The Kiss: LSQG 2024 March Madness Challenge Quilt

It's finished!  The March Madness Challenge for the Lakeside Quilt Guild.

 

I decided to make a wall hanging modeled after Klimt's The Kiss.

This the fabric we were given.  Kaffe Fasset's Roman Glass, like a mosaic.

Here are the instructions.   In short, we can make anything, any size, as long as the given fabric is a focal point of the piece.  It can't be backing or borders, but must be a central part of the work.

Although I tossed around a couple of ideas (1 involving an octopus, another involving an abstract landscape), this is the one that came to the surface and wanted to be made at this point in time.

Here is my pattern.  Because Klimt's The Kiss is old enough to be in the public domain, there are lots of line drawings/ coloring pages of this painting out there.  So I picked one, enlarged it, and made it my pattern.

Klimt is also a favorite of quilters because of his use of textures and patterns in his paintings.

Here is is with everything fused, no stitches yet.  I am amazed at how recognizable it is, even using different colors and fabrics from the original.

The first piece I put in was the Roman Glass for her dress.  

All the other fabrics came out of my stash and scrap pile -- That was the self-imposed rule I wanted to follow.  The "big blue building" for his robe came from Laura R.  I'm much more partial to blue than gold anyway.  ;-)   I think her hair was a bandana that Sophie got from the groomer -- I washed it.  

I did have to purchase more Wunder Under fusible, but that's ok.   

 

The next step was to stitch everything down.  First I did a zigzag stitch with invisible thread - clear and smoke.  then I went back over some edges with a satin stitch.  Here are all the threads I used.  I'm so glad I bought that set of embroidery threads -- I've used them a lot.  I'm glad there are so many colors. 

 

Here's the threadwork from the back side.  The heavier lines are the satin stitch edges. 

 

Detail of The Kiss. 

I used a scrap of Dream Wool for the batting, so it puffs up nicely, giving some definition and body to the bodies.

I am so pleased with how this came out!  This has long been one of my favorite artworks.

I might even turn this into a postcard next time around!

Autumn Splendor Confetti Quilting

 Autumn Splendor

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” 

― L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables.

Here it is at a distance (figuratively speaking), which helps it all come together in the mind's eye.  I've been looking at it up close and personal for too long, so I appreciate the perspective.

This one has been many years in the hopper.  I started it at the October Quilt Camp back in 2011, with scraps from the Red Curry Quilt Top (also yet to be finished).

The view out the window that year was very similar to this.  I don't think I took a photo myself.   Did I?  However, I used an inspiration photo from Sue Bleweiss (Used by permission).  It was a young-ish tree in full color, and much shorter than the larger trees around it.  Or maybe it was just a splendid branch?

Chaos!

The basic technique is to drop bits and scraps on a background fabric, layer it over with tulle, pin it all together, then sew the heck out of it.  I used a layer of batting underneath as stabilizer.

Here it is from the back.  Lots of free motion stitching / embroidery to add texture, color, 

and stability.

I kept going back to add more stitching on the under story so that it would recede more.  Kind of neat how it all just blends together, like pointillism.  Remember the old tv sets that were millions of tiny dots of color?

Then the tree trunks seemed to get lost, so I added some trunk-y yarns to add texture and contrast to help them stand out more.

Today, I decided enough was enough.  Time to add some borders and call it almost done.  I still need to add the backing and binding. But much closer than before!

Sometimes, you just need to get some distance (time and space) from a project to start liking it again.  Sometimes, that's what it takes for a project to come together as a whole--after you've been caught in the details for so long.

The Magic and Memory of a Kayleigh Spring : Landscape Quilting Class with Susan Hoffman

"Kayleigh Spring"

I signed up for a landscape quilting class with Sue Hoffman at Going to Pieces Quilt Shop in Appleton back in April.

Most of the other people in the class had been with her before.  We all brought photos -- well-- I brought more of a rough sketch with separate photos of spring-blooming trees that could be used in composite.  I had a whole collection on Pinterest of Sakura cherry trees as inspiration.  The image I wanted to work up is a sweet memory from 30 years ago ... that Kayleigh Spring at UW-River Falls.  A beautiful night in May, trees on campus were bursting pink and blooming, smelling so wonderful ...  Evening time, the sun was going down, and the moon and the stars were coming up.  Wow!  Did I mention I was in love?

