Category Archives: Textile Art

These are posts about my textile art. They might include descriptions of projects I am working on, new products I am trying, things I just finished and more.

Calendar Quilt Series: My Autumn Mini Quilts

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Earlier this week I finished the September mini quilt. This quilt sealed not only the sub-group of my autumn mini quilts, which I started last year, but also the entire twelve-months Calendar Quilt Series. Finishing this quilt was a bitter-sweet moment. I was happy to complete this year-long project, and was also proud of myself for sticking with it despite life’s hurdles. But, on the other hand, I was also sad to see it over–as you might know, this past year was personally challenging. At times, the Calendar Quilts were the only creative thing I was able to do, and they were a much-needed outlet. Now that they are complete, I feel a little lost…

My Autumn Mini Quilts: Influenced by the Colors and Flavors of Fall

“Change,” My September Quilt

There is a large maple tree right outside my sewing room window. It keeps me company while I work, alone and in silence. The changes it foregoes throughout the year remind me of what season it is, and helps shape my moods and my work. A few years ago it prompted me to make one of my earliest art quilts, “Falling Leaves.” It keeps inspiring on an ongoing basis.

The tree was bright and green throughout spring and summer. Now, with the nights turning cold, it is starting to change. Patches of red and yellow are creeping into the green, hinting at the change in the air, and of future changes to come.

I fashioned my September quilt after this tree, and called it “Change.” Life in general changes in September, together with the temperature: the summer ends, school begins, routines change course…

“Fall,” My October Quilt

Fall is probably my favorite season. I love the cooler days, the cozy cocooning, the warm colors all around. I love turning trees, pumpkin patches and squash soups. Autumn is also the only season when I can shut myself in my sewing room mostly uninterrupted.

No wonder I started this series with October, and called that quilt “Fall.”

“Spices,” My November Quilt

Many years ago I came to the US as a graduate student. Over my first Thanksgiving here, when most of my colleagues went home, I stayed in a mostly-empty dorm on campus. My graduate adviser, one of the kindest professors I have ever met, invited me and a few of the other foreign grad student to celebrate Thanksgiving at his house. I didn’t know much about Thanksgiving then, but it immediately became associated in my mind with a warm home, nice company and FOOD. Since then, Thanksgiving has become one of my favorite holidays. It’s a time to pause, be grateful for everything we usually take for granted, enjoy the company of family and friends, and yes, feast on on lots of comforting food!

My family loves Thanksgiving and the traditions we built around it. We love the special group of friends that comes year after year, the festive table set up, sitting together around the fireplace. The kids also love the food. And every year, come Thanksgiving, I’m thinking of my professor and remembering his long-ago kindness.

My November quilt is therefore composed of the colors and flavors of Thanksgiving foods. I called it “Spices.” I hope it also conveys the warmth of a cozy house on a cold day, of good friends spending time together, and of grateful people gathering around a fireplace.

Sadly, I completed this quilt a few short weeks before my graduate adviser passed away, a few short months before my own father did the same…

Twelve quilts, one short year, yet a completely different world, my life transformed. I think “Change” is an appropriate name for the last quilt in this series, for more reasons than one.

Calendar Quilt Series: My Summer Mini Quilts

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Last October I embarked on a self-imposed challenge: to make one small art quilt for each month of the year. A while back I wrote about my spring quilts and what inspired them. Last week I completed the last of my summer mini quilts, and can now show you the inspiration behind those as well.

My Summer Mini Quilts: Influenced by Summer Activities and Nature

“Flavors,” My June Quilt

June proved to be a real inspirational challenge. As hard as I wracked my brain, I just couldn’t come up with any special characteristic for that time of the year. Then, one afternoon on the first week of the summer vacation, my kids asked to go downtown to get some ice cream.

Inside the ice cream store, which we frequent often, my eye kept going to the unusual dark purple/maroon patch of the blackberry/wine ice cream (top right below):

You don’t often think dark, deep colors when you think ice cream, and this just happens to be one of my favorite colors. I also loved how the vivid colors of the different ice creams clashed with the cold sheen of the metal frames surrounding them…

Each of my kids picked their favorite flavors, and I ended up choosing the wine ice cream, just because I liked its color.

Although my ice cream didn’t taste quite as good as it looked, it did give me my quilt inspiration! I called it “Flavors.”

