Modern Meets Modern

Modern Meets Modern
at the International Quilt Museum

Sept 16, 2021 to March 19, 2022

I am feeling fortunate, grateful, validated, valued, honored, proud, happy, and overwhelmed! My quilt, Hidden Messages (center bottom row), is now in the permanent collection at the International Quilt Museum and has been chosen for an exhibit called Modern Meets Modern.  

I haven't seen the exhibit in person, but their website has an amazing presence of the exhibit.  There are gallery photos (where I got these images), individual spotlights on each quilt, and a virtual 3D gallery where you can "walk" around and look at each quilt and explore at your own pace.  Videos of the artists talking about their quilts will be included soon. 

I am having trouble even finding the words to express how wonderful this exhibit looks to me.  Something along the lines of a "real" museum, and it is a tremendous honor!  The lighting is exceptional! It is perfect for lighting the quilts, but also not overexposing the fabrics to harsh light that would make the fabrics fade; something that is not typically considered in quilt shows or many other exhibit venues. 

There is text on the walls! I love how this spells out the concept of the exhibit!

And they built these incredible little beautiful sculptural box thingies with concepts on them that pique your interest and are so visually appealing!

And as a special note, my quilt was meant to be backlit, so that you can see the letters hidden under the appliqued colorful circles.  However, putting that much light on the quilt is bad for the fabric.  So they built another one of those lovely instructional pretty boxes specifically for my quilt to show what my quilt would look like if it had been backlit.  It is perfect!!

Many thanks to IQM and all the people who were involved in putting this exhibit together! Hope you will get a chance to see it in person, and if not check it out on their website!

i Quilt finds its Forever Home

i Quilt finds its Forever Home

I had always hoped and dreamed that this might happen some day, and now it has!  The International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, NE has purchased my i Quilt to add to their permanent collection! This means so much to me, it is really hard to describe.  The feeling is good though, so very good....like floating on air. It is such a tremendous honor to have my work included with so many of my esteemed colleagues and quilters who have come before me.

I have had a dream like this since I was a small child, drawing pictures of my toys (see this post).  In school, I was so very fond of my art classes.  And yet, I did not have a very direct path to art in my adult life. It would be easy now to say that some of my career choices were mistakes, but I think of them now as very important steps to get me to where I am today. And, somewhere along the experience of living a life, quilts became not just the thing to do in between events, but the expression of those events and took a more central role. And now my quilt will have an extended life through the special care and conservation at the IQM and through it's online presence in their on-line Collections database.  It is a tremendous honor to be included in quilting history in this way.

I have also donated a quilt to IQM.  It means so very much to me that they wanted this quilt. It is Hidden Messages and I love this quilt so much.  Perfect!

I have written a number of posts about the creation of this quilt (the beginning and the middle part), the reveal of the message behind the circles....if you are curious! :)

Hidden Messages, Part III

Hidden Messages, Part III
69" x 72"

Update: My quilt has been donated to the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, NE.  I couldn't be happier that it has found a permanent home! You can see it here.

I have been working for weeks trying to photograph an image of my quilt (here and here), so that you can see the light shining evenly from behind all the circles, revealing the hidden message.  And, I think I like this shot with the sun behind it better, mostly because the lighting looks real, and bright, and pretty.

Unfortunately, because it is not lying flat, some of the letters are hard to read, and it is a bit distorted from the wind.  You will also notice the darker "grey" area at the top. I wrapped the top of the quilt to the back to make the hanging tube.  I didn't want the hanging tube attached in the normal way because it would interfere with the ability to read the first line of the poem.

To get the next image, I hacked a LED light fixture and used it like a small light table and then photographed two blocks at a time.  It took forever to take all the photos, and even longer to assemble them into one photo, carefully trying to match the exposures and brightness and line up all the grid work.  I'll be honest, it doesn't look that good.  For some crazy reason, my camera had ideas of it's own, and it changed exposures for every photo because of the light it perceived, which was different for every pair of circles, and empty white blocks.  I tried a LOT of different settings. None of my choices gave me a consistent exposure, so I opted for second best and tried matching by hand in Photoshop for each one.  Eh, it's not a perfect process...

