ELAINE QUEHL, Quilt Artist, Teacher, Dyer, Designer

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Preparations for Spring Teaching/Conclusion of The Art Quilt.

I'm making great headway here preparing for my spring/summer teaching trips. I've copied, folded (my husband did the folding) and packaged 360 patterns.

I've also dyed and ironed 74 meters of fabric, and dyed a further 42 meters and have mixed up dyes for an additional 26 meters. We still have a fair bit of dyeing and ironing to do, but it is my hope to get the bulk of it finished before I head out on the road at the end of April for my first major teaching trip of the year, to Lethbridge, Alberta.


On Saturday I taught Session 5 (last session) of my Art Quilt class here in Ottawa. In preparation to talk a bit about edge finishes and mounting and framing, I stitched, edge finished and mounted my little demo quilt that I started while talking about "seat of the pants" design. This is my favorite method of framing at the moment. I'm not a big fan of stretching a quilt around a frame. For this piece I purchased a frame, removed the glass, and mounted my little quilt on top of the foam core back that came with the frame. The edge of the quilt is finished with a satin stitch. But why frame? Because this is such a small piece (8-1/2" x 10-1/2"), the frame gives it more presence. I encourage my students to work small with their design exercises so they will be willing to take risks.

Students brought some finished quilts to class. You may recall that in our previous class we did some free-form cutting of curves. On the left you can see the results that Beth achieved. Fun, isn't it? She used a lot of leftovers to make the little trillium piece on the right.


I think I shared this piece in my last post. Since then Heather cropped it further, quilted and faced the edges. Also very fun.

This is also Heather's completed piece from an earlier class where we did seat of the pants designing. We all loved the irregular border.

Cindy used the free-form curves piece she started in the last class, further sliced it and added a leather crow. I think the neutral curves enhance the scene well.

Not sure if you can see the stitching on this piece, but Beth has done a fair bit on her leaves.

Wendy's rooster, inspired by a design she found on the internet, is finished, and quilted with a chicken wire design.

She turned her free-form curved quilt into an Easter wall hanging.

I'm also immersed in Level 2 of my Photoshop course. We're learning how to remove distracting elements in our photos. In this photo I took of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, a few winters ago, I was always bothered by that piece of metal construction equipment in the lower right side. Also in the lower left there is a black post.

I was able to remove both and now I like the photo much better. I'm told it might need a bit of straightening though, and I certainly know how to do that.

 But for now it's back to my dyepots and ironing.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Moving into March ... The Art Quilt/Teaching Prep/Photoshop Course

This past week I think I suffered from the flu so I spent a lot of time sleeping. I didn't accomplish much and didn't get my blog post up from the previous Saturday's class. I am happy to tell you I'm on the mend and am proud to share some completed design exercises from my Art Quilt class. This exercise was all about using value 

Virginia

Beth

Cindy

Heather

Wendy

In this class I shared free-form piecing methods with the class, and everyone spent time creating a composition using free-form curves.

Heather

Virginia

Joan

Marion

Lynn

Love our bright and spacious classroom and our intimate group of 8 students.

 At home I am working on preparing for the spring and summer rush of teaching. Just prior to coming down with the flu I had mixed up all my yellow and orange dyes to dye those colours for my peony and poppy kits. I managed to get the dyeing done somehow and everything is now soaking in a cold soak in the washer.


Yellow and pink dye now mixed up for some multi-colours.

I'm pleased that we are making continued progress at preparing for the year's teaching in the hope that things will be smooth sailing at that time :-) All the floral patterns are copied and waiting for folding and packing.

I'm also well into my second level PhotoShop course. Here's a couple of things I've done so far. Managed to cut this flower away from its background. Now I'm really free to compose by adding other things and putting this on any background I want. Talk about freedom in design!

This was just a bit of fun adding shape and text to a photo. And if you're sick of winter maybe this will make you feel so much better.