QuartZ

SAQA 2011 Benefit Auction

2011-06-06T04:11:00.000-07:00

So I've made three small quilts now, one of which will be my submission to the SAQA 2011 Benefit Auction (http://www.saqa.com/) in September.

The first one is a series of small jewels of fabric I printed with my Oshiwa blocks in gold fabric paint on batiks, which I then embedded into a hand-painted background of black Kona cotton stitched with a double needle in an abstract grid pattern. The jewels are outlined in another batik, sewn in an adaptation of a bound buttonhole, familiar to people who actually sew clothing!

The second one is more simply composed of a double-needle-stitched background with three mini-quiltlets I printed with my Oshiwa blocks appliqued on top. Each of the mini-quiltlets has it's own batting and backing and is finished with muliple-thread satin stitching. On the left side I've attached some of my textured "strings" made of strips of fabrics, sheers, embroidery thread, and other stray bits from my sewing table, all stitched together by machine with an interesting thread. These "strings" here represent the grasslands that these African animals live in.

The third piece features a hexagonal print of a croc framed with a geometric block (both from Oshiwa of course) extensively quilted to make him at home in the nest of scraps of African fabrics I freemotion stitched all around him. I have quite a few African fabrics in my stash, and my scrap bag is still full-----I may have to make more pieces like this!

One of these will go to SAQA very soon...unless I have another idea and make yet another possible donation quilt. So many ideas, so little time! :)

Fabric Shopping in Gabon

2011-05-30T05:12:00.000-07:00

I thought you might like to see what a typical fabric shopping trip looks like here in Libreville. It's a great way to spend a couple of hours!! I often go to a neighborhood called "Petit Paris" and look at African fabrics in one or two (or more) of the small shops there. The typical shopper is buying fabric to have clothing made, so the shops sell fabric in six yard chunks. This is more than I'd normally buy for a project, but since I have a group of friends here who are also interested in making quilts from African prints, we trade amongst ourselves, and end up with a slection of one-yard lengths to play with.

So here's a dashboard photo of the street along the way.....don't worry, a friend is driving! And a couple of photos of the fabrics stacked floor to ceiling in the shop. What a great riot of color! It's so hard to choose just a couple of pieces and leave the rest there----they might be gone next time we come shopping! It's true I tend to want to buy everything, but I do manage to leave some of the fabric there for the next person, or the next shopping expedition. :)

I've also included here a photo of some of the signs marking the fabrics that have been chosen as the group fabric for people's weddings or anniversary celebrations. The tradition here and in several other parts of Africa is that invited guests can come to the fabric shop and see which print the bride and groom or the anniversary couple have chosen for all the guests to wear. The guests then buy the fabric and have clothing made out of it, and everyone at the celebration has an outfit that matches! It's a great custom, and makes everyone invited feel part of the event. It also makes for great group photos!

The Purplemeister

2011-05-28T07:12:00.000-07:00

I've finally finished a project I started with some friends in Canada! Of course, the deadline passed some time ago, but I couldn't have been in the show anyway, since I'm a bit far away.... Anyway, it's purple. It's not just a little bit purple, it's VERY purple. It started as a color study exchange with some fiber art friends. We pulled colors out of a hat to start, and I got purple. Then when we added a second color, I got red. Yellow was the third and last color I got, and this quilt is the piece that I made from the blocks the other members of the group made for me.

I've inserted a photo of the square blocks I received in the exchange, and and another of the quilt that grew out of the blocks. I've included a detail shot showing one block stamped with an Oshiwa block done by a friend who had been in one of my fabric stamping classes! For now, I'm calling this piece the Purplemeister---it just seemed appropriate somehow.... :)

Reporting in from Libreville, Gabon

2011-05-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

After a short break (ok, it's been over a year!) I'm now writing from Libreville, Gabon, where my husband has taken up his posting as Ambassador in the U.S. Embassy here. We arrived in October, and have been happily exploring this extravagantly green country since then. I'm putting in just a couple of photos to give you an idea of our surroundings. One is of the Residence and the other is one of the beautiful sunsets we are priviledged to enjoy almost daily. It's been wonderful to be back in Africa---I love the intense activity of life in the markets, and the vibrancy of the colors here, not to mention the sight of women (and some men) wearing clothes made from the fabulous African prints I just adore! I'm happy to report that I've managed (just) to avoid stopping the car every five seconds to ask if I can take pictures of yet another great outfit on a passerby.....

I'm busy working again, and as proof, I offer a photo of my design wall with some pieces that I'm working on now.

On the left is a black and white collection of fabric I've printed with my Oshiwa blocks, mixed with some commercial black and white prints. I haven't decided yet exactly how I'm going to put this together, but it will have vertical columns with some texture.....

On the right is a hexagon quilt top with a bright mix of fabrics I've printed or over-printed with Oshiwa blocks, assembled with pieces cut from some of my African prints. I'm contemplating borders and some fun quilting.....

