Frisco Quilt Guild Exhibition

The Frisco Shawnee Trail Cowboy Days is an annual event that takes place, in downtown Frisco during fall, and is presented by the Frisco Heritage Association (a volunteer non-profit organization). For more information visit www.everydayfrisco.com.

This event brought a wonderful opportunity for our Frisco Quilt Guild to display our talented member's quilts in one of the historic homes next to the Heritage Museum.  

Here's what the historic house looks like at night...

Below are our committee co-chairs, Karen & Pam, along with enthusiastic members, who did a great job of organizing this event.  

We set up the evening before.....and as you can tell by the smiles....we turned work into play.....it was so much fun.......

We set up tables....

Others set up Xmas trees....thank you Lesley & Diane....and a very special thank you to co-chair's husbands Tom & Skyler for your help..... 

Great tree for the Xmas quilts section.....

This tree had a lot more ornaments but, I got busy and forgot to take another picture...

The Xmas section looks good......

Close up of wreath.......great idea for displaying ATC's, Artist Trading Card's.......A group of us traded these for one year.....they're great keepsakes and I would keep this wreath out all year round.........

 

There was a blue & white quilts section....

Vintage quilts.....

     

Jewel Toned Batiks......

Fall quilts greeted visitors walking indoors.....

     

Red, White, & Blue upstairs....

Traditional meets art.....

More smiles......

My pictures don't do these quilts justice.....this quilt had some metallic sparkling thread quilting.....

Children's section....

So many people helping made this fun and easy......

Art Quilts.....

Let's go back downstairs.....

By this time some of us are hungry....in spite of the candy dish....we held out.....cause Babe's restaurant is next door....

Display board showed how our guild participates in the community  & other activities available to it's members....thank you to Karen Egle Jordan (co-chair) for this board! 

Once we finished.....some of us posed for a picture....this isn't everyone that helped out.....some had gone home....

Dinner at Babe's.....

The morning of the event started out nicely.....

This year's raffle quilt.....

Scenes from the day's events.....

Armadillo races....only in Texas.....

Pumpkin carving.....

One of the other historic homes.....

If you didn't make it out to the event, there's always next year....thanks to a great group of ladies for making this quilt show come together so well organized and fun!

Until next time......

Half Square Triangles...

Simple Abundance.......this is what I will name the traditional quilt top that I just made with half square triangles, aka HST's.  I started making this quilt because I inherited an abundant stack of brown squares from a friend who was cleaning out her sewing room.  I had just finished my Spanish Lavender art quilt (see Gallery-Impressionist tab for photo) & wanted to piece something a little easier.  Here's part of the stack I still have left for another quilt top...

These squares are 5" and were pieced by drawing a diagonal line from corner to corner, sewing 1/4" from each side of the pencil line, then cut apart down the pencil line to form two HST's.

 Pressed open..

After you have several HST'S sewn and pressed, you're ready to begin with designing the layout.  There are so many variations but, I decided on a barn raising layout.......

Getting back to basic sewing was very therapuetic.....it's not yet quilted but here is what the quilt top looks like thus far.... 

Draped over a chair... 

Close up of border....

Spread across a queen size bed for a better view of barn raising layout.....turkey reds go well with browns and neutrals......

Now on to the next thing on my to do list....unfortunately, it is not quilting related.....

Here's wishing that your day be filled with simple abundance.....

Until next time!

Impressionist Art...

Most of us are familiar with impressionist art like that of Claude Monet or Vincent Van Gogh.  Many have admired this painting style & personally speaking, wish that I could paint like the impressionists.   Even though I've dabbled in painting (won't show any of these amateur-ish paintings for now), my favorite medium is fabric.

I've experimented in trying to emulate impressionism by using 2 - 1/2" squares of fabric that blend color into the next piece of fabric.  To see examples of these quilts click on the tab, Gallery-Impressionist  to see the quilts resulting from these squares.  This process takes a bit longer than I like because there is quite a bit of sewing of many small squares.  Like a lot of quilters, I'm open minded about trying new techniques as I discover them.  Trying something new can be fun & it challenges your brain.

Over the years I've seen numerous quilts, at quilt shows, using various methods known as snippets, confetti strips, collage with fabric, or simply capturing bits of fabric under a layer of tulle to create a painterly look. While all methods probably work well for each person creating their quilts, I haven't tried these methods.  

One day I was feeling adventurous & it occurred to me to take irregular shapes of small fabrics & fuse them to an outlined background of whatever my drawing would be.  In order to appear painterly in your art quilt, the small chunks of fabric need to be smaller than what you see below & irregular.  However, the irregular shapes should look like they go together.  For example, I didn't use a square shape next to a round shape. The fabric color needs to appear like broken brush strokes that will blend into the next color, or brush stroke...

By the way, the glue you see in the next photo is to secure any stubborn fabric that insists on sticking up & out.  Use it sparingly...

You know....I've often thought that it would be easier to have been a painter because art quilts have so many steps.  I've tried painting & it's a whole new challenging skill to develop.....it's not easy....but it's fun....I have a great admiration for people who paint.

Below are the irregular pieces of fabric that I worked with.  There is no fusible web on these small chunks of fabric.  The fusible web is on my background that I'm building on.....

These are the photos that inspired me to make this quilt....I happen to love all the different varieties of Lavender.  Below is Spanish Lavender that is a perennial in our zone.......I planted this lavender about four years ago & I love it.........

There were several bees buzzing around the Spanish Lavender but none would stay still long enough for me to take a clear photo......

This honeybee kept moving every time I tried to zoom in to take the photo.  It wasn't easy but, I was patient & kept trying....

Below is the enlarged drawing.....I tiled the 8 x 10 inch drawing so that I could enlarge it using Adobe Photo Elements....once I got it to the size I wanted, I taped the tiled pieces together....

Next is to select fabric for building my background.....the fabric needs to be in small irregular chunks or shapes so that the background will appear painterly......

Fabric for the bee's body, eyes, legs....

I'll fast forward to building my background....you'll see an outline in my background which is how I know where to place by small bits of fabric.....my Spanish Lavender, honeybee, & stems, leaves will be appliqued after I build my background....

At this point, I add some of my applique pieces before continuing to build the right side of the background....this is just how I choose to work....it is okay to completely build your background if you prefer....

Anxious to applique the bee on the Spanish lavender.....I have no idea how I'm going to applique the wings....I work that out later....

Taking shape now that I've added the Spanish Lavender pod & petals....etc....by the way, I've taken many breaks during this process....

Okay....honeybee in place.....now to complete the background....

Have my reference photo close by to make sure I stay true to my original photo........only because I liked my original photograph....

I've added some dark brown textile paint to the honeybee's body & highlighted the eyes with white paint, added some depth to my leaves & stems with fabric & paint where I thought it was needed.....

Undecided about adding a wide border fabric for framing or not.....

 I decided to leave off the wide border as a frame because I wanted to keep the size smaller.  So now pin basting for quilting......

Close up of the irregular shapes the background is made up of.....all leftover fabric from other quilting projects I've worked on....

Ready to quilt the Spanish lavender pod.....I don't know if it's actually called pod or not........I don't know how I'll quilt the whole thing.....probably just heavily quilted since this is the easiest thing to do....

Quilted wings.....I thought of creating the wings but, wanted to hurry up & finish this piece so I used a double layer of gold glittered tulle & quilted the tulle with dark brown rayon thread....

Thread work from the backside....

Scroll back up to top of page & click on Gallery-Impressionist to see finished front side of this quilt....

Hope you enjoyed seeing the process....can't wait to start my next piece!