Jerry and I invited our friend, Pat, to go with us to see the exhibit and attend one of the demonstrations and discussions.
Pat has been quilting for about ten years. She belongs to the Lutheran Women Sewing Circle. Each Monday this group meets to work on quilts for Lutheran World Relief. Pat is also a member of the Sea Island Quilters.
We had an opportunity to meet two exhibitors, Peg Weschke and Shaaron Thomas. Each artist has a unique process for creating their art quilts and demonstrated the steps during our visit.
Peg then cuts fabric into the shapes of the puzzle pieces before ironing to fusible interface. She also paints and hand dyes some of the fabric she uses in the cut outs.
She sews all the fabric pieces together then applies Wool batting and a backing.
The final quilting work is done with a sewing machine to add more dimension. It is a very labor intensive process.
One of my favorite art quilts "Godwits" is shown below. I have photographed these shore birds and love the way Peg captured their reflections on the waters edge in gorgeous detail with thread painting.
Peg stretches her finished piece across a canvas and temporarily sews the back edges together. The temporary threads on the back of the canvas can be cut to replace the quilt on the rack for a future quilt show. This allows Peg to display and sell her work in both venues.
She outlines the drawing on silk with a water resist pen and uses a blow dryer. Sharron mixes acid dye formulated for silk painting with distilled water and paints in the drawing on her silk material. She will sometimes add salt or sugar for texture and dimension.
The next day, Sharron wraps the silk in muslin and steams it for 1 hour in a canner. She washes the silk with synthrapol to hold the dye in the material.
Once the silk is dry; Sharron quilts with a sewing machine. She will also add dimension with hand sewn jewelry beads in some of her creations. She likes to frame her art quilts.
If you are in the Low Country, the exhibit will be open to the public until October 29 with demonstrations and discussions with artists on October 11 and 25 between 10am-12n