Join Deborah in a Webinar!

I am really excited to tell you about a webinar I am hosting with Quilting Arts next week.

It's Tuesday, April 30 at 1 pm Easter, but you don't necessarily have to attend live... I know not everyone is free during the day (or during the night for those in other parts of the world). You can still register and just download the event and listen and watch whenever you want.

I'll be talking about all kinds of unexpected materials that you can use in art quilts... including foil candy wrappers like I used in my quilt for our Chocolate theme.

Have you ever participated in a webinar? It's a new endeavor for me and for Quilting Arts. Participants will view a digital slide show on their computers that I will be live-streaming from my computer. (Oh the power of technology!) I'll be talking about my artwork, showing tons of examples and sharing techniques and tips.

I've had a great time preparing for this project. Here's an example of one of the small collages I created for the webinar. It's called Metro Grid. Can you guess what "unexpected materials" I used?

I think the webinar is going to be super fun and if it fits your interest and pocketbook, I'd love to have you join me! It is so amazing to know that our 12x12 project has reached people all over the world and this webinar is a pretty cool opportunity to connect and learn more about how I create my artwork and some of my tips and ideas about creativity... even though we might never be in the same place.

Plus... all participants are going to get an awesome discount code to use in future Interweave purchases.

I'm also eager to hear what unexpected materials you've used in your artwork!

Balmain Chartreuse Bounty

Yesterday I returned to Balmain, my old neighbourhood in Sydney. It was a beautiful autumn day and in the leafy streets, I visited Calico & Ivy and came away with a little chartreuse (the fabric paint was bought elsewhere):

My husband had put in a request for some ground bay leaves which also have a tinge of chartreuse:

Whilst in the neighbourhood, I visited Belle Fleur to buy some some chocolate for the Australian launch of the BOOK at pompom rouge on 25 March, and they had a chocolate sculpture of cocoa beans with a touch of chartreuse too:

PS: I also bought some cheese from our favourite Italian deli but that will be eaten well before it turns chartreuse.

Book Release Celebration! Introducing Chapter 2: Chocolate & Nikki

Twelve by Twelve Theme Series by Nikki Wheeler

We are so excited about our new book, "Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge" we couldn't stop our celebration at just one day.  Joining in the party is simple -- every day we will pose a new question about art, quilting, inspiration and community.  Leave us an answer in the comments and you will be entered in a drawing for free copies of our book.  Feel free to come every day, as every comment counts as a separate entry.   The book drawing is closed.  Stay tuned for the winner details.

Chocolate Desire by Nikki Wheeler

Throughout our Theme series we chose a wide variety of topics from concrete objects like "Chair" to abstract ideas like "Identity".  Which of the 12 themes did you like best (or which one did you find most inspiring)? Did you make a quilt from it?

Just Add Chocolate

If you take Francoise's theme from the first series and mix in her palette from the Colourplay series, you might end up with something like this:

There are no prizes for guessing this photo was taken in Hershey, Pennsylvania where the streetlamps are made in the shape of Hershey's chocolate kisses. So even my theme (illumination) comes into play! Most things are usually better with chocolate...

The one I wish I had made...

As soon as I was allocated this award to write about, two quilts popped into my head, one quickly after the other. Of course I have gone back to look at all our galleries again to refresh my memory but the same ones made my short list and I am voting for the one which I recalled first. However, by co-incidence when my husband Dennis was asked his view of the one he thought I wished I made ( yes, we do tend to over complicate things in our house!) he picked the second one.

So, the winner is... Chairs by Gerrie Congdon.

For me it is a wonderfully evocative piece which conjours up all kinds of untold stories which is maybe why it sticks in my mind. Plus, it is made with all kinds of techniques I don't yet know how to do but which clearly are capable of creating the kinds of quilts I often have in my mind. Last week I visited Camden Stables Markets in London and was berating myself for forgetting my camera. The place was full of quirky signs and items that would have made a wonderful quilt, and, as I was trying hard to memorise it all, it was the style of this quilt I was thinking about - even before I was allocated this award. So it wins for being both memorable and inspiring.

