We had our first reveal of the year and it was a fabulous one as always.

A Place Visited

'Shades of Shard' by Carole Rossi
20.5" x 37"

This quilt is inspired by an iconic building in London called "The Shard".  I took numerous photos of this building when I was in London ("the place visited") in December 2022.  Its pyramid-like shape & jagged top story dominates the cityscape in a very dramatic way, particularly when the ski is pink at sunset.  I was inspired to create and abstract piece which suggests but does not realistically depict the Shard.  I used hand-dyed cotton overlaid with silkscreen printing; commercial cottons; various yarns, couched; batting-Quilters 100% Dream Cotton; machine quilted with Bernina 820 using several rayon threads.  I created a pattern for the design and worked from there.  I challenged myself to create an overall border that was not a simple rectangle.  I wanted the overall shape to be a bit "jagged" like the top of the building itself.

"Hay-on-Wye, Wales" by Karin Polli
22" x 29.5"

This was inspired by a visit in 2001 to Hay with a friend to visit the many bookstores.  The sky is hand dyed.  It's decorated with beads, buttons and.  My view of Hay is personalized.  The bookstore is named after a business I owned in Guatemala.  The pub is named for the Brewery owned by my daughter and son-in-law in Diamond Springs, CA.  The antique store is named for one owned by my mother and aunt.  The pins were owned by my mother.  The quilt & needlework stores are because of my interests.

"Le Petit Maison" by Michelle Peerson

I saw this little house near the Loire River in the Anjou region of France.  I imagined living there.  The quilt is fused on to a new product for me;  'Pattern Ease".  This is a non-woven stabilizer.  I also used it as my batting.  It tends to make the quilt crinkle, but I like the effect it created.  I used Steam-a-seam 2 lite as my fusible, a titanium needle and fused the facing...another first for me.

"Cathedral Rock, Yosemite Valley" by Sandra Mollon
32" x 25"

This is perhaps the most visited site in Northern California is Yosemite Valley.  Cathedral Rocks sits directly across from El Capitan, and glows in the late afternoon light.  Made from: Cotton batiks and hand dyed cottons (by artist), silk batting, various threads.  The challenge for me was capturing the late afternoon light.

 

"Sunset Sal, Beachcombing Gal" by Tracy Visher
18" x 20"

I took poetic license with the topic.  Rather than making a quilt about the place itself, I had a fictional character show it.  My family had a reunion at a beach house at Sunset Beach in Watsonville, CA in June 2022.  As we took early morning beach walks, I picked up shells, etc. and imagined a quilt incorporating them.  I used batik cotton, ribbon, wire, beads.  Shells, feathers, sand dollars from Sunset Beach.  Inktense pencils and blocks, pen, organza, glue and Modge Podge dimensional magic.  This quilt is a bit of fun and whimsy.  Rather than just doing a beach quilt, I made up a character so I could include all of the items I collected while roaming this beach every morning.  It was fun and challenging to figure out how to do her hair.

"Kitty Sunrise" by Sophia Day
17" x 20"

My kitties sit on the window sill every morning to watch the sunrise. This is 3 layers of fabric and 1 layer of batting. This is reverse applique.  Black batik is hard to come by, so I tried this black cotton that was touted to not fray.  Not true.  But I was far enough in when I realized that I didn’t want to start over.  I decided to heavily quilt the black and leave the color un-quilted.  This has mandalas for the sunrise and they create a kitty in the negative space.

"My Mandalas" by Pat Gillings
42.5" x 42.5"

Mandalas have been made for thousands of years to represent sacred forms in the world and have lately become popular for meditation and relaxation.  Technically, a mandal can be any design that has expanding circles or geometric shapes.  I created my mandalas using the I-ornament app which allows you to hand draw shapes that are converted into various symmetries.  The backgrounds for the mandalas were created using my hand dyed fabric & some watercolor and alcohol ink designs of mine which were photographed and enhanced on the computer.  I then took my mandala files that had been saved on transparent layers and layered them over the various backgrounds.  The files were then sent and were printed by Spoonflower.  I had them printed as 4 fat quarters; one large for the center and then 4 each on 3 fat quarters that were cut apart and surrounded with Moda grunge fabric.