Diane Wright quilt from SAQA auction at Houston 01-20-13

This is one of the first quilts marked for bidding at the SAQA online auction last fall.  I was so disappointed that it was being held back for the auction at QFestival in Houston.  Then one day I was talking to one of the ladies at Vision Art Museum and mentioned how much I wanted this piece.  She said "I'm going to Houston, I'll bid for you."  How incredibly generous to spend her time doing such a task when she could be looking at quilts or taking a class or visiting with friends.  She was really sincere, so I sent her an image and accepted her offer.  She was the first bidder and came home with the quilt.  How could she part with it?  I have been enjoying it on my wall and keep discovering little things that I hadn't seen the first fifty times I looked!    A BIG thank you to Ellen.

 
"Another Collector"  Diane M. Wright - Guilford, CT  2012  12"x12"
Diane said about her quilt, "The background fabrics were created using soy-wax resist applied with a collection of kitchen tools.  The magpie, also a gatherer and a tool user, is raw-edge appliqued."
The three horizontal bars are pieced in.  Hand and machine quilting.


Isn't he a handsome fellow?  It is always enjoyable to watch magpies whose antics are even more comical and farcical than those of crows.  The family corvidae have little hairs around the base of their beaks. 
 

Wonderfully appliqued skinny legs. 
 

The shapes in the background could represent the myriad items that magpies collect  - if it is shiny and they can carry it they will steal it to "decorate" their nest.
 

 
A colorful backing - surely from Diane's "fabric library".

This must be Diane's hand "print" - it is almost exactly the size as my own.
A good label with all the necessary information - Title, Maker, City of origin, Date, Contact.

Thanks, Diane. I have just bird quilts hanging in my family room right now. They seem to all be getting along when I am not here - no stray feathers laying around.
 

Carol Larson quilt from SAQA 2012 Auction 01-13-13

This is the last of the quilts from the SAQA online auction last October.


"Currents #18" Carol Larson - Petaluma, CA  2012  12.5" x 12.25" 
Carol's statement on the auction site:  "Linen dinner napkin, hand-dyed and screen-printed with embellishment of silk remnant (hand-dyed, screen-printed, foiled), African and Japanese batiks."
www.live2dye.com
 

Some of the edges are stitched with zig-zag and some are not. 

This is copper colored paint - it doesn't photograph well, but it is beautiful. 
 

Nice Nancy Crow fabric on the back.
 

I have added the date and the size.

Pat Pauly quilt from SAQA online auction 01-06-13

I was so taken with Pat Pauly's "Pink Leaf 2" in the Quilt National exhibit at San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles last spring that I went home and looked up her website.  I'm impressed with her work and hope to add a large quilt to the Collection.  Meanwhile I am enjoying this 12"x12" piece - a great combination of colors and textures.  


"Petite Mummy 2"  Pat Pauly - New York  2012  12"x12"
Commercial and hand-dyed fabrics are stamped, foiled and machine quilted.
www.patpauly.com

I asked Pat about the title - what does the quilt have to do with mummies?  She replied that "The form of the mummy bag, just like the one that is used to sleep in while camping, is a stand-in for a person or personality.  So, they become 'figures' so to speak."
 

 
This type of foiling, like it has weathered away, is pleasing to my eye.
 

 
A commercial batik and a nice hand-dye with yellow scribbles on the red.
 

 
Pat has machine stitched her last name and the year on the lower right corner of the front.
 

 
A nice "pebbled" batik on the back. 

 
But no label!  Instead she has attached a business card.  I haven't decided how to deal with this.  Maybe sew a little net pouch on the back to encase the card.  I have written the size (and it really is 12 inches square) and the year.
 

Embroidered quilt from Gillian Moss in TCQC 12-30-12

Here is another of the quilts I purchased from the SAQA online auction in October.  This quilt is so different from anything else I have seen lately that I felt it need to be in the Collection.

"Fantastical Garden"  Gillian Moss - La Jolla, CA  2012  12" x 12"
Screen printing, hand embroidered, hand quilted.
Gillian says this piece started out as a pure experiment as she was thinking of doing something for the SAQA online auction. She worked on it in the evening while her husband watched TV and it became a special quilt with the colors and the thoughts that accompanied her stitching.
 

Many different colors of thread used and a signature done with fabric marker.
 

The screened background in green and blue allows areas for the flowers to bloom.
 

Straight stitches, cross stitches, back stitches, stem stitches, running stitches, fly stitches, single chain stitches - done in perle cotton and sewing cotton threads.

Gillian does very even, elegant stitching.
 

And she is not afraid to show the back of her work - hurrah, Gillian.
 

