An Update from Gerrie

It has been some time since the Twelves checked in with our readers. I hope you are still out there. Mr C and I sold our big house with my big, fantastic studio. I have my sewing machine at home in our multi-purpose room (it is also the TV room and guest bedroom). I have a small studio a mile from home where I do all my messy stuff. The thing I miss most is a big design wall so I have been imited as to the size of work I do.

I also had a serious knee problem last year which resulted in knee replacement surgery in May. I am still in recovery mode so it has been almost a year since I have had the energy and ability to work for long periods of time. I am so looking forward to getting back in the studio.

Here are some examples of what I have done, recently. I was honored to be featured in John Hopper's Inspirational online magazine. I was one of the textile artists that he feature on his blog- The Textile Blog. He had us show some of our recent work. This is the cover of my Ode to a Tree quilt using my hand dyed fabrics. I pieced the letters that spell our tree. This was juried into the Oregon SAQA show.

Here are some other pieces:

This is Sonoma Summer.

Look! I pieced a quilt. This is called Pick Up Sticks and it has been juried into one show, but not the one I made it for!

 

This is a small quilt that I made from hand-dyed silk. I had to cut a ton of little leaves. It is Autumn Arbor.

This is my SAQA auction piece for this year. It is totally hand stitched on shibori fabric that I purchased from Elin Noble. I named it, Getting My Stitch On.

 

This is what I am working on now - more hand-stitching. I started it in an Extreme Embroidery Class that I took at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. It looks like a mess right now!!

I hope you are enjoying this chance to catch up with the Twelves. Being part of this amazing group of women has been a highlight of my artistic life. I am especially thrilled to see the growth and success for our younger members, Deborah, Helen and Kristin. Deborah has a book! Helen has had an exciting solo show! Kristin has a quilt in Quilt National. I am so proud of them - kind of like a quilt mom.

Fiber Art for a Cause

I am so happy to pass along information about an exciting new initiative raising money for the American Cancer Society. It's Virginia Spiegel's Fiberart For A Cause. This year her project is called "The 100." 

100 Artists - 100 Patrons - One Day
$10,000 To Fight Cancer
February 4, 2015
http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/FFACThe100Fundraiser.html

Six of the "twelves" are included in "The 100" along with many, many other amazing artists.

Deborah Boschert

Gerrie Congdon

Terry Grant

Kristin LaFlamme
Karen Rips

Terri Stegmiller

Want to make a donation and receive a piece of art? Mark your calendar for February 4 and check out the details are here.

Fiberart For A Cause has already raised $240,000 through the generosity of fiber artists and patrons.

SAQA Benefit Auction 2014: Dream Collection

The annual benefit auction is the signature fundraising event for Studio Art Quilt Associates. Your purchases help increase the recognition for art quilts and the artists who make them while supporting SAQA’s exhibitions, publications, and education outreach. The 2014 SAQA Benefit Auction is coming up in September and Dream Collections are starting to appear online.  The dream collection set out below is comprised of works donated by six of the Twelves that are up for auction:
    Nightfall: Deborah Boschert             Sky Blue Pink: Gerrie Congdon            Undecided:  Karen Rips                   The Visitor:  Terri Stegmiller                    Eye of the Crow: Terry Grant                   Neptune's Necklace#1:Brenda Smith

Talking of SAQA, congratulations to Helen! Her work Graffiti 1 was juried into the “SAQA exhibition Wide Horizons IV that will premiere at the Carrefour Européen du Patchwork/European Patchwork Meeting  in Alsace, France:18-21 September 2014.  Don't forget, all 144 works from the Colorplay Series will also be on exhibition at this event.

Graffiti 1:  Helen Conway

Many of the Twelves enjoy the educational, networking, mentoring and exhibition opportunities offered by Studio Art Quilt Associates. If you’ve been thinking about joining SAQA, add the discount code “BGS” to the application form and you will receive a 10% discount on the membership fee.

A Twelve by Twelve Wordle

I created a Wordle for our blog. Looks like Karen was prominently featured, followed my Kirsty.

SAQA Benefit Auction 2013 at the International Quilt Festival

The 2013 SAQA Benefit Auction continues with the final tranche open for in-person bidding at the International Quilt Festival, Houston in Houston from 28 October to 3 November (with online bidding available on 28 and 29 October) . This is a great opportunity to purchase quality textile art and support SAQA’s exhibition programs. You can view the quilts in this tranche at page a and  page b of the SAQA website including these works donated by some of the Twelves in their distinctive styles.