“Breeze,” My July Mini Quilt

July was a hot month, and our schedule was respectively full of water activities. The inspiration for July was therefore pretty obvious:

This month’s quilt if full of the blues and turquoises of water and sky, as well as the yellows of sand and sun. I called it “Breeze.”

“Parched,” My August Mini Quilt

Whereas California springs begin with a whirl of fresh greens and the vivid colors of flowers, its summer end with a dry, golden landscape. Every year by August the weeds in my garden dry up and wither. The hills all around likewise turn into rolling waves of gold:

The landscape itself presented the design for my August quilt, which is all about the dried-up lushness of spring. I think “Parched” describes it exactly, don’t you think?

So, which of my summer mini quilts do you like best?

Calendar Quilt Series: My Spring Mini Quilts

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I love sewing bags and other functional items because seeing people use my work makes me happy. At the same time, however, I’m just as passionate about creating fine art. In the first couple of years after starting ANY Texture, I made quite a lot of the first. Sadly, I hardly got to work on the latter. My sewing time is usually quite limited. Making an art quilt requires many days or even weeks. Between trying to prepare for fairs and maintaining my Etsy store, I simply didn’t have enough time for both. I ended up completing only three art quilts in two or three years (“Give a Hand,” “Falling Leaves,” and “Dare!“). I desperately wanted to make more.

Last fall I resolved to creating one small quilt a month. I decided to make one 12″ x 12″ art quilt for each month of the year. I hoped that this would get me into a routine of creating fine textile art, and would get my creative juices flowing.

I’m several months into this self-imposed challenge, and so far I’ve been enjoying it tremendously. Working on these quilts forces me to think of what each month means to me. It allows me to play with colors, textures and shapes. It also turned out to be a great source of comfort at a personally difficult time: since my father’s unexpected passing in March, I haven’t been able to return to my sewing room on a regular basis. I did, however, force myself to work on the monthly quilts, and found much solace in that slow, meditative work.

Recently I completed the third and last of my spring mini quilts. I thought this would be a good time to tell you more about them.

My Spring Mini Quilts: Influenced by Nature

“Rebirth,” My March Quilt

I live in California. The state suffered from an eight-year-long drought that officially ended on March 5th of this year. After many years of hardly any rain and strict water restrictions, we finally had a really wet winter. I will never complain about rain again, but this last winter did feel long and dreary at times…

We don’t get snow where I live, but it does get cold and dark and–this year, finally!–wet. Many trees lose their leaves, and there are no flowers to be seen. Its nice to stay indoors and hibernate, but as the weeks stretch on one begins to wonder whether the winter will ever end.

I have a garden where I spend many hours when possible. When I look at my deciduous trees over winter, bare for months on end, a little part at the back of my mind wonders whether they will all wake up come spring. I worry that some might not. Over the years, two of our trees actually didn’t. One died a couple of years ago, and the other this very year. And so, for me, March is a time when I hold my breath, so to speak. I always experience a sense of great relief when I see the first buds forming on trees, and when the first flowers erupt. There is a kind of reassurance in the awakening of trees, in the end of a long dormancy. For me, therefore, March is all about the gradual awakening of nature, and the the sigh of relief that accompanies it. 

This is what my March quilt is all about. It is dominated by the various browns of still mostly-bare trees, punctured by the bright pinks of freshly-blooming flowers, and the gold of newly-emerging young leaves. I call this quilt “Rebirth.” 

“Lush,” My April Quilt

By April, shrubs and perennials start to stir, too. Plants grow fresh leaves, often in light greens and lime greens. The first flowers add pops of color to the world, attempting to erase the browns and grays of winter. Weeds, too are happiest that month.

After I returned home from mourning my father, I spent several days in the garden pulling out waist-high weeds. My father was an amazing gardener, who taught me everything I know about plants. Working outside, surrounded by fresh greenery, some of which he planted for me, was a kind of catharsis, a medicine for my aching heart. 

My April quilt is dominated by the fresh greens of early spring, sparkled with pops of new blooms. It also has some of the curves of fragrant peas, which dominated my garden this year. I call it “Lush.”

“Bloom,” My May Quilt

May is my favorite month of the year. It is the peak of spring, full of colors and smells. This is the month in which my garden puts on its best show; when all my flowers are at their best. This is when I see results for all the work I put into the garden in the fall, when my efforts to paint the world with flowers bear fruit. Everything in my garden feels vibrant and alive, humming with buzzing insects. In May I gladly trade my sewing machine for hoes and pruners, and spend as much time in the garden as I possibly can.

