Esparta Fiber Arts Blog

I have been working (at least in my head) on this piece for some months. I had not had time to work on it until school let out. So finally, it has gotten beyond the tea stained piece of fabric I started out with. This piece is approximately 12″x12″ and is for the SAQA Auction. This raises money for Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) which helps artists who have a fiber art focus. This group is really diverse and provides a lot of support and inspiration for those of us whom are newer in the field.

I did a series of photos of this piece to document my process. Much like “guys in the band” (yes, I am still working on them) this is a similar process… although not on as large a scale and I did not use resist for this piece at all… I just freehand painted and then had at it with the sewing machine. It was a fun piece to do and nice to be able to finish in just a few days.

Information on the auction and the pieces that have already been sent in can be viewed here SAQA website. Here are the photos of this piece… “Dock Ropes #7″.

Dock Ropes # 7 in process

Dock Ropes #7 in process 1

Dock ropes #7 in process 2

Dock Ropes #7 in process 3

Dock ropes #7 full view finished

Dock Ropes #7 back stitch detail

Dock Ropes #7 detail 1

Dock Ropes #7 detail 2

The other piece that I recently finished was for Quilt Art’s  “Quinceañero” challenge. It was a ton of fun and meant to celebrate QuiltArt’s 15th year. I have only been a member for 4 or 5 years now, but I have learned quite a bit from various list members.

My personal piece is called “QA15″. I know it is not the most original title, but it was a ton of fun to create. I have been exploring blobby, cartoony type shapes and trying to get them more dimensional. I used my favorite method of painting with ink onto white fabric, then I used “prismacolor” pencils to add detail and shading. Really fun, but lesson learned. Wow, do you need to spray that stuff with fixative of some form… My arm was pretty grey after shading in… I also evened out the paint job with corresponding colors. I think it came out pretty cool. I need to redo the binding as it is really awful. Someday…

Here are photos of my “QA15″ piece.

QA 15 starting to pencil in

QA 15 in process

QA15 mostly painted penciled

QA15 full

QA15 detail

So I would highly recommend visiting the links to the SAQA site and Quilt Art site as they have such a great group of artists to view and I am really proud to be among them!

have fun,

mathea

Ok, I really tried hard to finish this piece for IQA Houston, but that did not happen… I was moving right along and it had potential to be finished on time, but rushing probably wouldn’t have given me the better end result. I really enjoy working on Dock Ropes #6, it is colorful, nice texture and really embodies where I live. In fact, I should thank one of the local fishing persons who was picking up their child at school. I saw the truck piled high with used ropes and loved all the bright, yet worn colors all tossed around. I am pretty sure these were heavily used lines and they were being sorted to see what was still useful or what needed to be recycled. (In these parts, many of the used lines get made into door mats.)

So I tried to be creative with the progress photos this time and I created a slide show with them… There is music (“Ushas” by E.S. Posthumus: Makara album) so if you do not like sound, please either turn down or turn off your volume. The pictures end with the current state of finish… as you can see, I have more to go!

I hope to finish in the near future. Thanks for stopping by…

have fun,

mathea

click on link below to see slide show

Dock Ropes #6 progress

I realize that I am dreadful and have neglected this poor blog for far too long… It has been busy around here. I have been working at the schools, teaching skating and eventually getting burned out and a fabulous case of pneumonia. So I have not had the energy to do a ton. I am in the process of working on some smaller things.

I did manage to complete the challenge on Quilt Art for its 15th anniversary. I will not post a picture just yet as it has not been posted by them. Soon, really, I will post it… really, I will.

I also managed to finish my challenge for the Coastal Quilters, one of the local guilds I belong to. I really enjoyed this one. They gave us each a fat quarter of black and white paisley fabric and we needed to make a 9″X12″ landscape orientation quilt using the fabric prominently. I don’t often piece or use fabrics other than white unless I am making a bag or something of a non-quilt nature.

I fussy cut out a few of the paisley/bloom pieces and fused them to white fabric. Then I used Inktense pencils and made some of my squishy cartoon blobs and migrated over to ink painting then onto acrylic with fabric medium. I also used some dry gold dusty paint as well… fun. Then I shaded with Inktense pencils, Prismacolor pencils and Fabrico markers… Stitched the outlines and added a couple of detail stitches and covered the entire thing with gel medium with a glossy finish. I have to say, this was a ton of fun and it is nice to start to get to use art materials again.

I had given up for fear my kid would eat them or some such thing. The best thing is that he is curious and loves to use the paints and mediums. (granted, with really close supervision) He really enjoys art and creating things. I hope it continues!

I am also working on a project called “Dock Ropes #6″ and we will see if I manage to finish it… I need to I entered it into Maine Quilts, so I need to get my act together. I would love to get it done for the IQA: Houston deadline… that remains to be seen.

So that is it for now… Pics below of the “Trip #437″ challenge piece… some from late process through finish.

have fun,

mathea

Hi everyone, I know it has been a bit… Work has been busy and in this economy I need to work when I can! Spanish for grades K-3 has been fun and most of my free time goes to making up lesson plans, coloring pages, and games for the kids. But I have managed to create some small pieces for therapy and I hope to finally get back to some of my larger stuff when I get a chance!