Deborah's work Rocks, Rivers and Rooftops incorporates many of her favorite motifs and techniques: the houses, the hand embroidery, handwriting as surface design, a painted stenciled twig and the arch over the top of the suggested landscape.  You can read the surprising back story  to this piece on Deborah's blog and learn some of these techniques yourself in Deborah's new online workshop called Branches, Buds and Blossoms Fabric Collage.

In her work Awareness, Karen stitched a piece of fabric with wool felt underneath to shrink it up for texture.  After bleaching, she overdyed it a very pale blue, which took away the cream color.  Raised circles, created with buttons, adds extra interest.

Terri's Kitty Rides Back features a portait and two kitties in stencilled fabrics made from her very own stencil designs.

If you happen to be attending the International Quilt Festival, Houston in person, be sure to check out the following exhibits that also features works by some of the Twelves:

• An Exquisite Moment  features works by Deborah Boschert, Gerrie Congdon, Diane Perin Hock and Karen Rips.  There is also An Exquisite Moment Catalogue available for sale;
•  Tactile Architecture and What's for Dinner special exhibits feature works by Deborah Boschert..

Stunning Quilts Up for Auction

The third round of the SAQA 2013 Benefit Auction begins on Monday! Four of the twelves are featured in this round. Check out these beautiful 12x12 art quilts!

Brenda's contribution is somewhat reminiscent of her quilt from our Color Play Series, Lorikeet theme, Lorikeet Circus. At least they are both inspired by birds! You can read more about the creation of this quilt on Brenda's blog post. I love Brenda's brilliant way of making a quilt seem both organized and spontaneous!

Helen's SAQA auction quilt is a small version of her spectacular Brick Lane quilt. There are several videos about the process of creating this quilt on Helen's PlanCreateSuceed blog. I just love all the elements in this quilt and how thoughtfully they are combined.

Kristin's contribution is part of her Villages and Rooted series. It's even got a chair on it! Maybe I shouldn't have included her quilt here. Now you'll all want to big against me! Kristin is a master at combining so many wonderful elements and giving meaning and context to each of them.

Gerrie's quilt is so wonderfully organic and textural. It's luminous too. You can even get a sense of the sheen of the discharged silk in the photo. That's saying a lot! I can only imagine how gorgeous it will be in person. You can read more about Gerrie's quilt here. 

For first dibs on any of these amazing quilts check out the SAQA auction site at 2 pm ET on Monday. Auction bids for the week are as follows. All the other pertinent info is on the SAQA site.

Section 3 - September 23 at 2:00 Eastern - $750
Section 3 - September 24 at 2:00 Eastern - $550
Section 3 - September 25 at 2:00 Eastern - $350
Section 3 - September 26 at 2:00 Eastern - $250
Section 3 - September 27 at 2:00 Eastern - $150
Section 3 - September 28 at 2:00 Eastern - $75

20 X 12 Debuts at NW Quilt Expo

Terry and I just finished hanging the quilts at Quilt Expo. They look so beautiful and are already getting rave revues from those setting up at the venue. The show does not open until Thursday, but we are very happy to have them hanging and ready for the opening. The above photo was taken before I added the signage. You can click it to see a larger view.

On the other side are Maverick and Sweet.

Terry and I will be around some on Thursday. On Friday, we will do a floor talk at 12 noon.

2012 Series Exhibition: NorthWest Quilting Expo 19-21 September 2013

Mark your diaries and plan an excursion!  The 2012 Series will be on exhibition at the Northwest Quilting Expo in Portland, Oregon from 19-21 September 2013.  There will also be an opportunity to meet with Portland Twelves, Gerrie and Terry, during the show.

If you can't make it to Portland, the rest of 2013 is jammed packed with all sorts of events and exhibitions featuring work by various Twelves.  Check out the Forthcoming Exhibitions listing on the website and blog sidebar.

Three Twelves in Portland

After teaching and exhibiting in Paducah, I am spending a few days in the Pacific Northwest to celebrate my 30 year anniversary as a high school exchange student to Sunnyside, Washington State. Time constraints meant I could only wave to Nikki across Puget Sound but I was able to meet up with Terry and Gerrie in Portland.

The train ride from Seattle to Portland was very scenic and I felt like I was living Nikki's BrownSageBlue Colourplay quilt. Coming into Portland, Big Pink dominated the horizon. (Alas Mt Hood, from Terry's BlueWhiteBlack quilt, stayed hidden.)

Terry whisked me away for dinner with her husband, Gerrie and Mr C before entrusting me with her sanctuary/studio where I had the best night's sleep this week.

We met up again at Gerrie's the next day and, after much oohing and aahing over quilts, ventured downtown for the cultural experience of Portland food trucks.