I do like how much I was able to pop the contrast and brighten it up a bit.  I really dislike how the white part looks tinted with either yellow or grey, and the more I tried to get it to look white, the more it blew out all the quilting lines.  It was so frustrating!

Meanwhile, now that the poem is revealed, I can share with you some more process shots.
The first part was making the white part of the quilt.  The machine quilting was on my Juki, with a walking foot.

Lots, and lots of lines!

The fun part was selecting colors for the letters, and colors for the circles.  And then making them! This was my original selection of fabrics.  Little did I know that I would be changing these later.  I opted to toss out the purple and pinks, and added umber, ochre, and red.

Next was using Mistyfuse to apply the letters to the background.  I absolute loved the way these looked, and considered ditching the circles all together. Who can resist text on quilts??

However, now that it's finished, I am really glad I added the circles.  I think it makes a really nice metaphor about how hard it is to see the truth sometimes.  Thank you for your patience and following along with me!

Hidden Messages, Part II

Hidden Messages, Part II
69" x 72"

Last time I posted about this quilt,

and I alluded to...eh...something else.  So today I will share it with you!

I appliqued a letter on the quilted background (with Mistyfuse, and invisible thread for the machine quilting), and then I hand appliqued a circle on top of each letter to cover it! Below is a process shot of some of the letters already covered. All the letters were hand cut with scissors.

Under normal lighting, you cannot see the letters, as the circles are opaque. However, when light shines through from the backside (for example, holding the quilt up to a brightly lit window), the fabric becomes transparent and you can see the letters!

So even if you cannot solve the color coded cipher, you could read what it says.  It reminds me of the expression, "light is the best disinfectant"; which is a version of George Washington's:
"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light"
Indeed, the perfect complement to the actual message hidden under the circles!

Also, I wanted to reveal the poem today by showing you a full shot of the quilt, brightly backlit, so that you can see all the letters.  Unfortunately, I am having a bear of a time trying to get that to happen.  I wish I had a giant light board to take a photo, but I do not.  I tried having two assistants hold the quilt up with the sun behind it, but that did not evenly light all the circles, and well, there was wind.  I am not giving up.  I welcome all suggestions.  And, perhaps I foolishly believe I will succeed in this endeavor!  Wish me luck!

Hidden Messages

Hidden Messages
69" x 72"

This is one of my latest finishes.  I love this quilt so much!  It looks so randomly modern.  However, it is not at all random.  I have color coded the circles with the alphabet and spelled out a poem.  I am so curious if anyone can actually decipher the code?

And, this is just one level of hidden messages contained within this quilt.  As an aside, I find it a fabulous metaphor for people too, that there is more than meets the eye.

Here is a closeup shot.  The white background is one piece of fabric.  I quilted it with the black grid lines first, and then quilted the horizontal light blue lines (reminds me of a hybrid between wide ruled paper and graph paper).  Then I hand appliqued the circles into place.

To make the circles, I cut out 4" circles of freezer paper (a LOT of them), ironed them to the fabric, then cut with scissors around the circles leaving approximately 1/4" to turn under.  I used the iron to press the edges under using the freezer paper as a guide.  I removed the freezer paper and then hand basted the turned edge.  Then they were ready to place onto the previously quilted surface and hand applique into place.  It was a huge amount of work, but I really enjoyed every step.  Except one.

When I finished I did not like the way the colors worked together.  It was hugely disappointing after so much work.  The original color palette looked fantastic when I first started, so I also found it a bit confusing.  But I knew it had to change or I would never like it.  So I ripped out the offending colors and found some new ones.  Here are the ones that did not make the cut.

And, I was so glad I did the extra work! It made all the difference, and now I am super happy with the overall look of the quilt.  Here it is hanging in my house.  I agree, it is hung too high for now, but....cats....  (ps. Sharky likes it too!)

Also, I have only shared about half of what this quilt has going on.  Stay tuned.  There are more hidden messages to be revealed!  :)