The close runner up is Marquise de Coëtlogon by Kristen La Flamme. This was made for one of our earlier challenges and when I saw it I realised the game had just been upped. I was amazed that one small quilt could have such detail, that the back story was in itself so ornate and that so much effort had been put into the beaded borders.

Of course, like any quilt show you are free to disagree with the Judge and we suggest you comment below with your vote. All the quilts can easily be viewed either by theme or by artist at our website.

Gallery Views

Following some group musings, and a coincidental prompt from one of our readers, the entry pages to the Dandelion, Chocolate and Community theme galleries have been revamped to display a larger mosaic and therefore more quilt detail. Click the thumbnails to see for yourself:

Themes for Living

I've been living the Twelve by Twelve themes this weekend as some friends from my old neighbourhood came to visit. The dandelions were carefully picked by Eleanor(4); the chocolate buttons are from Belle Fleur; and the place mats were made by Eleanor and Alex (9):

Back to finishing off my community quilt tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing all the quilts on the 31st (US time)! And I wonder what our next theme will be - Karen?!

Another Chocolate Love Version

This is the original version of Chocolate Love. I didn't like the quilting or the spareness of it. You can read more about it on my blog. Anyway, I decided to embellish it as I did the other one. I have not finished the edges yet. I think I might bind it with red organza.

I have also rephotographed the other quilt and replaced the photo in my post. Since I was working right up to deadline, I took the photo late in the day and my camera was dying. It is now on its way to the hospital.

Chocolate is now served!

The Twelve by Twelve website has been updated to include the latest challenge quilts and expanded artist galleries. This involved a significant overhaul of the previous site structure so please e-mail me if you find any broken links or encounter any other difficulties:

Good for my heart

I just wanted to tell you all how delighted I am, once again, with the way our challenges are going. I am so pleased that you all are playing this 12x12 game with me, and that you are sharing your time and ideas and amazing talents in this project.

As always, I am so inspired by the work you've shared. I can pore over these pieces (and know that I will do so time and again) and find things that make me gasp in amazement, and grin with delight, and shake my head at what I would never think of myself, and reach for my notepad to jot down a brilliant technique or solution to try some time.

Most of all, I really treasure this opportunity to get to know all of you a bit better.

I can't stop scrolling over these great quilts. Thanks SOOOOOO much. Here. Have a chocolate heart on me.

A Chocolate Box of Quilts

Just to let everyone know that I am working on updating the Twelve by Twelve website and will let you know when the new pages are ready. In the meantime, here's a clickable mosaic of the fabulous chocolate-inspired quilts:
Despite the diversity of ideas and styles, the serendipitous palette of brown, red and pink (with a touch of blue!) unifies the collection remarkably well!

'Unsuitable things'

Mr James was a stocky man, square of face and with a neat beard who taught me biology in my third year of secondary school. Or at least he stood by the blackboard and talked about biology whilst I squirmed on those uncomfortable , high wooden stools they put in labs and wished I was elsewhere. Biology was not my forte and I have not thought about Mr James since. Until that is I started to ponder my chocolate theme.

Almost at once I decided to do an applique interpretation of Quetzacoatl, the Mayan God who was said to have brough the cocoa bean to earth from heaven. I searched Google, found great images then, as if I was thirteen again my mind wandered and somehow I lost interest. Unable to shift from my preference for English Language as a subject I doodled a little spidergram of chocolate related words. Hot. Covered orange segments. Bitter. White. Teapot.

Teapot?

And suddenly I was thirteen again and Mr James was castigating something - his malfunctioning microscope, the ever leaking window, buck-toothed and buck-natured class member Chodder (never, ever known by his given name of Craig) - for being, in his favourite phrase, ' as usless as a chocolate teapot'. And thus was a quilt born.