Here are some photos of my “dock ropes” series… all of the photos are of unfinished pieces, they are very nearly done… enjoy and thanks for visiting. Incidentally, this is my 100th post… hmmm… maybe I should celebrate with a cappuccino or espresso…

have fun,

mathea

Ohhh, I know its been a while… I was in the unfortunate position of having to look for a job. Not a whole lot of fun, especially in the area that I live in. I really love where I live, but it is not exactly rolling in jobs and we are fairly remote. But luck is finally with me and I got a part time job with two of the local elementary schools for tutoring Spanish. This should be entertaining as I really love language. So this has left me with little to no time for art. I managed to finish a few home dec pieces and one arty piece that I started a while ago.

The home dec bits needed to happen. My son needed to not be in a crib anymore… So I bought a used bed frame, sanded it down and painted it black. Then I painted his room (alcove) in 4 different shades of blue/green and then painted the bathroom a cool blue. So I finally quilted a basic cuddle quilt with lizards and bugs on it for Kurt and it works in the new room really well. (now for some curtain action) I hung the “my beach boys” quilt in his bedroom. and it all works nicely. The bathroom is now not baby poop brown and needs a painting to brighten up one wall. I will post a pic of that when I finish.

The other home dec bits were for the living room. The pillow covers were my first ever sewing experiment almost 4 years ago. Needless to say, they had been beaten on quite a bit and looked really tired. So I took the samples for my MIL’s shower curtain and turned them into pillow covers and pillow cases for the dec and guest pillows. So the living room looks a little fresher now…

The art piece that I finally finished is the silk “sew/slash/sew” experiment… I really like it. It is quilted with a sunburst like pattern and the teal stripe is quilted with flames. I then mounted it on stretcher bars and beaded it with vintage silver-lined crystal beads. I like the colors and the composition works for me. I really like the randomness of the beading. All in all it is a piece that I really like… would it win awards… probably not. But I like it and it makes me happy and that is enough.

I have pics of all of these projects following… next blog will be a slight departure and I will write a little about the massive rehab my parents did on an antique barn up here in Camden area. It is really cool and I think I got some good pics.

have fun,

mathea

Today is the start of the SAQA auction. This is one of the larger fundraisers for this organization for the year. I am proud to be a member of SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates), although I do not utilize the services that they provide nearly enough. I just have not had the time to figure it all out. But back to the auction. This is a fundraiser that benefits artists. Lord knows we need support!

The economy is awful, but SAQA will use these funds to run exhibitions, educational workshops, outreach programs, and publish catalogues all things helpful to artists. Fiber Art is newer to critical recognition in the art world, but it is expanding and SAQA helps those of us navigating through the arts to find our way. So if you have the time and spare change, please support a great cause. SAQA is helping people like me and I am grateful for it!

Here is the best part. The artwork is phenomenal! Many well known and not so well known fiber artists have made 12″X12″ works of art. Today the price of the art works will be $750.00 US and as this is a reverse auction the price will drop each successive day. I did not donate any work to this auction as I ran out of time, but there are so many great artists represented. I wish I had the money to buy all of these pieces and I got to see many of them close up when I was out at Quilt National. These are beautiful and there is no way that the computer screen is going to do many of these pieces justice.

These are some of my favorite pieces… I am sorry to those artists that I did not get to mention. I really enjoyed looking at everyone’s work and thank you for supporting SAQA with your time and talent! I limited myself to 5 pieces per page and will include a link to the artists website as well if possible. The page number will link to the full page, the artist’s name will link to their website and the name of the piece will link to the SAQA auction larger image view.

OK, here it goes… On page 1a my five favorites are: Sue Dennis’s “Ant Hill Country 3“, Wen Redmond’s “Angels Do Listen“, Ruth Powers “Yellow Headed Blackbird“, Cathy Kleeman “Ventanas #17“, and Leslie Carabas “2009-3M”

For page 1b my current favorites are: Anna Hergert “Eddies and Undercurrents“, Kathy Angel Lee “Autumn Colors“, Tanya Brown “Domestic Goddess“, Katharina Litchman’s “Under the Bridge“, and  Tommy Fitzsimmons “Family Pictures”

For page 2a my favorites are: Linda Colsh ” Into the Wind“, Susan Shie’s “Garden Hug#3“, Elaine Quehl “Unfurling“, Deidre Adams “Horizon 12“, and Jette Clover “Whitewash 1”

for page 2b my 5 faves are: Brenda Schlecter “Blue Moon“, Paula Chung “Red Tulip III“, Alison Schwabe “Timetracks 12“, Meredith Filshie “Yellow Fantasy“, and Marianne Williamson “Morning Light on the Pond”

Favorites on page 3a are: Terri Stegmiller’s “Mixed Berries“, Patti Shaw’s “Holding Court“, Catherina Breedyk-Law’s “F and M: fabric and metal #2″, Noriko Endo “Fall Color #4“, and Martha Sielman’s “Jellies Dance”

And for page 3b my favorites are: Jean Neblett “Small Works 27“, Kathleen McCabe “Liberty“, Katie Pasquini Masopust “Circles“, Ruth Carden “Then and Now“, and Laurie Brainerd “Imagination“…

Please remember, I only chose 5, but wow! Oh and I forgot to mention Judy Schwab‘s piece “Pieces of Eight“, I really like the combination of metal and cloth… Ok, I know, I need to stop. But seriously,there are some excellent pieces of art there, please take the time to support SAQA or one of the very generous artists that contributed to this worthy cause.

have fun,

mathea

Surprise, I am not timely in updating this poor blog again. Partially, this is due to my lack of creative work happening. But I am getting back into it again.

