In the US visiting grandchildren over the past few weeks, I was fortunate to be able to wangle visits to several textile exhibitions, including the SAQA NM  Members’ exhibition at Santa Fe, The ‘SPUN’ and Nick Cave exhibits at the Denver Art Museum, The Front Range Contemporary Quilters’ show at Golden and, next door, a fabulous fibre exhibition the name of which escapes me for the moment but I will blog separately on it, and there were some wonderful art quilts at the Lincoln Centre at Fort Collins CO.  I saw some wonderful textile art, but I was struck by the number of wall quilts I saw that clearly were not meant to buckle and roll out from the flat plane of the wall.  Consider these examples are from the SAQA New Mexico members’ exhibition at the State Capitol Building in Santa Fe:

In all possibly about 1/3 of the works hung had what I think were some degree of  3-d that were not intentional, and these were the most marked cases, being forward of the wall by several inches.   But don’t get me wrong – this show of SAQA NM members’ art quilts was interesting, lively, and there were some arresting works of art.  I particularly liked the drama of all Michelle Jackson’s pieces but especially her ‘Adobe Shadow Dance’ and was very taken with Nancy Steidle’s ‘October Aspens’.  Now the show had been up for a couple of months, and it was raining heavily for several hours the day we went, so the air was damp – I am not sure this was the only cause of this problem, though.

After seeing this exhibition I thought a great deal about whether this is really an issue, or if it was me just being picky.  I talked it over with a couple of other veteran art quilters, and it bothers them, too, and so I’m putting it out here – ‘Yes, it does bother me… and if me, then possibly other members of the viewing public, too.’  If any of these works were mine, they would not have gone out in public without the issue being addressed – and we’ve all had the problem one time or another.  Someone suggested younger people were involved because they didn’t start out with the same general sewing skills we oldies who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s did – and that could be.   I know, there are no rules that say a wall quilt must be flat – and heavens, the wonderful El Anatsui piece that I saw at the Denver Art Museum affirms draping ‘textile’ art is fine, and I’ve done it myself, too.  Regina Benson these days manages a fair bit of relief in her wall hung installations of course, and some are actually walk-through – there’s never any mistaking her intention.  But these quilts I’m talking of were clearly meant to hang flat.

Many art quilts today are heavily and closely machine quilted.  Technically its highly fashionable.  When a wall quilt is heavily and closely machine quilted, most likely the result will not be ‘flat’ all over: such pieces tend to distort, because the quilter tends to sew mostly in the same direction, and I think it happens more often using a domestic machine rather than a long arm quilting setup.  But either way, there are a couple of things you can do to improve the situation:

If an edge is not quite flat against the table, when you apply a binding or facing you can gently tighten the binding along the sections that are ‘loose’ which will draw it in a bit, and this may be enough.  You might need to pin and re-pin a couple of times to get it right, but this can be enough, and is very worthwhile.

Instinct and/or experience, however, may tell you the treatment needs to be more drastic.  If there are several loose sections, I have sometimes found it very successful to run several fine gathering lines of stitches parallel to the edge and about 1/2″/1cm apart.  See diagram below. If you’ve already rushed the binding on, take it off.  The buckled areas should be treated as separate ‘regions’ of the quilt.  Using a strong thread in tones of the backing fabric, fasten one end with a knot or stitches to anchor it, very close to the edge and then parallel to the quilt’s edge,  running lines of small stitches on the surface and longer ones beneath it out of sight, and leave the end hanging free. Repeat several times until you’ve covered the problem area. With the quilt flat on the table or hanging face towards the wall, gently pull each thread until the fullness is gathered in, and it won’t need much, you’ll find.  Fasten off the ends of the thread and bury them.

And finally a word about blocking.  A fine spray application of water is made to the quilt while it is pinned or pegged out somehow in an exact rectilinear shape, and once it has thoroughly dried it is ‘straight’.  It’s a procedure commonly done to intense embroidery like needlepoint before framing or mounting, which is then held into position by that frame or mount for the rest of its life.  Many quilters talk of blocking their quilts, before or after finishing – but either way, IMHO it’s a temporary technique that I would never rely on.  A wall quilt can certainly be put through this process and ‘straightened up’, but it can lose its nice blocked status when hung in a more humid atmosphere for display.  So, rather a waste of time and effort, IMHO.

This year the SAQA-Oceania region members contributed 32 pieces to the annual SAQA Benefit online auction, and decided on a blog hop to highlight ourselves as a regional group of SAQA member artists.

Although here in Montevideo Uruguay I’m technically only about 100 km from the South Atlantic, as an Australian I am part of the SAQA-Oceania group, and as you know, home is where the heart is.   So, today I have a few notes on my auction piece, how it fits with my recent work, and then I’ll finish with a few pics of my workspace to give you some idea, if you want it!