Given its aetiology I thought that the quilt needed words. The Pillow Book of Sei Sonogon was at hand and I thought that she probably had a section about useless things. She didn't but she did have a piece about unsuitable things which was close enough. I retyped it then manipulated a photo of a Japanese teapot to make it melt. Stumped as how to combine the two via computer, I printed both, cut the teapot out, glued it over the words and scanned both onto fabric.

I then showed the quilt to my husband who looked blank. He had never heard of the phrase. But then he is Irish. Local humour and colloquialisms often pass him by. I showed a local friend. Blank. Chocolate I hinted. Penguin? She replied hesitantly.

Penguin?!

In fairness, in the UK we do have a chocolate biscuit called a Penguin. (A dirty lie, in fact - we have a chocolate flavoured biscuit. Not the same thing and why I never buy them.) But how do you get to that from a teapot? She pointed out the spout to me. Oh yeah. ( Although to me it looks more like a seal.) I thought about altering it but hey, art is for the viewer to interpret right? So I googled chocolate teapots. It is a perfectly legitimate phrase.

Mollified, and in homage to the simple elegance of tea ceremonies (or alternatively in homage to lack of imagination and laziness) I decided on simple framing. Japanese writing of course was a must. Only as I stood, rotary cutter in hand I realised that I didn't know which was was up. Being risk averse I decided not to gamble and risk being totally wrong. So the calligraphy fabric is used both ways up and I am happy with definately being only half wrong. Which is a lot less wrong than most of my biology homework used to be.

Obviously Chocolate

"Obviously Chocolate"

This piece was really fun to make. When I first heard the new theme, I knew I didn't want to be too obvious. I thought I would take my cues from some beautiful brown fabrics and maybe a bit of metallic referring to some lovely chocolate packaging. But, the results couldn't be more obvious -- don't you think? Rather than using some metallic fabric or foils, I simply used the actual chocolate wrappers. Obvious isn't all bad. I think it's gots some nice abstract elements and I'm really pleased with the variety of layers and textures.

I incorporated the same methods I used for my two Encrusted Cobblestones pieces. This was a bit trickier since I had to have a specific finished size. I cut a piece of batting about 11.5 x 11.5 and then cut several 2ish inch squares in a variety of browns. All those fabric were pre-fused. I also (carefully) added Wonder Under to the back of the chocolate wrappers. I used some nice Godiva squares that came in three lovely browns (for milk, white and dark chocolate) and a Mr. Goodbar that was super shiney gold. I think there is a Dove bar in there too.

Then I just began placing the squares on top of the batting overlapping each square just enough to fuse together. I let the edge pieces hang over the batting about a quarter of an inch. After I was satisfied with the first layer of squares, I added several more squares of various sheer fabrics over the top. Tulle, cheese cloth, organza, etc.

Then I fused a piece of black fabric to the back. The edges that were hanging over the batting got fused to the edge of the black fabric. I used a deckle edge rotary cutter to trim the black batting just a smidge bigger than the top so it has a nice black edge.

Then free motion quilted all those swirly shapes to imply chocolate pieces. Yum.

I can hardly wait to hear the new theme! Kristin?!

Love, chocolate and patchwork

This is my house. It's full of love, chocolate and patchwork.
When I chose my theme a few months ago, I really didn't know what I would come up with. As I didn't have much brown in my boxes, I started by dyeing some chocolate fabric.
Then, for two months, I wrote down every word chocolate made me think of. It soon became clear that many of these words, feelings, facts, things were related to my family, and therefore to my house too. I decided to pick the more significant words and to write them on my chocolate fabric. This would be the walls of the house.
The quilting, and the house shape, are inspired by drawings my children made when they were little boys. The crazy log cabin blocks are leftovers from a very old project. They were begging me to use them in this quilt. I couldn't resist.
Making this chocolate quilt was a lot of fun. I'm going to put more pictures on my blog later today.
I'm so glad to see all the other chocolate quilts too. I'm off to read all your posts now.

