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, 

Stashfest 2013

Barbara O'Steen, Marylee Drake, and Rosalyn Duffy at the
Contemporary QuiltArt Association's (CQA) booth

This past aweekend I enjoyed going to Stashfest, the fund-raiser for the La Conner Quilt and Textile museum.  As a contributor in several ways for this event, it was exciting to see it come to fruition.

The biggest effort I was involved in was in making fabric with the Contemporary QuiltArt Association (CQA), as a vendor for Stashfest.  I got an early entry and have photos to share of all the fantastic unusual fabrics that were available at this event.

Donna DeShazo from CQA with more of our handmade fabrics

Ice-dyed and other hand-dyed fabrics

More of the CQA collection

Annie Lewis with her fabulous hand silk-screened fabrics

Hand-dyed Kona Cottons

Hand-dyed Kona Cottons

Vintage Kimono Silks

Margot Myer's NW Batiked Cottons

Barbara Kanaya (of CQA)
working at Mary Ogwell's booth

Mary Ogwell's West African cottons

Patricia Beleya's Japanese Yukata fabrics

Early-bird shoppers get a spring on all the unique fabrics!

Patricia Beleya's incredible Yukata fabrics

Rack of "insider visits" for sale- studio tours
of NW Quilt Artists (mine on top!)

Business starting to pick up as doors open

I'll be getting some photos up soon from a new fiber exhibition that I went to last week, as well as my finishing my Salsa quilt and the start of a freemotion quilting practice quilt.  Make sure and stop in this coming weekend and link your blog up for Design Wall Weekends!

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CQA Surface Design Party

Viewing for Inspiration

Designing, Stenciling & 
Making Marks on Fabric

Dyeing, Stenciling & Making Marks on Fabric

I spent a little time this past weekend preparing some more fabrics to sell at Stashfest, as a donation to both the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum and the Contemporary QuiltArt Association.  These pieces were mostly started at our CQA meeting playdate, where we got together to create fabrics for this fun event.

 This first piece was one that I made with a variety of techniques and materials.  It is approximately 1 yard square of raw silk.  I started with doing different stencil images using fabric marking pens.  From there, I added some bits of Shiva Oil Paintsticks, with a rubbing plate.  The final step was to overdye it with Dye-Na_flow.

It's a little easier to see the detail in a close-up shot.

 This lovely piece was created by one of the  other members of CQA, using Shiva Oil Paintsticks and a rubbing plate.  I love how she overlapped the designs, giving it a "spirograph" effect.  I brought it home from the playday, ironed it to set the oil paint, and then overdyed it.  The darker stripes of the fuscia dye that I used are created by bunching the fabric when it is drying.  You'd think the darker would be in the gullys between areas that are bunched higher up, but instead, the dye actually travels up to the higher areas.

This piece is also harder to appreciate without the detailed photo, but it's really fantastic!  Again, another CQA member did the surface design and then I overdyed and ironed to set the colors.  This was made with a thermofax silkscreen, which created the brown lines.  Some of these were overlapped, making the darker brown sections.

In the detail photo below, you can see the block prints and shiva paintstick rubbings that also decorate this piece.  About a yard square, this is made of white cotton, which I've then dyed.

This final photo is of four roughly fat-quarters of raw silk, which I've dyed in various green shades.  If I have time, I'll probably add more surface design to them as well.  

Speaking of time... I'm off to a 5 day class in the morning at Gail Harker's Center for the Creative Arts.  I'm finishing up the 100 level certificate classes this week (with Experimental Hand Stitch) and will be going on to the 200 level coursework starting in May.  That series will take about 2 years to complete, with classes every 3 months (and lots of homework in between!) If you're interested in seeing the kind of work that comes from Gail's students, check out my posts on her student's exhibition, Complex Threads.  I'll update you on how the class is going this week!


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CQA Surface Design Party

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Complex Threads 1

CQA Surface Design Party

Today turned out fantastic at our CQA meeting!  We had the following stations for making surface-designed fabrics to contribute to Stashfest:

Christina Fairley Erickson (me!): Shiva Oil Paintstick Rubbings, Stencils, Fabric Markers and Tsuneko Inks
Cameron Mason: Mono-printing with thickened dye
Colleen Wise: Thermofax silkscreening and foiling
Peg Swartzman: Oil Paintsticks with resists and stencil brushes
Kathy Cooper: Printing with Print blocks

Peg Swartzman teaching how to use Oil Paintsticks with
Freezer paper resists and stenciling brushes for an
elegant gradient effect

Cameron Mason (far right) teaching mono-printing with
thickened dyes to Roslyn Duffy (left) and Roberta Andreson (center right)

Roslyn Duffy's mono-print with thickened dye

Flora Dalglish making Shiva oil paintstick
rubbings at Christina's station

Debbie Babin designing with fabric markers after adding oilstick rubbings
at Christina's station

Barbara O'Steen (left), Barbara Kanaya (center) and Debbie Babin (right)
working at Christina's stenciling, fabric pens, and oil stick rubbing station

CQA President Marylee Drake (foreground) doing
Thermofax screen printing with Colleen Wise (background)

Some of our finished packets of fabrics to sell at Stashfest

We labeled each packet with the artist's name who made the fabric(s), size(s),
and the processes used on each piece.

Stashfest Creator and CQA Member, Patricia Belyea
measured the fabrics and helped bundle them for sale

Want the chance to buy some of these wonderful fabrics?  Come to Stashfest April 6 and 7 up in LaConner!

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Making Fabric

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Making Fabric