At Saturday's farmers' market, I met a wonderful textile artist, D.H. of Maritime Blues, who uses linoleum block printing to make placemats, napkins, tea towels, and other housewares, as well as the occasional quilt. Her exquisite work immediately caught my eye, and I couldn't resist buying a placemat set and a couple of tea towels to use for quilting. D. told me that she usually sells at the Kerrisdale farmers' market, or occasionally at Kitsilano, so I was lucky to find her at Trout Lake.
We had such a nice conversation that I decided to start immediately on a small quilt with one of her heron block placemats, rather than the other quilt I had in mind. I haven't gotten very far, other than to haul out all manner of blue fabrics--hand dyes, traditional width Japanese fabrics, modern Japanese and Japanese-inspired prints, and other odds and ends--and to settle on the basic placement of the heron blocks. Here's the beginning:
It's been a while since I've had much time for quilting, since our backyard "farm" and other projects have kept me busy lately. I'm in the midst of a sewing room makeover, but as mentioned in my last posting, that venture is on hold for the moment, as I wait for some shelving to arrive. But I did manage to put up the wall cabinets and am pretty amazed at how good they look. Here's the view from Sunday, before I finished cleaning up from all of the drilling and assembling:
Here's a close-up, which I think looks interesting, because the removal of all other visual context just leaves behind the basic geometry and seems almost like a work of modern art:
Speaking of modern art, I was browsing in a bookstore on Sunday while taking a break from the shelf-shopping expedition, and I happened upon a book of art by Ellsworth Kelly. Some of his work from the early 1950s offers wonderful inspiration for quilting. I don't want to violate copyright by posting any photos, but you can see a few examples of his art here. I particularly like the one that's third from the top--unfortunately, I've forgotten the title, but I think it's from 1950.
As for other creative summer activities, if you're interested in making an awesome Viennese chestnut almond torte, check out my July 28 blog entry.
Happy WIP Wednesday!
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| Placemat and napkins from Maritime Blues |
It's been a while since I've had much time for quilting, since our backyard "farm" and other projects have kept me busy lately. I'm in the midst of a sewing room makeover, but as mentioned in my last posting, that venture is on hold for the moment, as I wait for some shelving to arrive. But I did manage to put up the wall cabinets and am pretty amazed at how good they look. Here's the view from Sunday, before I finished cleaning up from all of the drilling and assembling:
Here's a close-up, which I think looks interesting, because the removal of all other visual context just leaves behind the basic geometry and seems almost like a work of modern art:
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| "Cabinet" (2013), private collection |
As for other creative summer activities, if you're interested in making an awesome Viennese chestnut almond torte, check out my July 28 blog entry.
Happy WIP Wednesday!
Those prints are just gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteHow cool that you ran into her. I'm sure the quilt will be beautiful with them.
Love the heron blocks, and your modern art photo.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to the work of Ellsworth Kelly. I've been planning a quilt with very skinny inserts in a contrasting fabric, and these are fabulous inspiration!