The Marquise de Coetlogon

My first thought after Françoise announced our theme as Chocolate, was of something I had read on my last visit to the chocolate museum in Köln (Cologne).

It was an excerpt from a letter written in 1671 by Madame de Sévigné to her then-pregnant daughter advising that she herself not consume chocolate as

” … the marquise de Coëtlogon took so much chocolate, being pregnant last year, that she produced a little boy who was as black as the devil who soon died.” *

This story seems so outlandish to our modern sensibilities. I still can’t decide if it’s demeaning, insulting, quaint, amusing, stupid, naïve, foreboding, or what. I did find it intriguing, and certainly it offers a different view of chocolate. It offered a good challenge, so I went with it. It’s been great fun too.



I posted earlier that my piece would be visually expressed as a cross between a Fragonard painting and a Harriet Powers-style story quilt. Helen asked “How???” so here’s my thought process:

First I thought about the basic elements of the story: chocolate (of course), 17th Century French aristocracy, gossip, sex and taboo, the unseen servant/love toy, the impropriety of having a child born of said servant, the intrigue (I don’t believe for a minute that the child died of natural causes), society and the class system.

Next I considered how these elements could be expressed visually. Fragonard came to mind first as his paintings, although 18th century, are the epitome of French aristocracy and erotic frivolity. Since our chosen medium chez 12×12 is quilts, I also considered what in the history of quilting might be appropriate. This is definitely a story, so something pictorial made sense. To base it on a style known to be used by marginalized Africans (even if they were in the US and not France) seemed appropriate since a marginalized African played a central role in the story even if no one would admit it at the time.

Then I had to figure out how to translate it to fabric. Toile, being French, made a perfectly “frou-frou” background and looks a bit like engravings of Fragonard’s paintings. I’m not much of a toile collector myself, but I managed to dig up just enough from my stash. Slave quilts are characterized by asymetry, improvisation, and multiple patterning, so I could use some or all of those aspects in my work. Using many printed fabrics suggests not only the improvisation and patterning, but the luxurious textiles of the aristocracy as well. Organza would not have been used in a slave quilt, but it’s sheer quality is perfect for expressing an invisible presence.

Now to put pencil to paper. The Marquise is the focus, with her child in arms. Her breasts are bared not just to nurse, but in a voluptuous show of her sexuality. If there is any doubt that she’s the aggressor, her skirt is hiked confidently up to show more than a little leg and she’s allowed her sleeves to slip off her shoulders. Her head is turned, not lovingly towards the child, but to the chocolate, which her out-stretched arm suggests she wants more of. To express her gross consumption, the chocolate pot is large in scale. Smaller, and barely there in his transparency, is the Moorish servant no one is talking about. He holds the aphrodisiac with hips thrust forward, ready to give her what she wants.

Although I felt that the picture told a narrative well, this particular one is not universally known and I did want to reference it specifically. To that end, I embroidered the excerpt from Madame de Sévigné’s letter.

* There's a few more pictures and links on my blog here.

Chocolate Love

or "what happens to chocolate when it comes into my house!"

This little piece has given me so many fits and starts. The final work is nothing like my original plan. In fact, this is the second piece that I have made, but I won't show the first.

Here is what I did. I first scanned some indigo shibori and turned it to chocolate colors. This became my background. I then took photos of some Valentine candy. Me, being me, the candy did not stay uneaten for long. So, I decided to take photos of the aftermath. I then put on some nice red lipstick and kissed a piece of paper and scanned it. These photos and the lips were photoshopped to give them less of a "photo" look. I then collaged everything in Illustrator.

I ironed some silk charmeuse to freezer paper. The first piece printed quite well, but I didn't like the result. It was on a grid and the quilting just didn't work. So I set up the shibori background to be all linear and not in a grid and reprinted. I kept getting little bits of stray black ink on the fabric. After 3 tries, I gave up and went to bed last night feeling quite weary and upset.

