Woolfelt: Utility to Art

While in Sweden last month, Jo and I had a free morning to visit an incredible exhibit of work by Norwegian artist Inger Johanne Rasmussen at the Sven-Harrys konstmuseum (located in the Vasastan district of Stockholm).  The museum itself is a wonderful modern steel and glass structure build around the historic home of Sven-Harrys. We knew the address and rough location, but Jo and I couldn't find a local person on the Saturday morning sidewalk to point us in the right direction - we'd arrived on the opposite side of a large city park from the museum.  Finally, a handsome young Viking looked at my tiny iphone google map and pointed us across the park in the right direction!

En route, I was amazed to see this uber-civilized stroller parking at the playground. Every stall has a number!

Finally we came to this gorgeous building entrance, after having enjoyed a delicious sidewalk cafe fika!

A few members of the Rikstacket Board (the national quilt guild that had brought Jo and I to Sweden to teach) recommended that we check out this exhibit on Saturday morning while guild members attended their Annual General Meeting. They told us it was a fibre art exhibit of hand dyed and painted, recycled wool. I had no idea what to expect, certainly not the scale and intense colour that immediately captivated us when we entered the gallery.  

All of the work shown here was created by Inger Johanne Rasmussen and photographed by me with gallery permission. Please click on her linked name, then on the WORK tab of her website to see more photographs from this exhibit and other gallery shows of her incredible work!

detail from larger piece, shown above

Jo takes a closer look at "The Home I could Not Find" 2014

detail from larger piece, shown above

"The Land Between Dream and Reality " 2010. 
 To give you an idea of scale, this piece is 208 cm x 303 cm

"Magic Carpet" 2011
This piece lies completely flat, the curled corner and overlapping bottom edges are illusions created by the artist.

"Misplaced Heritage" 2007.
This was my favourite piece in the show. The colours appear so subtle in this short exposure, however when I opened my shutter for a longer, over-exposed shot below, you can see much more variation in the dyes. The workmanship in this construction is phenomenal - keep in mind that every piece is inlaid and butts edge to edge with neighbouring pieces.

An over-exposed photo of the piece shown above.

"Passed Down" 2005
Such clever use of perspective in this Trip Around the World variation. Can you spot the chairs?

"Attempt to Construct a Flower" 2013

detail from larger piece, shown above.

The only English material available for the show was a one-page handout of the artist's credentials and list of sponsors. The only reference to this specific work was to describe the material as "army footwraps". It appeared to me to be natural-coloured melton wool (that had been dyed), about 1/16" thick.  There were no English translations of artist statements for the individual pieces that I can share with you, but I was able to find some of the titles on the artist's website. 

This was certainly a most inspiring morning spent in Stockholm with a lovely friend!

Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2012

Once again Amy has organized a whopper of an online quilt festival for us all! My one big quilt finish of the year was complete in time for Spring Festival, so I'm going back in the archives a bit to show you one of my favourite little swap items that I sent away. Swapping was such a wonderful way to find new friends when I first started blogging and sharing on flickr. I pushed myself to design original work; sometimes that was really hard. Usually, I relied on my photographs for inspiration, as I did here for this row of birdhouses on fence posts.

This is a tiny little art quilt measuring less than 8" x 10", I think.  It is made from felted wool appliqued onto a canvas basecloth. The wool is secured with machine and hand embroidery and there a few wee buttons and french knot Queen Anne's Lace for extra embellishment. You can read more details about the construction here.  This mini was sent off to Nanette but we also shared it's image with all of our family and friends because we used the photo as our Christmas card in 2010!

Here is the inspiration photo for the little quilt, taken not far from my parent's cottage on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario, Canada.

Near Stokes Bay, Ontario

This is quite different work than many of you are used to seeing here on Poppyprint - I hope to do some more work with wool over the winter months.  Be sure to check out what I'm sure will be the hundreds of other amazing quilts in the Bloggers Quilt Festival. You can nominate your favourites in one of many different categories and in a couple of weeks, cast your votes!  Click on this button to get there:

Fuzzy Snow

No such thing. It's cold, it's wet, it's white. I love it.

Once in a while, I like to celebrate the snowflake's sublime symmetry. Yesterday, when I realized my guild's ornament swap was happening tonight, it was panic stations around here for a few minutes before I clued into my new GO!Baby die: the hexagons! A 6-armed snowflake would fit perfectly onto a hexagon background. You know, sometimes that university degree comes in so handy.