In the center are the first two of a series of foot-square pieces I'm making with the idea that one of them will go to the SAQA auction. I printed up way too many pieces of great batiks with gold fabric paint, but working in a series is supposed to be good for artistic growth, so I'm having at it. :)

In the lower part of the center is a pillow-top in the making. I used one of my hexagons with a croc printed on it as a centerpiece, and then I stitched bunches of the scraplets from the hexagon quilt onto interfacing foundations to make the surrounding hexagons. It's pretty shaggy, which makes me happy, and isn't that what creating things is supposed to do?

Fiber Art Postcards for Wendy's Wish Foundation

2010-04-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Stitchin' Post in Sisters Oregon not only organizes the most fun week of quilting activities I've ever attended, they also support Wendy's Wish Foundation, a Central Oregon non-profit that helps to make cancer screening and services available to those who cannot afford them. This year, I'm again participating in the Stitchin' Post's Wish Upon a Card Project by donating two fiber art postcards I made last month, both featuring fabrics I hand-stamped with Oshiwa blocks. On their way to Oregon are an elephant, with a funky, twisty and hairy fiber string trim, and a giraffe with a fancy fabric-lace frame. It was very fun to create these in support of such a good cause!

Oshiwa Tiles

2010-03-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

Spring is definitely here, so I think it's time to post some photos of random colorful items to accompany the flowers starting to pop up in the gardens of Ottawa. To start, here you can see some Oshiwa tiles I've made using my blocks and model magic. The model magic is very easy to use and dries withut cracking or hardening, so you can make all kinds of fun items, paint them, and sew them to your fiber art. The Oshiwa blocks work very well to give texture to the model magic, and can be painted to resemble metal, or anything else. Definitely a fun technique to play with!

The art quilt above is Windhoek Sunset. At the bottom of the quilt you can see another example of an Oshiwa tile painted with gold fabric paint. It looks like metal, but it's very lightweight and is sewn to the quilt. Photo by Annaliese Moyer.

Snow Dyeing is Addictive!

2010-03-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

I'm so sorry winter is over! I wish we could have more snow! Why? Snow dyeing. I took a class with Pat Hardie, and just loved it! Now I've snow dyed a bunch more fabrics, and am left lamenting the end of winter! I wonder if we can use the shavings from the ice rinks, or if the chemicals they use would cause problems? More on this later, if I can get a definitive answer...

In the meantime, here are some photos of the fabrics I dyed the first session. On the left is the whole piece, and a detail shot on the right.

I'll post photos of the fabric from the second dyeing orgy later. The detail that results from the snow is incredible---so beautiful it's hard to get a photo to do the fabric justice! Enjoy!

2010-03-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

The Quilter's Affair in Sisters, Oregon will take place from July 5 to 9, 2010, and I'm thrilled to be part of it again this year! I'll be teaching two very fun fabric stamping workshops during the week: I bring a couple of seriously large boxes of hand-carved Oshiwa blocks from Namibia and teach students to use them to print with fabric paint, make rubbings with paintstiks, and emboss velvet with these exotic African carvings. With the variety of techniques we explore, students make their own fabrics for their art pieces or quilts, and we have a terrific time experimenting with color and texture along the way. I bring lots of different examples of my work showing how I've used my printed fabrics, and I give students handouts to remind them of the techniques we cover. It's an action-packed two days, and when we're done, the students have a beautiful collection of unique fabrics and a small piece already put together that they can finish and show off proudly! One of the best things about this class is that even though the students all work with the same variety of blocks and paints, no two fabrics or finished pieces are ever the same. Each student brings different fabrics to stamp on, combines colors in his or her own way, and builds a piece that reflects a unique vision. We work freely in a spirit of exploration, and no one gets too upset if paint drips, spatters or spreads---all these things happen now and again, and we treat it like an opportunity to get even more creative! This is so much fun for me as a teacher that I can hardly wait to get there and get started! I love teaching this class because no matter how many times I teach it, I always learn something new from the questions students have, from the "accidents" that happen, and from the inventiveness of these groups of artists working together.

If you haven't heard about the Quilter's Affair before, it's not just a week of classes with a wide variety of teachers, it's a phenomenon! Sisters is a small and charming town in Central Oregon that gets taken over by quilters during this week, and is positively flooded on Saturday when the town hosts the annual Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. There are so many quilters in town that they close off the main street and route traffic around the perimeter. There are quilts displayed all over town, in most of the shops, and on most of the buildings. Quilters come from miles around and from several foreign countries just to be part of the festive day. There are bigger quilt shows, but I don't know of any place that gives itself over so completely to a celebration of what we do! All this excitement is organized by the staff and dedicated volunteers working with The Stitchin' Post, a terrific place to spend hours (and dollars) looking at the gorgeous fabrics and all the other things we need to create. I don't mind repeating that I don't own stock in the shop, but I sure wouldn't mind if I did! You can see the details of the Quilter's Affair and the Quilt Show at the Stitchin' Post website www.stitchinpost.com/quilterclasses.html

2009-09-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

Making quilts with hand-stamped fabrics is pretty entertaining. I've been using them for quite a while, but as I'm working on one quilt, another idea will occur to me, and then I've got to try yet another new way to integrate my stamped fabrics into a fun quilt. These photos show "Susuwe" 46" x 32" . This quilt is named after an island in the Kwando River, in the Caprivi Strip, which is a long narrow finger of land in northeastern Namibia. There you can see hippos, elephants, exotic birds and lots of other wildlife. It's the greenest part of Namibia, which boasts starkly beautiful deserts in most of the rest of the country. Most of the African prints in this quilt came from the markets in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where I used to live, but I also used some great pieces I bought from http://www.kallistiquilts.com/ , a wonderful place to shop for African fabrics!