Oh, did you know that my favorite color is purple, and that so very many flowers just happen to be exactly that?? Essentially, May provided the best possible excuse to make a quilt in the colors I like most! I call this one “Bloom,” and I’m sure you see why.

So, what do you think? Did my spring mini quilts succeed in capturing the essence of the months they represent?

 

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Looking Back at 2018

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I can’t believe I’m writing the last blog post for 2018! Where did the time go? It feels to me as if the year has just begun…

I guess summarizing my creative year at the end of a calendar year has become a tradition. So, here goes: what have I been up to in 2018?

The year started in Peru, a memorable trip which resulted in an art troll:

Sir Howard Fergus Ghingus Troll The Magnificent was my first-ever art doll, and I really enjoyed making him. Luckily, he found an appreciative, loving home the very first day I exposed him to the world 🙂

I had all the intentions of making more trolls, but the year was too short, somehow… I actually started working on Howard’s brother a few weeks ago, but he ended up in my UFO pile and is still there… Next year, hopefully.

Embedding World Textiles into My Work

The trip to Peru also resulted in five totes designed around beautiful pieces of naturally-dyed, hand-woven tapestries I purchased in a fabulous Christmas market in Cusco:

I am really happy with how these turned out. So much so that I decided to keep one for myself. Can you guess which one?

I got excited about the idea of collecting bits of textiles in places I visit and incorporating them into my work. It feels like a great way for me to combine my love for textiles with my passion for travelling. Last April, I purchased a few pieces of Druz weaving when I went to Israel, but haven’t used them yet. And over the summer I bought some vintage indigo fabrics in Japan, and am now working on a new Boro tote. To be completed in 2019:

Tote Bags Galore

I sewed quite a few cross body bags and slings this year, among other things. But tote bags somehow became my favorites. Maybe because they serve as the best canvas on which to show off really beautiful textiles. It warms my heart that many of these new totes already found loving homes. Here are some of the ones I liked best:

Other Products

After a couple of years of not sewing any, I dug deep into my UFO piles this year and finished out a few pillow covers, which I finally completed:

I’ve done more craft fairs in 2018 than I did in previous years. Some customers have been asking me for small, minimal purses. I made a new prototype, and am looking forward to playing with it more:

I also developed a little obsession with scrappy zippered pouches. It started when I was looking for ways to use up my small scraps. Once I started making them, however, I just couldn’t stop! They are candy to the eyes, and also feel really good when you hold them:

Months of the Year Mini-quilt Series

Finally, I didn’t have time to make big quilts, although my head has been bursting with ideas. But in October I did start working on a series of mini quilts. The idea is to make one for each month of the year. This project, too, will have to be completed in the coming year. So far I have “Fall” for October:

“Spices” for November:

And “Hope” for December:

I really did try to shrink my piles of unfinished project over the last few months, but somehow they kept growing. My scrap piles only expanded, too, despite my efforts to use them up. It looks like I have my work cut out for me for next year (or many!). No danger of ever getting bored 🙂

Happy New Year to you and yours! Here’s to a healthy, peaceful and creative new year!

Two Really Big, Giant, Oversized Totes

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You might already know that I draw much of my inspiration from the textiles I find. When I choose fabrics, I only pick ones that appeal to me. Those include textiles with pleasing colors, interesting designs, and, just as importantly–nice textures. The way a piece of fabric FEELS really matters to me because some fabrics are just … not that nice to handle…

I have a room-full of beautiful textiles (as you probably know if you’ve been following my uphill battles to keep them tidy). I like them all (or most of them, anyway), but every now and then I find a piece that is really extra ordinary. Sometimes I know what to make out of it right away. Other times it sits there, waiting, for months or even years.

This is what happened with these two beautiful pieces I purchased from FabMo over a year ago:

They seemed to have come from the same design line, so I knew I’d have to use them in similar ways, but I just wasn’t quite sure what to use them FOR. They were rather large: 18″ x 18″, had a Persian-art feel, and told the story of a hunt. As a vegetarian, I’m not a supporter of hunts, but as a historian I am just a sucker for stories… And I could still appreciate the aesthetics of the fabric…

So there they sat, in one of my piles, waiting patiently. Until I re-tidied my fabric cabinet last week, and re-discovered them once more. This time I had just spent a week sewing totes.  When I saw them again I just knew that the only way to show their true beauty would be by making them, too, into totes.

