Hi all! I’d like to invite you to visit the page for the FiberArt For a Cause fundraiser to benefit the American Cancer Society. This may be the final one ever for the FFAC, and I’m pleased to have been part of the FFAC efforts for several years. This year, I’ve made two donations. You can see both here, along with the other MANY generous donations by many quilt artists. (Click photo to see it larger.)

For the Tote bag part of Tote Tuesday: I have donated a copy of my Threadwork Unraveled book, the January 2010 issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited with my last design series article, some of my hand-dyed fabric, a pair of my funky hand-dyed socks, and a spool of Rainbows variegated thread from Superior Threads.

I also made and donated an 11×17 inch quilt made from one of the lino-cuts I made recently. You can see details in the post below! Thanks for taking a look, and for popping over to the FFAC Tote Tuesday page to take a look.

Using the leaf/bud prints from my lino-cutting class with Dijanne Cevaal (link in Reading on left sidebar), I decided to make two quick art quilts (instead of just a small postcard) as part of my donation to the FiberArt For A Cause (FFAC) fundraiser to benefit the American Cancer Society.

I offered Virginia the choice of pieces (they are each about 11 inches wide by 17 1/4 inches long), and she chose the blue-green one on the left for the auction.  The multicolored one, on the right, will be for sale here on my website after the auction.

The blue-green print is the “positive” image which I shared in this post.  I fused the print to some batik, then quilted the daylights out of it.  Here is the quilt:

and a close up of the center panel:

The multicolored quilt is similar, but features the “negative” panel where the main motifs (not the background) are cut away.  I was surprised at how much I liked this one, since usually I am enchanted by the lines of the cuts in woodcuts and lino-cuts.

and a close up of the center panel of this quilt:

I don’t know about you, but I’m having a BLAST in this class, and hope that my results will lead to a generous donation to the American Cancer Society.  Thanks in advance to all for browsing the FFAC site/auction, and to those who have helped not just this year but in past years, too, to help combat cancer.

The next exercise in Dijanne Cevaal’s lino-cutting class (link to her blog in the Reading category in the left sidebar) was to create positive and negative images using the same basic drawing.  I created two 4 1/2 x 9 inch blocks (about 10 cm by 22 cm):

For the exercise, we were to leave the background of the negative block untouched.  I think now that the exercise is done, I’ll carve something interesting into parts of the the large flat spaces in this one.

I did my first prints in a combination of metallic and Jacquard textile paint onto a length of my hand-dyed fabric:

I then used the turquoise-teal paint that I liked so much from the 12×12 print:

These prints I really liked!  So much so, that I decided to make two quick art quilts, one of which is being donated to the FiberArt For A Cause (FFAC) fundraiser to benefit the American Cancer Society (which in turn supports cancer research).  My dad had and survived throat cancer, my half-brother and a dear friend died of different cancers, and dad and my husband have had skin cancer(s), and my mom may (?) have colon cancer (if she does, it is VERY slow moving–she wouldn’t do the tests to confirm or rule out, and the doctor diagnosed her over two years ago, so I’m thinking she doesn’t, but we just don’t know).  So… I am happy to once again support the FFAC.  Go here to learn more.

I’ll share the quilts in the next post!

There is a new book out from Lark Books in its “500” series, 500 Art Quilts.

I was thrilled when I received word that two of my quilts would be among the 500 (made by 369 artists).  A whopping 432 pages long, this book is, pure and simple, eye candy!  Edited by Ray Hemachandra with quilts juried by Karey Bresenhan, founder of the International Quilt Association and quilty godmother to hundreds of thousands of quilters for her incredible energy and devotion to quilting and the quilting industry–she’s one of the forces of nature behind International Quilt Festival in Houston (can you tell I think she’s the bee’s knees?).

Now that I have received my artists’ copy, I am even more thrilled—and humbled and astounted—to be included on these pages.  All I can say is that you MUST get your hands on a copy of this amazing compilation which summarizes the state of art quilting around the world today.  It is simply STUNNING!

My quilt A Sense of Place:  The Wall, has a page all to itself (on left):

And Koi (yippeee!) is included here, top of left page:

Throughout the book I was tickled to see names I know well, and equally excited to see quilts and names I’ve never seen before.  What a wealth of talent and creativity we have in this medium!  Karey did a fantastic job selecting a representative range of styles and techniques (jurying was blind, meaning she did not know who made which quilts), and Hemachandra and staff did a great job placing the quilts in groupings that complement the quilts.  There is almost no text, just name of the maker, size, materials.  The artwork speaks for itself…and it is singing in joyfullness!

A few days (week?) ago, I shared with you some of my first attempts at lino-cuts, here.  I then did the first exercises for the class. To become familiar with the techniques, Dijanne Cevaal (our teacher, blog here and is in the links on the left) has us do a nine-patch sampler of marks.  Of course I didn’t make mine quite like the sample, but you get the idea:

And an angled view that gives you an idea of the depth of the cuts.  For this one, I used the Golden-Cut linoleum from Dick Blick (link below).

One of the best suggestions / new to me, was to use a pale color of paint/ink for printing to create good background texture, then print over it with another lino-cut.  The pale background print adds subtle but effective movement to the print.  Here is my pale print (which I will over print, at least part of it, later on):

The trick with this 12 x 12 inch block is to get it all inked up without having the paint dry.  I have been using the textile paints I had on hand:  Jacquard Textile paint,  Setacolor transparents and Lumiere (a metallic).  For my second print, I used a pewter metallic Lumiere.  You can see pale spots where I didn’t get it inked up quite as well as I should have.

The third attempt was with some Jacquard Textile Paint.  Usually, I’m not as wild about this paint as it is thick and opaque,  so when painting or doing some stamping with it, it obscures the print of the cloth underneath (I like to shade the fabric usually, but not hide it).  However, this paint worked the best for this technique.  I REALLY like the way this one turned out.  I’ve ordered more of the Jacquard and some of the water-soluble Speedball inks that are for use on textiles to see how they handle, too.   Stay tuned for tests with those (the box should be here in a few days–ordered from Dick Blick, an online art supply store in the US).

Next, I’ll share some leaf / bud carvings and prints.