Once again, my thanks to Annaliese Moyer of www.stagerightphoto.com for the photos of my work, and to the folks at Oshiwa Designs www.oshiwa.com for the printing blocks that I use to stamp my fabrics.

2009-09-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month I had the very great pleasure of visiting Val Hearder in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. I was lucky enough to have a chance to visit friends in Halifax, and discovered that Mahone Bay wasn't a long drive, so a road trip was born. Besides making beautiful quilts, Val does wonderful work supporting women in South Africa who support their grandchildren after their children have died of AIDS. In many cases, these women have very few resources, but they embroider vividly colorful panels and do gorgeous beadwork, which Val then brings into Canada and sells on her website http://www.africanthreads.ca/ In this photo, you can see us wearing necklaces from Val's shop---terrific, aren't they? How fun to know that you're supporting such a good cause while shopping!

I was also very happy to meet Laurie Swim in her studio in Lunenberg, NS. Laurie makes textured landscape quilts that reveal intense threadwork close-up, and look like paintings from a distance. All this talent, and she's nice, too! Later that evening, I was able to attend the Mahone Bay Quilt Guild meeting, where the members impressed me by their great show-and-tell and their very welcoming warmth. I hope to have a chance to make a return visit!

2009-09-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

Time for more photos! I now have professional shots of my work taken by Annaliese Moyer, who can be found at http://www.stagerightphoto.com/ . Annaliese works out of Portland, OR, but travels, especially to interesting places like Namibia!

This piece is Okapuka, named for a game ranch near Windhoek, Namibia, where we could go to see giraffes, oryx, kudu, rhinos and lots of other animals, all living on a huge stretch of land just 20 minutes from our house.

In this piece I've used African prints and some images I hand-stamped with Oshiwa blocks. The Oshiwa carvers make wonderfully vivid and lifelike animal blocks and geometric blocks that intrigue me with their bold, graphic designs.

2009-08-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

This is "Mowani", a small piece named for a starkly beautiful camp in western Namibia that we visited several times during our three years there (www.mowani.com). This area of the country is home to the elusive desert-adapted elephants who live in a wild, extremely dry environment. They're free, but mankind presses in on their world.
The fabrics in this piece are African prints and an elephant I hand-stamped with an Oshiwa block carved by artisans in Windhoek. I just love the beautiful blocks they make, and I've been hooked on fabric stamping with them since the very first time I did it!

This is a detail of "Mowani" showing the threadwork around the block print Oshiwa elephant.

2009-08-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

As I go through my photos, I'll put a few into the blog to show what I've been making with my hand-stamped fabrics. Here are four postcards I made this spring, two of which were sold in an auction benefitting the Wendy's Wish Foundation, a cancer charity supported by the Stitchin' Post in Sisters, OR. All of the teachers at the Quilter's Affair were asked to contribute postcards, and I was happy to send them the crocodile and the bird. The whole collection of beautiful postcards can be seen at http://www.sistersoutdoorquiltshow.org/WishPostcards09.htm

The Quilter's Affair is a week-long orgy of classes taught by some of the best quilting teachers around, like Libby Lehman, Lura Schwarz Smith, Sharon Pederson, Barbara Shapel, Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran. The talented mother-daughter team of Jean and Valori Wells runs the Stitchin' Post quilt store that organizes the Quilter's Affair every year, and they top off the week with the biggest outdoor quilt show in the world. Their whole town is given over to the display of something over 1200 quilts, and thousands of people descend on Sisters, Oregon for the thrill of seeing the show and being part of the quilter's equivalent of Woodstock! OK, there's far less use of illegal substances in Sisters, but the show provides us with a real quilter's high nonetheless! The show is always on the second Saturday in July, so next year's is on July 10, 2010. It's not too early to start planning your trip! Check out the details at http://www.stitchinpost.com/ And in case you're wondering, I don't own stock in the store, but I wish I did!

I'll post photos from the workshops I taught in Sisters this year soon. The students did some terrific work!

Paula

Jumping In!

2009-07-30T14:10:00.000-07:00

Well, here's the new blog ready to go, though it will undoubtedly undergo more changes before too long.... I hope to post a bit about the fiber art pieces I have underway, and about the stunning hand-carved wood printing blocks from Oshiwa Designs (www.oshiwa.com) that have been the inspiration for much of my work over the last couple of years. I would never have described myself as an artist before I started working with textiles, but since I found my medium, I find that I have a voice and lots to say! For now, I will post a couple of photos of some of my Oshiwa-ins pired pieces, and get back to work.