I didn’t have the heart to cut them up, though, because that would have cut parts of the story off. So I set out to sew the biggest totes I have ever made.

I first found complimenting fabrics to frame them with:

Then made sure the back would compliment the front:

I found matching linings in solid colors that would not compete with the center-pieces, and made sure to put in many pockets, thinking that whoever needs such big bags could probably use the pockets to organize their things in.

People have been asking me to add zippers as tote closures, so I did that with the first tote:

But the zipper didn’t allow the tote to fully open. Also, I found it made the inside, already pretty deep, look rather dark:

And so, even though I already made a top zipper for the second tote, I decided to leave it off, for now:

The result are two beautiful totes (in my opinion, at least :-)), but they are really, truly GINORMOUS. 14″ wide x 21″ high x 6″ deep, to be exact.

They will be great for people who need oversized totes. Whether such people will come to my next craft show remains to be seen 🙂

The Nagamachi Yuzen-kan Silk-Painting Museum in Kanazawa, Japan

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During our summer trip to Japan we visited many of the country’s famous attractions. Every now and then, through, I dragged my kids a little off the beaten pass to see some textile-related wonders. This is how, during our visit to Kanazawa, we ended up in the Nagamachi Yuzen-kan Silk-Painting Museum.

Housed in a modern, indistinct building in the Nagamachi district, the museum was a bit hard to find. Although not big, it was very informative, and is a worthy stop for any textile-loving tourist. The first room in the museum depicts the process of silk painting, describing each stage of the process in both Japanese and English (!). The second room displays some spectacular samples. The museum also has a small gift shop that sells some hand-painted items.

Hand-dyed silk is a work of art that requires many hours of work by several highly-skilled artisans. Since I assume some of you might not be able to visit the museum, I thought I’d give you a virtual tour. All the explanations  below are based on the signs in the museum.

Room One: The Stages of Painting Silk

The Kaga Yuzen designs combine traditional design elements with the artist’s observations of nature. Each design starts with a pencil sketch on paper, in the same size it will eventually appear on the finished product.

Once finished, skilled artisans trace the design onto white silk. They do this with fine brushes and blue ink, and use a steady hand to draw flowing, evenly-thin and quick lines.

Then, artisans apply a thin line of rice paste onto the sketch. They put the paste into a Japanese paper tube with a brass tip, and squeeze it out (similar to how many of us decorate cakes). After they cover all the lines with paste, they spray the silk with water and then let the paste dry.

Once dry, specialized artisans paint the design with fine brushes. It takes seven years to learn the technique, ten years to refine it, and a hundred (!!) kimonos to practice it on…

When the design in all painted, artisans carefully cover it with rice paste before moving on to dye the background color. They have to do this with great precision, so that no white patches are left.

After they cover the design with paste, the artisans dip the silk into soy bean juice to prepare it for absorbing the background dye.

A day later they use large brushes made of deer hair to evenly apply the background color. They let the color dry slowly, and repeat the dyeing several time to achieve an even dye.

Then, they put the silk in a large steamer for about an hour to set the colors. This, too, requires skill and experience.

After steaming, people immerse the cloth in water to wash off the remaining paste and access dye.

And the fabric is finished!

Artisans use the painted silk to make screens or sew kimonos.

This first room had a little staging area for visitors to make-believe and take pictures. I couldn’t resist 🙂 My kids love it, too!

Room Two: Some Amazing Finished Examples

The second room in the museum, as I mentioned above, has some exquisite samples of both painted screens and kimonos.

Japanese buy a hand-painted kimono for several tens of thousands of dollars (!!), mostly for special occasions like weddings.

2018 Pacific International Quilt Festival

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I love seeing exhibitions of quilts in museums, and enjoy visiting quilt museums. Those  usually provide contemplative, intimate experiences, by allowing the visitor to examine quilts up close while surrounded by a peaceful quiet.

Quilt shows, however, are an entirely different beast. Crowded, noisy, brightly-lit and packed-full with amazing works of art and an array of booths, quilt shows are a sensual overload.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the 2018 Pacific International Quilt Festival at the Santa Clara Conventions Center. I came out exhausted and energized at the same time. The show displays a huge array of quilts of many different kinds and techniques, made by people from all over the world. It gives a glimpse of human creativity that is truly inspiring!

