CSU visit

i was up at Colorado State University last week checking out the Fiber Arts program, and considering it for the remainder of my education. it was wonderful and i am very excited! more on that later when I have more news.

i did visit the Annual Flower Trial Garden that CSU has south of old town Fort Collins. the flowers were quite beautiful still. as i was taking pictures i noticed some movement among the daisy's. i knew it was too big to be a bug or the wind. as i looked closer.....i saw a mouse. i felt lucky to get a picture.

www.flowertrials.colostate.edu

the latest project...

my assignment for color class.... create something with color.

sounds great right? sometimes when the possibilities are endless it gets overwhelming though. you pray for inspiration to land on your shoulder.

so i decided to create a process, rather than an outcome. i selected several fabrics (some of my favorites, some i don't like, some i figured don't go and some solids) and cut them up into random pieces. i threw them into a paper bag and as i drew them out, i sewed them together. i do have to admit there was some editing though. same fabrics didn't get sewn together and sometimes i had size issues.

for the most part, it was very improvisational. and, it was fun! i like the result and i created something i might not have before with my brain engaged.

cute huh?

i am exploring the line between quilting as a craft and quilting as a fine art. i am pushing myself as a quilter to create modern and contemporary pieces and i am exploring my personal style as an artist.

my next step is to expand on this project. i have a sketch of an arrangement of several pieces. they will be made in a similar fashion and then displayed like the sketch shows. i'm hoping it helps create the feel of a modern art exhibit.

newspaper tower

this post qualifies as one of those random happenings....

i am in a 3-d design class at metro (it's one of the basic classes for an art degree) and our first assignment of the semester was to (in a group) build a 25 foot tower out of newspaper and masking tape. those were the only materials we were allowed to use and we were not allowed to use anything to assist us in setting it up, i.e. cranes, ropes, the side of the building, etc.

i do have to say that this entire process was super stressful for me, not to mention we we're in a mercury retrograde (ended september 12, by the way). my perfectionism and my pessimissim reared their ugly heads. but the rubber-meets-the-road reality of this project was that we needed lots of newspaper rolled up and taped together. we divided the tower into five 5' sections and built those. we used crossbraces to stabelize each section, and we built the base so it was signifigantly wider at the bottom than at the top to support the weight of the tower.

when we set it up we started with the very top section and set it on top of the second section and taped it together. then we set that unit on top of the third section, and so on. so essentially we set it up starting at the top. the plan worked great! we did get a little tipsy when we had four sections hooked together and were lifting that onto the base. it almost got away from us a couple times. it took all five group members holding onto it and willing it to stand.

it was a success and it stood until we knocked it over. yay! i have to say that it was very satisfying to have such a successful project, but i am very glad for it to be over.

here is a picture of the final tower.

and here are some 'artistic' photos of it.

turning 30 project - vol. IV (part 2)

yesterday i met lindsey at a fun restaurant in downtown littleton called merle's. it was quite fun and I think it might have been the first time ever that just the two of us sat down to lunch. there was plenty of talk about various life subjects: her boys, my school and other facinating tidbits.

and of course, she walked away with her fabulous birthday quilt.

i have had a blast with this project, and i am excited to finish and give away the next 5 quilts.

read the next installment here:
turning 30 project - vol. V

turning 30 project - vol. IV

ta da! here is the second quilt of this lovely series. one of the best things about this project is the different personalities that show up in each quilt. this one is for lindsey and it turned out beautifully.

lindsey's choice of fabric was a classic black and white floral with small roses. for the most part i kept with black and white compliments and threw in a splash of color. the border repeats the rose theme with a black background and a very delicate line drawing of roses in white. i used what was leftover from the border of summer's quilt to bind this one. the classic combo of black and white bordered with red looks awesome.

i found this great fabric for the back, white with black hummingbirds and green flowers. i used a green coordinate to border the section of squares. needless to say, i was thrilled when lindsey told me that she loved green!

here is the label. it reads:

Turning 30 Project

"Delight"

2 of 7

Made for: Lindsey DeJonge Lehman

October 14

Designed & Quilted by: Shawna Doering

Littleton CO USA

2010

i haven't given lindsey her quilt yet, but i just couldn't wait to get it posted. = ) i'll update with pictures of the happy recipient on a later date.

read the next installment here:
turning 30 project - vol. IV (part 2)

turning 30 project - vol. III

so, here is the reveal of the first finished quilt. summer was here in denver over the 4th of july weekend, so i took the opportunity to give her quilt to her in person. i was really excited to get this quilt finished and very pleased with how it turned out.

summer has always liked the purple since i can remember. the fabulous fabric she chose would have been complimented nicely by purple, but i wanted to do something unexpected, so i bordered the quilt in a terrific cranberry color. i love how it turned out. i did incorporate purple into the quilt in the end though.....i put it on the back.

here is the label for the quilt. it reads:

Turning 30 Project

"Serenity"

1 of 7

Made for: Summer

September 18

Designed & Quilted by: Shawna Doering

Littleton CO USA

2010

and here is the happy recipient!

read the next installment here:
turning 30 project - vol. IV

turning 30 project - vol. II

on with the project. here is a list of what i wanted for the quilts:

- i wanted to create the design myself

- i wanted each quilt to contain a piece of everyones fabric

- i wanted each quilt to have it's own personality; to be an expression of it's owner

- i wanted the design to be fun and modern

i took my inspiration from Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston's books "Collaborative Quilting" and "Freddy & Gwen Collaborate Again".

these books are really fun. gwen and freddy use liberated piecing techniques (gwen has written a couple of books on this technique) and they use bright fun colors. freddy says in the first book that 'ten colors don't work - 100 do'. the two of them have breathe life into the quilting tradition. a definite good read! scoot on down to your nearest independent quilt store and pick them up. just having them on your shelf make you smile a bit bigger. (i decided today that i've got to purchase the second one. i've checked it out from the library 6 times!)

here are two specific images from the books that i pulled from for inspiration.

i have plenty of sketches in my quilting design journal, probably too many to share, but here are a couple of them. the second one is the one i ended up using as my final design.

i redrew this to finalize the design and to plan out the center block. the majority of the quilt would spotlight the fabric of the person the quilt was for as well as some coordinate fabrics that i picked out. the center block would then include the remaining 6 fabrics of everyone else in the group. each quilt would have the same design but the fabrics in the center block would rotate in each quilt. it's kind of hard for me (a very visual person) to explain this in a blog post! lol. as the quilts get finished and posted, it will start to make sense. so i used this drawing to number the squares and plan for the placement of the center blocks in each quilt.

i made 7 copies of the master design (before i wrote all over it) and used it as color layout for each one of the quilts. i wanted to make sure that there was no confusion later in the process.

this proved to be extremely helpful throughout this project. having something to refer to was fabulous. i have to write everything down as i go so i remember later, as illustrated in the next picture. this was my master list for all my measurements. sometimes along the way measurements change or i have to make adjustments. when working on seven quilts at the same time that have the same design it is really important that i remember changes i make.

notice i have an urgent reminder to double all measurements! then i crossed it out....plans changed.

i also made a design and measurement layout for the back of the quilt. again, they will all be the same design. there will be boxes down one side of the back. they are a sample of each of the fabrics that people picked and they are bordered by the coordinate fabric that i picked for each of them. they will be placed in birth order (the same order we will all turn 30) in case we forget over time who's is who's. we'll just have to remember the order in which we were born.

read the next installment here:

turning 30 project - vol. III