As often happens to me, the problem became and epiphany. I knew why I was not liking the piece, and I knew that the solution would camouflage the ink stains. I made some thermofax screens of the words, chocolate, love, bittersweet and chocoholic. I printed lips in lots of different sizes on organza. Then I went to work adding lips and words, and I came up with a piece that makes me smile and that I am not embarrassed to share with everyone. It still has little bits of drips and doodles that I wish were not there, but the overall design seems to hide them.

Chocolate Desire

Okay, I have to admit this one was a struggle for me. So many emotions and desires that I wanted to capture. Chocolate -- so sensual! How to capture that. Although I tried, I couldn't get away from brown. Since my fabric stash of brown is absolutely nonexistant, I found all my brown (or even brownish) paints and went to work. First, I quilted fabric with a sprial quilting pattern, then painted and finally cut and pieced the piece. The geometric pattern reminded me of a box of chocolates fill with variety.

I figured I must have done something right when I asked my daughter what the quilt made her think of and she answered, "Those chocolates that we had the sample of at Costco that I really want." If the quilt says "Lindt truffles" than I must have captured what I was after. The sensation of truffle melting in my mouth IS Chocolate to me.

Choco Latte

I love dark chocolate. And I love looking at fancy chocolates through a candy store display case. They all look so decadent and artistic and expensive.


I'm not a normal coffee drinker. I don't like just plain old coffee. I love lattes and especially mocha lattes. That brings me to my quilt. The word chocolate could have been chocolatte. Just missing one 't'.

The background and border on my quilt are fabric. The rest is painted. My first attempt was to try this in all fabric, but after a while I gave up and just pulled out the paints and brushes and went to town.

Cacao y canela

When the chocolate theme was announced the first thing I thought of was our wonderful trip, last February, to Oaxaca, Mexico. Oaxaca is famous for chocolate and the aroma of chocolate pours out of doorways on the street where all the chocolate shops are located. Inside the shops cacao beans are dumped into hoppers that grind them into raw chocolate that is made into mole sauces, bars of chocolate, and whipped into hot milk, garnished with a cinnamon stick. Cacao y canela (chocolate and cinnamon) was the drink of the Aztecs and Mayans and is the sweet perfume of Oaxaca.

The "chocolate" theme gave me an excuse to indulge my love of Mexican Talavera pottery, as the chocolate must be served in something fitting! The mug is my own design, using elements of several different Talavera pieces that I own. And the background tile is based on the tile we just had laid in our new house. It was great fun to put this piece all together!

Still LIfe Without Chocolate

This challenge took me all over the place. I played around with so many different ideas (like many of you, a box of chocolates, a piece of cake, cupcakes...). I doodled and photographed chocolate in all sorts of forms, and brainstormed chocolate-related concepts until I had lists of ideas.

And then it hit me -- because we are chocolate lovers around here, chocolate doesn't last long in this house. And that led to the idea of illustrating chocolate just having been eaten.

So here is my empty chocolate wrapper. I call this "Still Life Without Chocolate." The Americans among you might recognize this as the debris from a mini Reese's peanut butter cup!

This was machine appliqued, then further embellished with paint, pastel crayons, and additional stitching.

This red one is actually version #3. You might recall my tale of having gotten ALMOST done and then doing ONE LITTLE THING that, to my mind, ruined the piece. I started out with the wrappers on a blue field (version #1), and after I ruined it, I cut away the wrappers and appliqued them onto another background. So here is version #2.

There was something about the crispness of the images on a print fabric, versus a mottled fabric that looks more painterly to me, which is why I moved on to version #3. But I do like this one, too.

And all this messing around gave me some good practice creating the look of foil with metallic fabric.

The added irony is that in recent days, a very minor health issue has popped up which prevents me from eating ANY CHOCOLATE AT ALL. So it's probably a good thing I've visually overdosed during this challenge!