What’s on the Design Wall…Thread?

Continuing my series of posts about what is on my design wall with a visit to the studio of quilt & fiber artist, designer, teacher, book author, and all around “Renaissance Woman”, Wendy Hill (and the piece of fiber art that came from that visit).

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Thread-a-Bowls

I spent Monday 8/29/16 with Wendy Hill (wendyhill.net) , textile artist and author of quilting and fiber art books such as Creative Quilt Challenges (with Pat Pease), Easy Biased Curves, Two-for-One Foundation Piecing, On the Surface, and Fast Fun & Easy Incredible Thread-A-Bowls.

Wendy is a wonderful teacher and while I was visiting, she gave me an impromptu class on making a thread web/thread bowl from her book Fast Fun & Easy Incredible Thread-A-Bowls (2005).

The amazing thing about the thread-a-bowls (and thread-a-vases, etc.) are that they use scraps of thread and snippets of fabric scraps. I never thought about recycling thread snips! A lot of thread as made it into my trash over the years of sewing that could have become – FIBER ART!

Here are photos from creating my first “thread web” and shaping it into a bowl:

I took the bowl home with me while it was still wet from rinsing out the Solvy (Sulky brand) water-soluble stabilizer; and draped over a form to dry into a bowl shape.

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Thread-a-Future Art Piece

After the bowl dried, I was not pleased with how I had shaped it. It was too shallow and misshapen. I did however like the concept and the look of all those fibers interlaced (I had scraps of thread, tiny snips of scrap shot cotton, and scraps of yarn), so I re-wet the piece and flattened it to dry again.

I ended up with this version of the piece, which I have on my design wall and I am playing with floating it in some type of orange background and making a small art quilt that I will likely put in some type of frame.

Here it is with a Moda Grunge fabric line, deep-reddish orange:

and here is it with a deep orange batik:

I cannot wait to play with making my next “thread web”. I have a little Solvy thanks to Wendy to play with at home as well as I have copy of her book Fast Fun & Easy Incredible Thread-A-Bowls to read through and learn more about making these webs.

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POSTSCRIPT

Wendy Hill’s home was the home of a true artist – even her light switch covers were artistic and handmade! I was fascinated by them and I wish I had photographed every one (every light switch and outlet cover was artistically covered), but here is a sampling:

Of course every cozy artist’s home needs a furry creature or two to keep the creative person company!

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POST POSTSCRIPT

Here is a little visual treat if I have not made you tired of photos from the 2016 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (SOQS):

A very talented Central Oregon art quilter, Kristen Shields (kristinshieldsart.com), has a wonderful blog (she is a very good photographer!). A recent post on her blog has great photos from this year’s show; and includes additional photos from the show (of incredible quilts) that were not in the links in my July 2016 series of posts about SOQS – Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2016