Early Works

Way back in the late '80's, early 90's, I belonged to a small juried-in quilt group made up of Chicagoland art quilters. This included Caryl Fallert, Ann Fahl, Judy Walters, Jane Sassaman, Ellen Anne Eddy, and a few others whose names I have forgotten...duh.
I was a newbie and full of awe at being in the same room with these luminaries. I wanted to be one of them, art-wise and was hoping to impress them eventually. I worked in a factory full-time and only had the weekends to quilt. (and I sewed all day at the factory!) but, I had ideas. One of them was to make a logo for myself and my business cards that was a representation of my other art, painting, and of my new art of quilting. I made a 2" square painting of a very loose nine-patch and this black and white quilt was designed based on that. It's called Nonchalant Nine Patch. But I am getting ahead of the story. I had to make this design, so I did a 12" mockup, using Wonder-under and made a totebag as a start. I brought it to the meeting and discussed my desire to make a real quilt out of it with Caryl Fallert, while shivering in my boots. The only way I could figure I could do it was with fusing, but I was afraid that was CHEATING. (Imagine that...) I really couldn't imagine turning under all those wiggly edges and hand appliqueing them! Caryl thought fusing was the answer too, and gave me the nod. Seriously. What a relief. If it was OK with her, I was good to go. I had no idea this would be the start of all of my serious work.



Also at that time, I was trying to dye fabric with Rit and just couldn't get the vibrant colors that I saw in Caryl's and Judy Walters' quilts, which were dyed with Procion dyes. I was afraid of them because I read health warnings etc, and really, I had no place to dye anything in the house in which we lived. But Caryl told me what dyes I needed to use and what fabric to buy and shortly thereafter we moved to a house where I did have a laundry room and a sink and so I began to dye my own fabrics. This quilt, Emergence, is my first work using all my hand dyed fabrics, all of them in one quilt! It is pieced on a tearaway foundation and then cut into smaller squares and reassembled.
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So I am telling you this stuff because years later, I can see that giving permission and giving information can lead to something much bigger than it might have seemed at the moment.
Since we are going to be doing Quilt Along With Melody starting February 1st, I thought I would begin with fusing a small art quilt. This means that if you want to learn to do this, you'll need to fuse your fabrics ahead of time.
Normally I would insist on using only hand dyeds (not batiks either) but that may be too much to ask for beginners. So as suggested earlier, get some solids together in wide range of colors* and fuse half yard lengths. Please use only regular Wonder-under** and fuse, cool, peel. In fact, to be smart, fuse everything and then later peel off the paper, and try to keep the paper intact. We'll use the paper as our construction site.
Try not to be afraid. I'll be right there with you.

*Suggested colors? Red, orange,yellow-orange, yellow, lime, kelly green, aqua, turquoise, bright blue, light and deep purple, magenta, fuchsia, hot pink.
**A better deal for Wonder-Under can be had if you have a 40 or 50% off coupon from Joann's.