I got to indulge my longing for true Mexican food and the sun appeared on cue (albeit getting into Gerrie's eyes too).

Then we made a pilgrimage to Powell's bookstore where we found our book Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge and did what any self-respecting authors would do - we pulled it out, placing it front and centre and snapped some photos.

A truly heartwarming 22 hours in Portland. Thank you Terry and Gerrie!

Twelve Meet-up in San Diego and Del Was There.

Mr C and I are in Southern California, escaping gray skies and rain in Portland. Today was the last day of the Quilt Visions exhibit at the Visions Art Museum. We arranged to meet Karen and some of her friends and Del, who gave us a most wonderful docent tour of this fabulous exhibit. Then we went out to lunch and much chatter about this and that and art quilts. Thank you, Del.

2012 series by Gerrie

Congratulations to Gerrie who has two articles in the Winter 2013 issue of Art Quilting Studio. 
 
Gerrie has made many aspen-inspired quilts, including her BrownSageBlue challenge and one of the articles showcases her aspen quilts.  The second article reviews Gerrie's creative process in Art Cloth Constructions.  There are lots of wonderful photos!

Gerrie has also been undertaking a personal 3x3 project in 2012.  It will be exciting to see what it looks like on New Year's Day!

All That Jazz

When Terri announced the sweet theme, I was not very excited until I looked up the definition and found:

pleasing to the ear; making a delicate, pleasant, or agreeable sound; musical. 

 I had a secret hope that she would choose music, continuing in our M theme names. So, in a way, she did.

I went for a jazz interpretation. I wanted to continue the use of batiks and found every thing I needed in my stash, although I had several different trumpets before I settled on this one. It was a bit awkward fitting the instrumentas into the size parameters. Adding the musical notes was so much fun.

I found a hand-dyed quilting thread that was the perfect colorway for this, and I did simple straight quilting lines on the diagonal.

It is simple and sweet and fun to make. Here is a detail.

Gerrie is in Art Quilting Studio

I was very surprised, but excited, to be invited by Art Quilting Studio to write two articles about my art quilts. They are in the Winter 2013 issue, due to hit the news stands, soon. The magazine is published twice a year and is filled with great articles and lots of eye candy photos of many styles of art quilting.

Here is a sneak peek at the article about my Aspen Quilts.

I received 2 advanced copies. I am giving one away to one of my readers. All you have to do is leave a comment on my blog about the article, Click Here.

Four Fancy Fish and a Maverick

First, let me say, that I am not thrilled with this piece. It is rather pedestrian in its execution. I had a pretty good idea, but didn't leave enough time to flesh it out.

Here is the story. I live in a part of the country where it is almost a badge of honor for women of my age to let their hair go naturally gray. Many women in the northwest do not even bother to have their hair styled— they just let it grow and grow and grow.

My hair, if I let it go natural, would be thin and stringy and an ugly shade of mousy gray. I was thrilled when my stylist gave me red hair about 10 years ago. It totally fit my personality and made me happy. I had always loved my grandmother's red hair.

Recently, my husband made a comment about liking my hair when it is more brown, like when he first met me. The maverick in me came out. I went in to have my monthly hair color done and asked Kevin for something new and edgy, but still in the red zone. We settled on a darker, burgundy red — in the sunlight, it looked a little purple.

The next day, we stopped in at a local gallery event. There were 3 long haired gray women talking at the counter. I overheard one of them say, I could never dye my hair purple! I laughed and walked up to the group, as the owner was one of them, and started talking to her. They were all taken aback a bit. That night, I decided that my maverick quilt would be about my hair. 

I don't do faces, hair, or people in quilts so I settled on a maverick red/purple fish. I couldn't find gray batiks that I liked so I settled for these neutral fabrics.

One Fourth of the Twelves at Quilt Expo

Nikki, Gerrie and Terry at Quilt Expo today. It was great to neet Nikki's mom and mom-in-law, both wonderful women. 

Twelve by Twelve on TV

Gerrie and Terry are such indefatigable troupers and Twelve by Twelve ambassadors.  They were up in the very early morn to do a star turn on Portland TV.  Click on the image below to link through to the fun video clip.  The quilts also look great at the Northwest Quilting Expo in Portland.

Together for the Last Time

It is bittersweet to realize that the two sets of our quilts will be together for the last time, here in Portland. So, I just had to post some photos.

As you can see, we have lots of fans. I was told by several people that it is the best exhibit in the show.

I just love to lurk and here the comments. Sometimes, I will introduce myself and people are always happy to meet one of us.

I took 12 books in for the Expo booth to sell. When I left this afternoon, more than half were sold.

I so love seeing these quilts together like this.