It was kind of unusual for a student to have only a sketch, and not an actual photo to work with, but Sue Hoffman let me keep it, and was willing to help me work through it.  Really more of a dreamscape -- and a little simpler than some of the other projects people were working on this weekend. 

One of the biggest lessons from this class was to think like a painter, not a quilter.  I'd brought a big bag of scraps that I thought I could use to fill in the landscapes ...  That works perfectly for applique, but this isn't really applique as quilters know it.  The techniques were first put out there by Natalie Sewall and Nancy Zieman.  I have some of their books about this technique, watched the shows, and never really did anything with it.  Live classes are good for having you try something new, or working on a project on which you're stuck -- which I think is where I was with this one.

 Detail of the background fabrics, and the tree skeleton.

I chose a beautiful blue hand-dyed gradient from Vicki Welsh at Colorways as the sapphire blue background.

I had a whole jelly roll of different greens that I thought I would use for the hill, but it just wasn't working.  Susan persuaded me to choose a lovely leafy green off the rack -- yes, great to be in a well-stocked quilt shop with a wonderful palette to chose from!  Yes-- Going to Pieces has the Stonehenge line of wonderful textures, along with a wonderful selection of batiks and hand-dyes.  I LOVE this quilt shop!

Next I worked on the skeleton of the tree.  I've been fascinated with "naked" trees for years.  Looking at those skeleton structures before they are "clothed" with leaves for the season.  I had a few tree skeletons I could work with in my notes and sketchbooks.

In my mind, this image was tall to encompass the sky, not long, like "normal" horizontal landscapes.  But my chosen tree was better suited for a wider landscape, and a shorter sky.  So we blocked it out a little differently .. about 1/3 for the foreground hill, 1/3 for the tree off-set to one side, balanced by the night sky with a bright star (possibly a planet?) and crescent moon.  The tree is only partially on the canvas, otherwise it would take up too much space with this portrait setting.

We used Heat-n-Bond Lite as the fusible.  Funny they call it lite, as it seems really thick and sturdy.  This is what the teacher recommended.  Not identifying as a quilter, she tends NOT to stitch her quilts once constructed, and this has a good fusible bond.  Instead of quilting and stitching, she frames them behind museum quality glass--like a real piece of art.  That way, they are protected, and you don't worry about pieces falling off.




For the flowering tree blossoms, I chose 2 shades of pink in a hand dye with a little salt specks that seemed to mimic each blossom from this distant scale.   The hardest part was "fussy-cutting" all those little pieces.  It's too easy to get into a pattern with that, and then it all comes out looking the same.  The teacher recommended cutting an oblong triangle with lots of ins and outs, to make it look organic.  It took a whole afternoon to cut out all the pink pieces for the tree blooms.

Detail of the 2 fabrics chosen for the sakura blossoms.

Usually the next step in these kinds of landscape quilts is to go in and touch up the fabrics with pastel pencils or markers.  But since mine was more dreamy, and less life-like, I could skip that part.

Once that was done, I pressed (with a dry iron) everything in place.  And that's it!  It can be cut to size and framed.  I like the idea of not having to stitch it -- Once I get the moon and star in place, it can be dry-matt framed, and finished!   I know -- I'm a quilter first, but this idea of being almost done is really liberating!

 

 Still waiting for the finishing touches -- a moon and Venus in the corner.


Detail of the crescent moon and star in an exquisite sapphire sky.
Actually, in my memory, it was so bright, I think it must have been a planet.  Let's call it Venus.


The frame was purchased at one of the major craft stores locally with a 40%-off coupon. It's one of those off-the-rack / ready-made frames (16 in x 20 in), and not custom-made for this project.  As such the glass gives  off a lot of reflection.  I had to pull the glass in order to take the photo.  The frame looks rustic and old--like that tree -- good for a memory.  Nice and heavy, too.