I always make a 12″ square for these auctions, and they’re either small samples for new work, or examples of what I am doing on a larger scale.  Late last year I made a group of quilts for an Australian exhibition, and after fluffing around with samples,  I decided stenciling really was the way to go for that group, with designs based on images of sand ripple patterns I photographed and manipulated to produce the pattern from which I cut the stencils (out of fabric)  for each:

For this 12″ square, I cut a stencil of ripple patterns from template plastic:  the plastic didn’t start out gold, of course!

Template or other plastic sheeting is wonderful for stencils you might want to use over and over – easy to clean and store.  I’m a fan of the low tech approach, and  fabric stencils enable you to produce even larger surface patterns.

After stencilling, my auction piece was free machine embroidered with gold metallic thread; then layered, pinned and free machine quilted with a fine stipple pattern (rather tedious) using fine black polyester thread top and bottom.  I am a great fan of Guterman’s Skala thread as used here, and in fact use it whenever I piece, too.  I buy 10,000m cones of the basic colours of black, dark grey, light grey, white and cream … which tells you something!

It was then trimmed and bound.  There’s a hanging sleeve which is easily removed if the buyer wants to mount it in a frame.

I use unbleached calico / muslin for backs, so these Tidelines quilts all look like this:

Mike agrees the following photos are a totally normal, reasonable representation of my workspace at any given time !  and I  include them to give you some idea of where I beaver away creatively.   Of course, all spray painting, stencilling and burning are done outside in the garden, with my back to the wind, but for everything else, this is my workspace.  I think ‘studio’ is rather too refined a term, although some  might not agree.

My pin wall, right,  is large, half a wall in a long narrow room. 

Having pride of place in my work area, shown in the back corner of this photo, is an extremely unusual wooden cabinet, a re-purposed antique, closeup below.   Perhaps you can guess the original use, but everyone I’ve ever shown it to has been totally stumped.  We were too, when we first found it.   The answer’s at the end of this post.

I find it very useful for thread storage.  Each little sliding door/panel has a small finger-size indentation, and there’s one spare space per row, enabling access to every cavity by sliding the panels back and forth.  Some cones and spray cans go below.   It’s a beautiful thing, and the original use will surprise you!

And finally my actual ‘sewing’ area, (complete with the other usual occupant in the room) showing my cutting table at right angles to my sewing table with recess for the machine.  Both were custom made to the same height, so it’s easy to move it as necessary for machine quilting.  When piecing, I cut, sew and press each seam as I go, so again, convenient for how I work.

OK – it might look a bit like a jumble sale, but what I need is close to hand, suiting how I work.  If a bunch of coloured fabrics out on the table become too distracting I simply put them away.  After a big project I tend to tidy up, put everything in its place,  then for something new I get fabrics and threads for fresh consideration – I audition them, really.

Now, that cabinet?  When we found this interesting piece in a furniture restoration and reproductions place, we were very puzzled.  The proprietor, Roberto, told us it was from the ticket office of the central railway station in Montevideo, and the little boxes held pre-printed tickets for every railway station along the radiating lines.  The rail system in Uruguay is largely defunct as most lines closed 30+ years ago, the magnificent C19 Central Railway Station was stripped of all furniture which was auctioned off, and the grand building stands sadly empty and unused to this day.  Before that, well into the ’70’s, you bought your ticket from Montevideo to somewhere, paid for it, and then it was then date-stamped with the date of travel.   Mike, bless him, suggested I could use it in my studio.  Roberto was thrilled that someone wanted it, especially for such a practical use, and we both thought it was a snap at  twice the price we paid.

The blog hop began on July 16th, so a number of artists have already posted,  such as Ali George and Rasa Mauragis just before this, but all posts on the hop are scheduled HERE    The next is from Maggie Gilbert on August 7th, then Susie Cujes on August 9th.  We hope you’ll enjoy the whole blog hop excursion!

A few months ago Mike and I were in Panama City, and while there we visited the fish markets, near the old part of the city.  There these doors appealed to my love of grids and appropriateness of design to function.  Battered and well used…  (pun)

A reminder that tomorrow, Tuesday July 16th (Aus Eastern Time, so this afternoon ir you’re an American or European reader) – the SAQA-Oceania Blog Hop begins! and the complete list of participating artists can be found  HERE

SAQA-Oceania Region members decided to group and highlight our contributions to this year’s  SAQA Benefit Auction.

Beginning next week, on July 16th, and with a new blog post every couple of days up until September 6th, you will enjoy a feast of interesting behind-the-scenes insights by some of the SAQA member artists in this region.

Come back  here on August 5th to see my piece, my process and some one-time-only revealing views of my workspace!

A full list of participating artists can be found  HERE

Mark the page, visit regularly and share the excitement with your followers and quilt lovers everywhere.