I googled "snowflake template" and perused many a flake before deciding on this one (chosen for supposed ease of negotiating small spaces with a machine blanket stitch). Please do not examine all those points too closely, my blanket stitch did run amok in spots. I fused the flakes (using Transweb) onto the hand dyed wool 4" hexagons that were beautifully cut on my GO!Baby. I put one layer of wool at a time through the cutter and the hexagons were cut accurately and cleanly.

Both sides are identical and the ornament hangs from a 1/8" satin ribbon loop. I hand stitched the two hexies together with perle cotton and lightly stuffed with fiberfill. Then I secured matching buttons to each other through the middle to gently squeeze the snowflakes, giving them some added roundness. Swap-ready in one hour! Love that.

Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2011

Welcome to Poppyprint!

This is my third Bloggers Quilt Festival and while I'm a bit late for this one, I am still very excited to share this tiny quilt with you. It is one of my most favourite things I've ever made (1) because it was inspired by one of my own photographs, and (2) it is made entirely from wool which was a new experience for me, and (3) it ended up being our 2010 Christmas card!

The inspiration photo for my little art quilt, taken in rural Ontario near my parent's cottage

I don't actually have this quilt. I made it for a mini-quilt swap on Flickr. I was very sad to see it go, but I had faith that it's new owner would love it as much as I do. The theme was "houses" and my partner is a major bird lover and well-known on Flickr for bird motifs in her work.

This is how our Christmas card looked after I'd framed the photo in a museum mat and increased the colour contrast in Picnik

Now, while this may not be the kind of thing you expect to see in a quilt festival, I can tell you it does have three layers, all joined together with some stitching, and it is bound as well. I created it without using any templates, just a sketch, some wool, sharp scissors, steam-a-seam lite, embroidery floss and my machine. The large background wool areas were butted up to each other on a canvas foundation and top stitched together with a zigzag stitch.

I free motion thread painted the grass over top of some spikey wool cuttings that I had fused on. The Queen Ann's Lace are french knots and the fence wire is embroidery floss couched on with some stitches where the 'wires' cross.

I think my favourite parts are the round bales of hay, though. Here is a picture of the whole mini complete with it's thicker-than-usual binding.

Thank you for stopping by to visit Poppyprint in the festival (and thank you Amy for giving us the chance to meet so many new quilting friends through sharing our work!!) - I hope you'll come again soon!

If your coffee/tea cup is empty, head for a refill and come on back to enjoy the rest of the festival right here. There are over 300 quilts entered already!!!

I like Hookers

They make the prettiest rugs. Today a few friends and I took in a gallery show called Incredible Treadables by the "Gone Hooking Rug Group". I'm not sure how many of these gorgeous rugs will actually be tread upon. I like looking at them on the wall. The primitives are my favourites...I think for the same reason I like looking at wonky, not so perfect quilts. They are just more interesting to me.

I tried out my new iPhone for these photos and I cannot believe the colour saturation. Not bad! Some could be focused a bit better. I won't be abandoning my camera any time soon, but in a pinch these are pretty okay pictures. Here's a small sampling of rugs from the show.

I Like Giraffes by Anne Vulliamy

Don't you just love his fuschia tail and how he has to scrunch his neck to fit in the frame? Sweet.

Hush Little Baby by Karen Nicolson

Ivy by Donna Heinrich

Donna did a rug of both her dogs (I think)...here's the other one:

Roxy by Donna Heinrich

Quilters by Sandi Hill (my quilting pal - she is also a fantastic hooker!!)

Les Boules by Sandi Hill

I like the primitive hooking style combined with contemporary colours on Sandi's Les Boules....for me it's akin to using mod fabrics for traditional quilt patterns. The next photo rug, "Glorious Triangles" by Linda Spence is similar....funky mod coloured wonky triangles surrounding a folk art bunny shape. Cool!

Blue Goats by Tanya Graham (the sideways text reads: arti choke folk).

I wish I knew the story behind this rug - love the textured background.

If you live in the Lower Mainland, this show is running at the Seymour Art Gallery in Deep Cove until April 3. There is a fabulous contemporary table runner up for grabs in the fund raising draw and the gallery has an outstanding little artists gift shop. Check it out!

These are NOT my Hooters

Full disclosure up front for those of you who hi-grade blogs for photos and pass over the details in the text: I DIDN'T MAKE THESE.

