Quilting Arts Magazine April - May 2016

AS THE CALENDAR TRANSITIONS FROM WINTER INTO SPRING, SO MY FAMILY IS MOVING INTO A NEW SEASON. My middle son is transitioning from boyhood into manhood with a traditional rite of passage— learning to drive. Every weekend afternoon since he earned his permit, we’ve been practicing. Parallel parking, three-point turns, and downshifting have all been demonstrated. Safe lane changes, turn signals, and refueling have been reviewed. We’ve even taught him how to use a stick shift. And yet—no license. Let me remind you: this is not our first rodeo. We shepherded our first two offspring through this treacherous phase with minimal dents and dings. Sure, we lost a bumper or two with my eldest son, and learned the versatility of duct tape repairs with his sister, so we should be (emphasis…

DEAR QUILTING ARTS, It’s great receiving your magazine digitally because there is no delay caused by snail mail—I live ‘down under’ in Perth, Western Australia. I noticed that you ask readers to write about new quilting ideas. I think I can say I am one of very few quilters who explore the world of geometric fractals. Searching the web reveals quilts with classic fractals such as the Sierpinski Triangle and the quilts of Rose Rushbrooke of Oregon, who creates art quilts using fractals produced with complex numbers and computer software. I design mine on grid paper by repeating geometric shapes in different scales or by following a fractal rule from a math book and adapting the result to suit patchwork. Thank you for your most enjoyable magazine. Pat Forster Perth, Western Australia DEAR READERS, Over the…

Lea McComas is an international award-winning fiber artist, author, and teacher who has developed threadpainting techniques for rendering realistic pictorial works. The author of Thread-Painted Portraits: Turn Your Photos Into Fiber Art, she has appeared on TheQuiltShow.com, Quilt It!, and “Quilting Arts TV.” Residing near Boulder, Colorado, she teaches both internationally and online at craftonlineuniversity.com. leamccomas.com Lynn Krawczyk is a surface design artist from Plymouth, Michigan, who applies paint to fabric to express her personal vision. She has written for Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper ScissorsR magazines, appeared on “Quilting Arts TV,” and has three Quilting Arts Workshop™ videos: “Print Design Compose,” “Color Theory Made Easy,” and “Thermofax Screen Printing Essentials.” Lynn is the author of Intentional Printing: Simple Techniques For Inspired Fabric Art. smudgedtextilesstudio.com Susan Edmonson is an award-winning quilter, pattern designer, mixedmedia…

if you find it hard to throw out those little pieces of hand-dyed fabrics from previous projects, you’re in luck! That is all you need to create a collaged background with a variety of textures and fibers for your next art quilt. A non-traditional fiber as the base for a photo transfer and some hand quilting and embroidery round out this technique. DIRECTIONS Create the background 1. Cut a piece of fusible web to cover the batting. Fuse in place using a pressing sheet. 2. Place fabric pieces on the fusible side of the batting, collage style. Varying the placement and size of the fabric may reveal an abstract background or the slight hint of a landscape. Add dimension with the cheesecloth and other frayed edges. (figure 1) 3. Once you are pleased with the…

thread painting faces may seem daunting, but a basic understanding of facial features and some tips on how to stitch them will lead to success—even for a novice. Let’s consider the eye. Knowing the shapes, or geometry, of the eye helps one make sense of how to place thread to create a realistic image. The eyeball is a round sphere and the eye socket—that opening in the skull where the eyeball sits—is, basically, a rectangle with rounded corners. That is where the symmetry of the eye ends. From here on out, everything is just a bit off center. Realistic eyes When open, eyelids do not form a symmetrical shape. The curve of the upper lid is more pronounced, while the lower lid has a gentler curve. These curves are not symmetrical. Imagine the…

CARKAI Carkai—a word invented by designer Carolyn Friedlander—is a playful collection. The 28 fabrics in the collection tell four color stories—Malibu, Blush, Petunia, and Shale—that all play well together. The prints range from large-scale to geometric to linear designs and will add organic texture to any project. robertkaufman.com “HMONG STORY CLOTHS: PRESERVING HISTORICAL & CULTURAL TREASURES” BY LINDA A. GERDNER Lovers of cloth and history will be bowled over by this visually stunning, well-researched book. After an introduction about the Hmong people, their needlework traditions, and examples of embroidered hats, clothing, and accessories, Dr. Gerdner traces the history of story cloths from the Hmong in Laos from 1977-2005. Without a written language, Hmong stories were shared verbally and also on cloth. Some of the examples in the book—while beautiful—are quite heart wrenching; stories of…