I was awed by many quilts at this show, and wish I could shown you all of them. Sadly, I can only share a few here. Choosing which ones was not easy!

Some quilts had elaborate patterns and intricate quilting. This is “Majestic Mosaic” by Joyce Payment:

And this is “Marie’s Treasure” by Marilyn Badger:

And up close:

Karen Eaton Garth’s “Reborn” had truly impressive quilting as well:

“Exploring Colour” by Catherine McDonald had beautiful stitching with a different flavor:

And up close:

Sandi Stone’s “The Thread and Nothing but the Thread” was a very different kind of quilt. Hers was made not of patched fabric but .. of quilted thread!

As you can see up close:

Kimberly Lacy’s “Sunset on Coyote Buttes Mosaic” truly did look like a mosaic, and probably incorporated fabric paint:

Some quilts were magical. This is “Do Dragons Like Cookies” by Tanya Brown:

There were many impressive quilts of animals, such as Leigh Layton’s “Jag,” which included a lot of machine embroidery:

“Sisters/Best Friends” by Sandra L. Mollon:

“Keeping Up Appearances” by Jan Reed:

Or “Heron’s garden” by Susan Smith:

I also liked the shredded fabric that Hiroko Soeta used to create “Peacock:”

There were quilts that used traditional imagery from other parts of the world. This is “African Sunset” by Claire Wallace:

Some were modern, like Ziva Keidar’s “Movements Catalog:”

Pat Archibald’s “Hong Kong:”

Or Kristin Shields “Rhythm of the Rails:”

There were even political quilts made by high school students:

Some quilts were fun and whimsical, like “Strut Your Stuff” by Sheila Collins:

“Portrait: Holiday Relatives” by Lynn Dinelli (who was even there!):

“Face by Ahni” by Eleanor Balaban and Marina Baudoin:

And there was even a quilt of a quilt show: “Show Time!” by Cynthia England:

One of the quilts that impressed me most was “Reflections of Cape Town,” which took Cynthia England a year and 8,400 fabric pieces to make! This is me admiring this quilt:

And the quilt itself, which could be mistaken for a photo from afar:

And up close:

Even the back of this masterpiece was pretty!

Did I give you enough reasons to go? If not, perhaps mentioning the many vendor booths might help: quilt lovers, you can find everything here, from thread to fabric to patterns to machines to finished artworks, and even clothes and accessories!

The show runs through Sunday (Oct. 14th), so if you’re in the Bay Area and have time to spare this weekend, make sure to go!

 

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ANY Texture’s Gray and Red Period

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It’s that time of year again… Teachers are rejoicing, school kids are elated, and parents … well, parents are flooded with mixed emotions, I guess. Yep. The last day of school is upon us!

Next week my kids will be home full time. I’m looking forward to spending the long summer days with them. I’m old enough to realize how fast the years go by, and to appreciate every moment we still have together. But that also means I need to wrap up my sewing, which makes me a little sad. My many partially-conceptualized, half-started, unfinished, and almost-completed projects will all have to wait for fall. Sewing Season is over. Summers are for family.

So this week I’ve been busy finishing up one last thing: my throw pillow series. When they were all completed, I noticed a recurring pattern.

If you’ve seen my work, you know I love colors. Strong, vibrant colors in non-primary hues. I love purples, maroons, magentas, mustards and teals, to name some. But lately, it seems, I also started liking the combination of black, grays and terracotta-reds.

I think it started with my Dare! quilt:

Dare! My New Moths and Butterfly Quilt

Then I made a mini-messenger bag in that combination:

This was followed by a cross-body bag in those same colors:

A while later, I found a beautiful piece of textile in … you guessed it: black and red!

I sewed it into a Renaissance Tote, and really loved how it turned out!

Slowly, small scraps in blacks, grays and reds, leftovers from all of the above projects, started accumulating on my sewing room’s floor. Consequently, I started playing with them. I just couldn’t help it:

They ended up as cute, small artsy messenger bags:

When I made my unisex messenger bags, I realized I was still enjoying the same combination:

The pile of scraps kept growing. All the accumulated pieces gave birth to my latest new collection of gray-and-red patchwork throw pillows, the ones I finished this week:

I suppose you could call the first half of 2018 my “Gray and Red Period” 🙂

Wishing you all a wonderful, restful summer!