But I had to show them to you because they are so stinkin' cute!! This handsome duo live on Mayne Island now, at Rebecca's house. Jo Ann and Andrea made them as hostess gifts for our retreat last weekend. Lest you think all I brought was a container of granola, I did sew up 6 cloth napkins for Rebecca made out of Day of the Dead skull fabric (she's got a think for skulls...and owls...and schnauzers).

The girls used a pattern by Abigail Patner Glassenberg from the book Softies Only a Mother Could Love. Jo Ann had some recycled, felted wool sweaters to use. I think my favorite part are their ears. So cute!

I think these hooters are very happy and excited to be all nested down in their new habitat!

And just in case you were wondering about my hooters, I recently received news that all is normal. That wasn't so bad. First of many boob sandwiches complete without incident. The nice thing about our system here in B.C. is that the Cancer Agency sends your results not only to your doctor, but directly to your home. I like that. If you are a woman over 40 and you haven't booked your annual mammogram for 2011, pick up the phone already!

Woolly Mini Full Frontal

I don't think I've ever been so excited to share my work as I am today. Nannette received her Birdhouse Fence woolly mini today, so that means I can share it with you, too! It brought me great joy to make this - after waiting way too long to start my swap project, suddenly it all came to me in a great rush (perhaps fueled by the guilt of procrastination?). Actually, I think I knew that one day my photos of the real life birdhouse fence would end up in fibre. Nannette is well-known on Flickr for her love of birds and using them in her work, so it was really a case of fate that she ended up being my partner on this one!

Ok, I'll stop blabbing on. Here it is, as we printed it on our family Christmas cards this year (we ramped up the colour saturation a bit for printing):

Here is the mini with it's 1/2" binding:

I made this felted wool 'picture' by fusing the background sections onto a piece of cotton canvas using Steam-a-Seam Lite. Each section of field and sky is butted up to the next, so no overlaps. I was able to tighten up the seams between two sections when I zigzagged across each one. Things got a little thick where the two layers of jaggedy-cut grass are overlapped, but I was able to free motion the grass blades with a lovely 30wt. variegated Aurofil thread without much difficulty.

I am particularly happy about the farmer's fence wire, which is 2 strands of DMC floss attached to the quilt only at the fence posts and where each 'wire' overlaps another one. I also really like how the Queen Anne's lace turned out with the white french knots. The mama sparrow checking out her real estate options is stitched freehand with 3 different colours of single-strands of DMC (light brown, grey and dark brown).

I can't tell you how great it made me feel when B asked if we could turn it into our Christmas card. He always silk-screens our cards, so it was a real pleasure for me to be able to share my original work with our family and friends this year (a few of them read this blog, but most don't really know what I do 'with all my spare time' hehe).

Okay, while I'm feeling all aglow, I would just like to send a shout out to Carolyn S. of Surrey, B.C. just in case she reads this blog. Carolyn wrote the sweetest letter to the editor about my Autumn Jewel Box pattern in Quilter's Connection fall magazine that made me blush, actually. Thank you so much for taking the time, Carolyn. When a friend emailed to ask if I'd seen the nice letter about me, at first I panicked thinking that maybe my mom wrote it! It was a relief to see a name I didn't recognize at the bottom of the letter!

Be sure to stop in tomorrow....it's Sew Mama Sew giveaway day!!

A Woolly Mini

Because I haven't got enough wool for a mammoth.

For my last group swap of 2010 on Flickr, I was to make my partner a mini quilt with a theme of houses. Participants had the option of a holiday house, or a regular house. My partner and I chose regular houses. Even though I've had 2 months to get this together, like a lot of other swappers, I prefer to let my ideas percolate for a good long time. My plans changed radically over the course of the 2 months and I must say, I couldn't be happier.

My partner is very fond of birds. She includes them in most of her swap quilts and blocks. It was a given that I'd find a way to incorporate this into her house mini. Since she hasn't yet received the quilt, I don't want to spoil her surprise with a full reveal, but I'll show you my inspiration.

These are photos I took in August while on vacation at my parent's cottage. Apparently the local realtor's wife is a bird lover and has been installing birdhouses along their country farm fence for many years.

I noticed in my partner's Flickr favorites that she has chosen a lot of felt projects. I thought this small 8" x 10" quilt was perfect for a sweet wool felt picture. I do have a pretty great selection of hand dyed wool thanks to Paulette and Uschi. Turns out, it was all perfect for this project! It reminds me of children's books that are illustrated with fibre pictures, or those felt boards pre-school teachers use to tell stories.