This quilt has special meaning for me, as memory from nearly 30 years ago.  I was a freshman in college, in love for the first time, and feeling so alive!   Discovering the sensual world.  The feeling has definitely shifted to gratitude, appreciation, and back to love again.  Thank you, TM, for making such a sweet memory for me. 

It's a joy to revisit this every spring.  ;-)

Why "Kayleigh Spring," you ask?  At the time, a song had come out by a band called Marillion.
The song was Kayleigh.  The most visual of the lyrics are :

Do you remember dawn escapes from moon washed college halls?
Do you remember the cherry blossom in the market square?
Do you remember I thought it was confetti in our hair?
-- Fish and Marillion

 
A lovely acoustic version of Kayleigh.
Don't be put off the the theatrics and make-up in the photo.  Just listen ...

In my search for the perfect Kayleigh rendition, I came across this haunting beauty -- isolated Fish vocals and guitar solo.   Just wanted to share it here, so I don't lose track of it ...



And now for the official video from way back in the 1980s.
The one that tells the story visually--even to the bittersweet end.


A really nice version of Fish's A Gentleman's Excuse Me with Lavendar.
[This one also keeps disappearing from the embedded option, so follow the link above ...]


And because some of the heavy stuff needs a chaser to a happier place--where I am now,
I leave you with Goo Goo Dolls : 

Spark in the Back of My Mind : John Hiatt Quilt #3 Finished

 
 

Spark in the Back of my Mind

aka The Fire Quilt

The third and final (for now, anyway) in the series of Art Quilts inspired by John Hiatt songs is complete.

This is the line that inspired this quilt :

from John Hiatt's "Back of My Mind"

And I saw that the light I'd been hoping to see

was the spark in the back of my mind

And the cold wind that blew through the hole in my heart

Made a fire for the very first time

From some branches of trust and a kindling of faith

And that spark in the back of my mind. 

Listen to the whole song here :

 There's also a line from Hiatt's "Seven Little Indians" that could also apply to this quilt : 

And every once in a while, he'd get all wound up with one of his stories,

He'd put 'em all on and dance around that blue tv light

Like it was some campfire blazin' away 

* * * * *  

The Fire Block :  The fire piece was created separately as a unit, embroidered, and then appliqued onto the background of the quilt.  It puffs up nicely trapunto-style to give it a 3D quality.  Making the fire block is similar to my composed fabric technique, with layers trapped under a sheer fabric.  I learned it in a class with Linda Schmidt through Quilt University.  She taught an Elements in Fabric class where we learned to emulate fire, water, air and earth in fiber and stitch.  A very worthwhile class, but I had to let the learnings sit and simmer for a while ...




Wood - The wood in the fire is heavily free-motion embroidered.  This was done BEFORE the block was secured to the quilt background, much less the batting and backing. 




Words - The "branches of Trust and Kindling of Faith" were "thread calligraphied" onto the wood fabrics.  This after a class with the author, Nancy K.  I wanted the words to be subtle, and not scream "I'm here!" so there is not very much contrast between the embroidery thread and the wood fabrics.  That was intentional.  I want my quilts to have some gifts for those who stand close and study them long enough to discover these little surprises.   ;-)

As I said earlier, this piece has been in the works for several years.  The beauty of having a blog like this is that I can go back to the earlier stages.  If you want to see how the fire came to be, revisit the following links :

Progress on the Bonfire Block (from 2008) - Threadpainting the Flames
Progress on the Bonfire Block (from 2008)  - Words on Wood
Bonfire Block (In Progress) from 2007

The Batting :  A recycled (but not so old) mattress pad.  These are good and puffy for wall quilts, and they don't sag and droop over time like my favorite Hobbs 80/20 cotton/poly batting--which works great for bed quilts.

The Quilting :  



The brown ground is heavily quilted with a red variegated thread.  I wanted to this push back and not stand out, giving emphasis to the fire.



I knew I needed to do something with the quilting in the air to simulate sparks being shot up from the fire.  These are spaced much farther apart, giving them an airier quality.


The quilting motif in the borders is meant to simulate smoke and how it curls and  moves off on the wind.  If you look closely, you'll also see some hearts there, perhaps indicative of the love and healing the speaker / singer eventually found "in the back of his mind"  or maybe it's "the cold wind that blew through the hole in his heart"?