On her label she uses a hand cut stamp of a house resembling her home in Dublin, Ireland and hand prints the information needed - including her website URL.  A way for people interested in her work to contact her.  www.mossartquilts.com

Sonia Grasvik quilt from SAQA online auction 12-16-12

This lovely little quilt from Sonia Grasvik is so evocative of  flocks of little birds in winter - even in SCalifornia.  They are so much more visible when the branches are bare - I watch them in the rose bushes outside my kitchen window. 
 

"In the Thicket"  Sonia Grasvik - Seattle, WA 2012  11.75" x 11.75"
 Hand dyed and commercial cottons, silk thread, fabric ink pens.
Machine pieced, FMQ.
Sonia wrote to tell me that all of the fabric in this piece is commercial cotton.
 

 
The bird and the briers are inked on the background and then the outline is sewn in black thread.  Or maybe the outline was sewn and then inked to fill in the black silhouettes.  The hand dyed background presents a hazy, damp, cold winter day.
Sonia  advises that the inking was done first and then outlined with YLI silk thread.

 
The tiny stripes are folds - like piping - and the background looks like those damp leaves and twigs that cover the wintry ground.
 

 
A nice matching label with all the necessary information.
 

 
Faced rather than bound, Sonia has rounded the inside corners of the facing to make it lay flat and easier to sew.   I love having this 12x12 gem in TCQC. 

Anna Hergert quilt in TCQC 12-02-12

This is another quilt purchased from the SAQA 2012 online auction.  I like this quilt because of the simplicity of the design, although I doubt it was simple to make.  I wonder if Anna originally made a complete spiral and decided to cut it down so it is off-center. Perhaps she will let me know.  And she did!  Anna designed it just this way, as an off center spiral.  It is hard to show the sparkle of the metallic thread which catches the light and sparkles in turquoise and copper.  I think the sparkle is what makes this piece.  The various colored fabric snips are trapped under netting and everything is held together with the straight stitched spiral and the scribbled metallic over the top.  Some years ago someone came up with a great name for this stitching, but I can't remember it now. 

 

"Maelstrom" Anna Hergert - Moose Jaw, SK, Canada 2012  11-3/8" x 11-1/4"

Cotton, netting, metallic and cotton thread.  Machine stitched.

www.annahergert.com

 

 I lightened this closeup hoping that the stitching would show better.

An appropriately plain back with a faced edge.  I will have to take off the sleeve, which is applied with fusible, because it is too narrow for hanging with a slat.  A full 3" sleeve with an extra 1/4" slack is needed for many pole and drape shows. 

An simple hand lettered label with signature and a website to provide a way to contact the artist. 

 

Quilt by Lynn Welsch in TCQC 11-25-12

This is another purchase from the SAQA 2012 Auction last month.  I purchased this one because it makes me smile - so colorful and silly - and I have it on my wall now because right now I am needing smiles!


"Taking a Break"  Lynn B. Welsch - Mimbres, NM  2012  12" square
Machine applique and machine quilting. 100% cotton fabrics; Superior Monopoly thread used for applique and quilting.  Beads and buttons as embellishment.
 

 
Lynn's machine applique is phenomenal.  Even with my magnifying glass I cannot see any stitches.  I wonder if she had trouble with tension using monopoly on both the top and in the bobbin.  I think the flower bunches on the heads of the birds is an added touch of silliness.  Each bird eye has a bead topped with a seed bead. 
 

 
And each flower is centered with a fancy button or bead.
 

 
Creative label, but no contact for the artist.  It is an important tool for possible future sales.
 

 
A back that coordinates with the front, something that I enjoy.  The striped binding is a great addition.

Elisabeth Nacenta-de la Croix quilt in TCQC 11-11-12

Purchased from the SAQA 2012 online auction.  Another tree quilt for that expanding part of TCQC.   I don't know much about Elisabeth, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, but she has a very nice website showing her work and listing all the places around the world where it has been shown.
http://elisabethdelacroix.com/index.html


"Chiaroscuro" Elisabeth Nacenta - de la Croix 2012  11.75"W x 11.85"L
Batiks and hand dyed cotton fabrics. Bamboo batting.  Rayon threads.  Fused applique.  Free-motion machine quilting. 

 
I like the way she has used batiks with tree twig like shapes to give depth to the forest - not overpowering the background, just a spot here and there.  The tree fabric is a nice choice with shadows of branches and twigs.

 
She has FMQ'd with what I think of as "tree bark" lines vertically over the entire piece.

 
Rather than binding, Elisabeth has chosen to satin stitch the edges.
 

 
Lovely backing fabric and a generous sleeve. However, she didn't leave any slack in the sleeve which is a problem I see a lot in quilts made outside the USA/Canada.  It really is necessary for shows that use the round rod and drape set up - without any slack the top of the quilt is bent over to accommodate the bar. 

 
Nice clear label gives two ways to contact the artist.  I have added the size for my use.