be hearing about and trying out Golden Acrylic products with Barbara De Pirro.  I have, however, spent more time on my hand stitch and am working on a new little stitch book.  I've also been working in my art journals and thought I'd share a few photos from them today, before going into Design Wall Weekend.

Pencil drawing of my dog, Dexter from this week

Now on to some fun with Design Wall Weekend!

Design Wall Weekend #5 -- What do You Have on Your Design Wall?

What kind of blogs should link up?

I think that it's best to have content that matches the content and interests served with the blog that's hosting the party, so please only link up if your blog post is about any of the following:

• Quilting and fabrics 
• Fiber art of any kind
• Hand & machine stitch or embroidery
• Mixed media art
• Book-making, art journals, and sketchbooks
• Tutorials for any quilting, fiber, mixed media, sketchbook and other arts
• These can be works in progress or finishes

Rules for the blog linking party

• Mention Fiber Artist Journey in your post, either with a link or button-use the direct link to the specific post - not just your main blog website (this helps with your search engine position.)   If you have buttons on your sidebar that works great, please just at least mention something in your post, for example "I'm linking to Fiber Artist Journey, see my sidebar for their button."  If you need help on how to add your link, read this.

• Please take the time to visit other links, everyone loves new visitors and comments!  Try to comment on at least two other blogs in the party.

If you would like to add a button to your blog you can copy the code which is below my buttons and add it as a gadget on the layout page of your blog. Here is a tutorial on how to do it.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

And the Winner Is...

A Slice of Lime

Peppers and Avocado

Other Great Blogs to Link Up with and Check Out!

The FreeMotion Quilting Project

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Nina Marie Sayre's Art Quilt Blog

Balzar Designs - Art Journal Every Day

Textile Diva

The Creative World Book Arts - 1

First, if you're looking for the Design Wall Weekend blog party, click here!

"The Red Necklace" by Barbara Barnes Allen
Mixed media (book art) $175

As I've mentioned in the past, my mother is a librarian.  I grew up surrounded by and delighting in books.  She started reading to me early and I carried on the tradition with my children.  Even after she retired from her job as a school librarian, she took on and continues to serve as a librarian for the retirement community where she lives.  So it's not surprising that I'm fascinated with book arts.

The idea of combining three of my most favorite things- books, textiles and art- delights me.  I do work on art journals, although I haven't spent a lot of time combining textile into them yet, I'm sure I will in the future.  And, although I haven't yet forayed into making my own paper, it is something I'd like to play with in the future (being yet another type of fiber!)

Today I went to a fabulous exhibit  at the Schack Center for the Arts in Everett, WA, called "The Creative World of Book Arts."  I hope you'll enjoy seeing some of these wonderful pieces!

Display of Barbara Barnes Allen's wonderful handmade books (foreground)
at the Schack Art Center

 "Marilyn" by Lisa JonesMoore (from side)
Metal, photos, paper, mixed media NFS

 "Marilyn" by Lisa JonesMoore (front)
Metal, photos, paper, mixed media NFS

 "Marilyn" by Lisa JonesMoore (back)
Metal, photos, paper, mixed media NFS

There was an entire wall of these large sculptural pieces (generally 2-4 feet in diameter) which I thought must have been a different exhibit... from afar they looked like wood carved into rounds like a cross-section of a tree.  I was sure surprised when I moved in for a closer look!

Sculpture by Ellen Jane Michael made of books

Sculpture by Ellen Jane Michael made of books

Close-up of side of book Sculpture by
 Ellen Jane Michael 

I'll share more of these (and perhaps some of my art journals) soon!

You Might Also Be Interested in:

My Little Stitch Book & 
100th Post Anniversary

Trees as Fiber Art

Design Wall Weekends

100th Post Anniversary & Design Wall Weekend #4

Whoo-Hoo!  Today is my 100th published post!

Little Stitch book by Christina Fairley Erickson
Hand-dyed wool/acrylic felt, hand stitched with hand-dyed and
commercial pearl cotton, embroidery floss and yarn

This week, I've been working mainly on finishing up some little hand-stitch samples which I'm making into books.  It's a bit different from my typical heavily machine stitched and freemotion quilted pieces, but they've been fun and relaxing.  Here is my first book I've completed:

I'm still a little unhappy with my binding, but I think it may just require more practice to get it right.  Since this was my first time to actually complete a hand-made book, I'm pretty happy with it.

Binding of my book

Stitch sampler on cover- Running Stitch, Back Stitch,
French Knots, Seed Stitch, and Fly Stitch

Running or Straight Stitch Sampler

Back Stitch Sampler

Seed Stitch Sampler

French Knot Sampler

Fly Stitch Sampler

Now to some fun with Design Wall Weekend!

Design Wall Weekend #4 -- What do You Have on Your Design Wall?

What kind of blogs should link up?

I think that it's best to have content that matches the content and interests served with the blog that's hosting the party, so please only link up if your blog post is about any of the following:

• Quilting and fabrics 
• Fiber art of any kind
• Hand & machine stitch or embroidery
• Mixed media art
• Book-making, art journals, and sketchbooks
• Tutorials for any quilting, fiber, mixed media, sketchbook and other arts
• These can be works in progress or finishes

Rules for the blog linking party

• Mention Fiber Artist Journey in your post, either with a link or button-use the direct link to the specific post - not just your main blog website (this helps with your search engine position.)   If you have buttons on your sidebar that works great, please just at least mention something in your post, for example "I'm linking to Fiber Artist Journey, see my sidebar for their button."  An example of a link to a specific post would be: http://fiberartistjourney.blogspot.com/2013/04/red-hot-chili-peppers.html rather than http://fiberartistjourney.blogspot.com . If you need help on how to add your link, read this.

• If you follow my blog, I'll follow yours!  PLEASE make sure to comment and tell me you're following, and I'll visit and  follow yours too.)

• Please take the time to visit other links, everyone loves new visitors and comments!  Try to comment on at least two other blogs in the party.

If you would like to add a button to your blog you can copy the code which is below my buttons and add it as a gadget on the layout page of your blog. Here is a tutorial on how to do it.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Dyeing to Embroider;

Five Days in Stitch Heaven

Hand Stitch Variations

Other Great Blogs to Link Up with and Check Out!

The FreeMotion Quilting Project

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Nina Marie Sayre's Art Quilt Blog

What a Hoot Quilts