Sparkle - There are a few crystals in the centers of the quilted sparks.  You know I like a little bling, and this called out for it!  They were hard to capture in the photographs, so you'll have to trust me on this one.

Does it still need some beads?  Maybe ...

Auditioning fabrics for borders last spring.

Borders 
I put a lot of thought into the borders, colors and widths.  They get darker the farther they get from the fire -- as if the heat -- the brightest part is the center of the fire.  The yellow, then orange, then, brown, and red and black--more like ashes at the edges of the quilt.



The borders are also intentionally uneven.  Part of that was because I hadn't cut the batting big enough to start with (Ooops!  Good time to make it a design element!).  Sometimes that happens when I work with no pattern, and these pieces grow organically, and take on lives of their own.  But it also wasn't going to work for the bottom of the quilt to have the same size border as the rest of it.  I wanted the fire to be the star attraction.  If it had a 4 inch border along the bottom, it would have thrown off the balance, and really made the bottom third too heavy.



Binding
I used a new technique for the binding to add a dark red flange.  See the Flanged Binding Tutorial from Sew Fresh Quilts.  This technique worked out very well, and was worth the extra trouble to do it. 

After thought :

“You have to carry the fire."
I don't know how to."
Yes, you do."
Is the fire real? The fire?"
Yes it is."
Where is it? I don't know where it is."
Yes you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road


The other John Hiatt Quilts (so far) :
          Northern Lights / Rivers of Light
          Mama Let You Lick the Spoon 
          Spark in the Back of My Mind

Northern Lights : John Hiatt Quilt #2 Finished

 

Northern Lights / Rivers of Light

Stolen Moments Series of Art Quilts

Inspired by the Songs of John Hiatt

Original Quilt Design 

by Michele Matucheski

24 October 2015

Oshkosh, WI

This is another quilt that's been a looonnnggg time coming.   Begun in 2007 (or so), it's finally finished!   This is another in the "Stolen Moments" Series of art quilts inspired by John Hiatt songs.   His lyrics are wonderfully visual.  This one comes from a line from his "7 Little Indians."   (PC People : Please don't be offended -- It's not about Native Americans at all.  He grew up in Indiana, and in the song that's what his Dad called everyone in his family while they were growing up.)  It's one of my all-time favorite John Hiatt songs -- always has been.  I discovered it about the time I was planning to move to Alaska in my younger days ... so I also love the line about "Some mukluks, seal skin gloves and a coat with beads around the collar."  

This is the line that inspired this quilt :

"Blazin' like the sheets of light dancin' in the sky up above Anchorage"  -- from John Hiatt's song "7 Little Indians."     You can see the full lyrics for this song at the end of this post.   Or listen here :


There are many other visual lines that could have inspired several other quilts ...  so more to come!

Now that you know the inspiration for this quilt, on to the specifics :

 A page from my Sweet Leaf Notebook / sketchbook, which acts as a repository for all these ideas before they actually come into real life.

No pattern.  Aside from the lyrical inspiration, this quilt is entirely my original work.  That's why these things tend to take so long ...  No pattern to follow, many design and implementation problems to solve along the way.  It all started with that Northern Lights fabric, and kept growing outward and upward.

Batting : Hobbs 80/20 cotton/poly batting. I always like how it gets nice and crinkly, antique-looking once it's washed.  And I did wash this BEFORE adding the beads.

 

 

 

Northern Lights Fabric in the center is not the traditional cotton quilting fabric we're supposed to use.  But what the heck -- I say use whatever you like in Art Quilts!  It's a satin with sparkles stuck to it -- from the prom section of the fabric store.   To me, this screamed (well--more like whispered) Rivers of Light dotted with stars.  Perfect!  The quilting in this area is very simple, following the contours of the flowing aurora borealis.    It didn't need much embellishment, as it already had bling.  I just kept building the block around this center.

Mountains - This is a batik scrap from my mom's very ample quilting stash.  The brown / gray was a hand-dyed fabric done by me.  Since the center square was on point, it was natural that the landscape was a mountainside with those angles.