I need to put a hanging sleeve on “my beach boys” as it is going to hang in Maine Quilts next weekend so I better get cracking. I hate to sew sleeves on, even more than I dislike binding a quilt! This task always gets put off to the very last minute. I have to turn the quilt in tomorrow…

The “guys in the band” is at a standstill right now as I have not had the time to work on it. This ticks me off, as I think I am just not managing my time well. (Actually, I know I am being a lazy butthead.)

Last weekend I had the good fortune to teach a machine quilting class at Mainely Sewing. I had three students and they were amazing. They were very bold and were really quite willing to take chances and try most everything I suggested. I think that with practice they will all do really well with Free Motion Quilting. This is the second time I have taught this class and it was easier this time around and the women were very generous and gave me good feedback. I am very fortunate to have these opportunities. I also managed to get a pic of the class and they all said it was ok to post…

I managed to get partway through my “crazy patch” sample for an upcoming class. I have some more embroidery to finish and then I will bind it up… So there is an in process photo of that as well.

The smell of cookies downstairs is luring me away… Hopefully, there will be more updates soon, with more cooler stuff. (ok not such great English there)

have fun,

mathea

Finally I finished guy 4′s pants… Now for the hair and face. It shouldn’t take too long actually the face is simple and the hair looks like it going to be quite fun. It goes in all directions so I will have fun being fairly random. (my speciality) It took quite some time to get this guy done. There were quite a few disruptions. I hope to have him totally done Monday or so… we will see how it goes.

My brain is numb at this point. We watched the Star Wars Phantom Menace this evening. I hadn’t seen this one yet and it was pretty entertaining. I really liked the music. I will have to resurrect some of it for skating. But the arty side of this and what makes it relevant to this blog were the sets and costuming. Wow. They were really well done. I really like the effect of antiquity combined with the futuristic. Very cool. Yes, I know they did this with the original 3 back in the late 70′s early 80′s, but technology has progressed and the effects were well executed. (The originals were excellent for their time as well.) The amazing thing is despite the technological advances, they managed to make the movies not look as if there were 20+ years between them. The sets and animation type effects were stunning and very livable. I think I will maybe strive to do a piece that combines those attributes… antiquity and futurism… hmmm…

could be fun… here are a couple of not so great pics of quy 4′s pants done in the rock wall pattern.

have fun,

mathea

I posted a non- finished pic of the “Mildred” piece… So here is a finished version and I found one of the original comics… I scanned a frame into the computer… someday I will find the time to scan them all in…

have fun,

mathea

It has taken a while to get anything done here… but finally I have some photos of stuff that I have done.

I finished 2 bags complete with patterns for Mainely Sewing. They were fun to make. Writing instructions, however, is not my strong point. I do not do things in a logical order… Plus, my general lack of willing to follow any sort of directions makes it hard to write them down. I find writing recipes to be the same issue. With recipes, I now assume that anyone who may actually want one has a good general knowledge of cooking. I just write the amounts and ingredients in the order they should be added with a temp and method. Unfortunately, this does not work for quilting patterns where the level of expertise is varied. So I struggle to figure out what words will work on paper. If I could teach it person to person, it isn’t as difficult because of the kinesthetic aspect of learning. I tried to include as many illustrations or photos as possible. But end result is 2 cute bags…

tres petit bag

Quilter's Stow Away

Quilter's Stow Away opened

They are fun and the fabric was cute too… (fabric was chosen by owner and she has a limited amount of it) This is run one of the little handbag. I have designed another with cute applique as well, but its patterns and demo piece are not done yet. Maybe next post. So here are the 2 bags….

I have also more or less finished my self portrait for my guild’s challenge. I originally went with a more realistic type look… But I hated it. I couldn’t get the essence of what I wanted in it. I am quite capable of generating a realistic and accurate drawing/painting of myself. I have had to do this before. It isn’t me though. So I resurected a cartoon character of myself from a strip that I did in college. This comic is 20 years old now… I could not find the originals… so “Mildred” has aged. But she is still the cranky, frumpy, frizzball, that I have remained… Oh, she has cooler glasses now… So here are some pics for your entertainment. There is a copy of the first attempt and it still is not finished… I hate it, I may never finish it. And “Mildred” from the old “sorority bitch” comics…

have fun,

mathea

still not done and maybe never...

another late night editing music...

such a charmer