Here is a couple of sneaky peeks of tiny portions of the quilt. I made Queen Anne's Lace with french knots - I think they are my favourite bit. Most of the quilt is machine stitched, but I did a little bit of hand work, too.

I can't wait to get this off to Nannette! You'll get the full frontal after she receives it.

Sweet P is such a Sweet Heart!

Continuing my fabulous weekend of quilting celebrity meetings, on Saturday morning double 'n' Dianne and I headed out to Boundary Bay, B.C. for a quilt show. I had read a few days ago on Paulette's blog that she and some friends were heading over from Vancouver Island to speed shop and cruise the show before jumping back on a returning ferry. I would have just a few minutes to meet my blogging buddy before she had to leave! [If you're a long time reader of Poppyprint, you may remember this story....the one where I met Paulette's sister in Barbados right after Paulette won my first ever giveaway. Now, that was crazy!]

Picture by Claire, scooped from Paulette's blog

Paulette, Claire and Dawn were waiting for us in the front entrance surrounded by shopping bags from the merchant mall. We had a great big "so happy to finally meet you in real life!" hug, and then she did it....Paulette gave me the sweetest present! Knowing I've been having a ball in the flickr mug rug swap, she pulled a fast one and made me a gorgeous fall rug from her hand dyed wool collection. Check it out, here on my desk this morning.

Paulette said she brought the mug home and found all the right wool waiting in her stash. Amazing. The colours are just beautiful.

And my morning latte fit perfectly. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, Paulette. I hope next time we can have a nice long visit and maybe do some stitching together. Mwah!

If you're looking for my blogiversary giveaway of Kaffe Fasset FQ's, then you need to head over here!

Wooly (Mammoth) Gift

That's what Paulette sent me! A mammoth collection of her gorgeous hand-dyed, recycled wool! What I thought was a joke on her blog last week was actually a little contest with a big prize...all I had to do was guess who Paulette's dinner guest was going to be. Easy, peasy for a regular reader like me (plus, I totally get Paulette's humour, so I just knew the answer would be the "Shower Lurker").

At the risk of all of you thinking I am way too spoiled by my blogging buddies, I have to show you what arrived today:

I couldn't believe it when I opened this treasure chest of wool. Then, when I pulled it all out, it seemed to grow to be even MORE wool....see?

Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful wool stash Paulette. I look forward to using it up in some great projects!!

Time's a wastin'

Isn't this just the BEST card? I absolutely love these cards designed by Leigh Standley of Curly Girl Design. (in the fine print, down in the right corner, it says "she most heartily enjoyed pursuing life" and the labels on the top storage boxes read: dreams: adventure: hopes). I've been absent for a week and not because I've been wasting time, really, just using it up on things that are not really post-worthy. Like hemming new jeans (successful use of 'hump-jumper' over the thick seams! Hurrah!), putting my new vacuum through it's paces, doing piles of laundry, taxi-ing kids to activities and attending meetings.

Most importantly, and most entertaining, has been my obsessive monitoring & participation of the DQS8 Flickr pool. I have to work very hard to make sure this doesn't become a massive time sink! The quality of work coming out of this group of quilters is incredible and I am really in awe of the original ideas, beautiful colours and just plain fun that everyone is having. I've met some great new online friends, too! I have done some work on my partner's quilt using my own drawing as a template for an applique. The peanut gallery (B, T, D, sister in law, Gathered Threads) have all heartily approved of my design, so now I just need to get on with it. Here's a wee peek ~

On Friday, the Gathered Threads were over for our regular morning stitch followed by lunch, a visit a rug-hooking show AND turbo shopping at local stitchery shop Dick & Jane in West Vancouver. It was lovely to have one of our "Snowbirds"* back home for a few days...Barbara returned from rainy California and was able to join us. Sharon brought the most beautiful little wool project along to stitch - this is the outside of a needle case.

Sharon does beautiful handwork - check out all of the sweet embellishments: beads, yarn couching, embroidery stitches....this is a pattern from the Oct.2009 American Patchwork & Quilting mag.

*for my Euro-visitors...are you familiar with the term Snowbirds? We use it when referring to Canadians who spend their winter months in the south...do you also have a word for people who flock to Spain, Portugal or Greece in wintertime?