 

 

The Trees - Mostly drawn and cut free-hand, fused to the mountain section and heavily free-motion embroidered to give them depth and dimension.  I used as many green fabrics as I could find that still looked like pine trees.

Sky - Starry night fabrics (I think) are from my mom's wonderful stash of scraps (again).  They could be mine, too, as I've used these for backgrounds in other quilts.    The starry night borders are quilted with a Van Gogh-like starry night swirl pattern This is one of my favorite go-to free-motion patterns that I can do in my sleep.

North Star - If you look closely, you'll see a tortoise amid those star trails.    Somewhere in my 45 years, I remember a story about the North Star being the belly of the turtle, and the whole heavens turn around it--Why the North Star Stands Still.   That particular piece of fabric came from Nigeria, West Africa in my college days.  It's a starch stencil resist indigo-dyed tortoise design.   I purposefully did NOT set the turtle straight up.  I wanted it to convey that sense of the world turning and star trails.  That worked better if the turtle was at 10 o'clock--if that makes sense?

Beading and Bling
*  Heavier green beads along the lower edge reflect the forest and also weight it down.

 

 

 

 

*  Iridescent beads border the night sky and help reflect the purple mountains in the night sky, providing some balance.   These little buggers are hard to photograph.

*  Hematite beads line the outer border.  Darker and shinier, hematite is also known as "Alaskan Diamonds" -- long been one of my favorite substances on this Earth.

*  The Star Pin is from my Gramma's old jewelry box.  (She gave it up when she moved into a nursing home.  My son got it as "treasure" for the role-playing games he played when he was younger.)  I tried a starry button and even a Swarovske crystal, but it called out for a larger something in that spot.  So Gramma's Star Pin won out.

*  Freshwater Pearls and shiny metal beads to simulate the stars in the Tortoise Shell. 2 rows frame the North Star and draw your attention to that area.

How to Hang a House-Shaped Wall Quilt?
A ring at the top point to hang over a nail or hook in the wall.
Corner triangles at the mid-points with a stick to keep it extended -- kind of like the framing in a kite.

Here are the full lyrics [I had to include the whole thing as it tells a wonderful story about his family, and there's no good video out there for this particular song.] :

"Seven Little Indians"

by John Hiatt

There were seven little Indians
Living in a brick house on
Central Avenue
Gathered 'round their daddy
Tellin' stories in the living room
From a slightly unrealistic point of view
Momma was off yonder in the kitchen somewhere
Boiling up some hot water for them to all get up to their necks in
The seven little Indians knew
If the rest of the tribe ever scrutinized their household
Somehow it would not pass inspection
The big chief railed on
And spun his tales of brave conquest
About the moving of his little band
Up to Alaska
Where the caribou run free
See he had been there putting in telephone lines
For the army during World War II
Even brought back a picture of a frozen mastodon
For the little Indians to see
And some mukluks and some sealskin gloves
And a coat with beads around the collar
His wife kept them in the mothballs
Underneath the Hudson Bays
And every once and a while he'd get all wound up
With one of his stories, he'd put them all on
And dance around in that blue TV light
Like it was some campfire blazing away
Well he stamped and he hollered
But he could not stay warm in that living room
And even the seven little Indians could feel the chill
And although everything always worked
Out for the better in all of his stories
In that old brick house it always felt like
Something was movin' in for the kill
Blazing like a trail
Shot through the eyes of the seven little Indians
Blazing like the sheets of light dancing in the sky
Up above Anchorage
Blazing like a star shot down to the ground
Back home again in Indiana
Now it finally got so quiet you could hear a pin drop
They started dropping like flies
The oldest little Indian got sick and vanished
The big chief went two years later
The mother raised the six little Indians up
The best she could
To be housewives, musicians, and insurance salesmen
But they all shared this common denominator
You see, all the characters in the big chief's stories
Were named after the seven little Indians
And like I said, in his stories everything
Always worked out for the better
And now as I'm telling this stuff to my own kids
Dancing around in that blue TV light
Well, I wish I had those mukluks, those sealskin gloves
And that coat with beads around the collar