My Favorite Quilt Blocks

I said I’d show close ups of some of the blocks when I shared the entire quilt. These are some of my favorite blocks. You also can see the quilting detail so much better on them.

I enjoyed doing a little embroidery on this block. Appliqueing the birds was a challenge as they were so tiny.

This beehive block also allowed me to do some hand embroidery.  There was just enough embroidery on this quilt to make it enjoyable.

This block had a lot of tiny applique pieces. By the time I got to this one my applique skills were back on track.
These are only 4 of the nine blocks in the quilt. They are also the most complex.
You can click on each block to see them enlarged. This will also allow you to see the quilting stitches better.

A Newly Finished Quilt

This started out trying to use some scraps of fabric I was not pleased with, yet not ready to throw away. They were odd shapes and sizes.
My friend Robbie Porter Payne had a Thermofax screen that was interesting and fit the size of my scraps so I printed 4 identical designs. I believe these are some sort of diagram from the auto industry.
Next was the challenge of trying to make something with them. I trimmed each of them to the same size and found the burgundy dyed fabric I had created earlier. The little circle design was also from one of her screens but I messed it up. No problem, cut out the good part and used it for the center.
It needed something more so I pulled out more of my dyed fabrics and added Thermofax printing from one of my original design screens to create the border fabric.
I had very little of the burgundy fabric left to bind it. I figured out mathematically how to get enough for a narrow binding. WHOOPS! I cut it a quarter inch too wide.I found some very small scraps of the fabric and was able to stretch it to fit.
What a relief to finish it and it only took about 2 years.
My journey from start to finish is never a straight line!

Double Ikat Textile

I received this as a gift from my friend Sita Rao.
I LOVE it. My first reaction was to use it as a scarf or shawl. I realized it needed to be displayed somewhere in my home to be truly appreciated. It now has a place of honor in my studio.
This is an art that almost died out until the the government in India stepped in. They designated 3 cities/regions in India to produce this type of weaving. Now I may not have all the details correct and I hope Sita will read this and clarify it. My information is in Florida I believe.
I love the colors, the pattern and the skill that went into weaving this with such fine cotton threads. And more so I love the fact that she would gift me something that would be so perfect for me.

My Eclipse Quilts

With all the interest in the eclipse several people posted eclipse quilts.
I didn’t think I had any.
Today a friend visited me and she said two of my quilts WERE eclipse quilts. I had to agree with her.

SECRET CIRCLES

Like the sun yesterday you can see the pictures of the sun and also can see when it is hidden or partially hidden. Most of the fabrics in this quilt are ones I painted, although there are a few hand dyed fabrics. If you have not seen this before you may have a hard time finding all the circles I pieced into this one.

AND THEN THE CENTERS FELL OUT

This quilt was made with some of the fabrics and pieces from the above quilt. It does relate to the movement of the eclipse even though that is not where I was heading on this either.

I find it interesting that another pair of eyes can see what we don’t see even though we are looking at the same thing.

So thanks Eileen for your observation!

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!!!

COUNTRY APPLIQUE WALL QUILT

This is a very special hand appliqued and hand quilted quilt of mine that was just completed. This quilt is very different than any of the other 400 some quilts I have created.
It was designed as a block of the month quilt by Marion Vernon and Carlene Buck in 1986 for a quilt guild I belonged to..Even though applique was not my strong suit I found it very attractive and figured I could work on the applique blocks as I sat at our meetings. Of course over time they got more complex and were finished at home. I do have to say I did a fantastic job on all of the applique.
It took many more years for it to be assembled and then waited to be finished.
At one time all my quilts were hand quilted by me. Over time I started machine quilting.
The quilts that deserved hand quilting were put on the back burner.
Although hand quilting is not something I do anymore I was thrilled to find a hand quilter whose work was excellent and she has just finished quilting this one for me.
Not only did Robin Koehler quilt it she also bound it. I am thrilled with the quality of the work she did on this special quilt which now hangs in my breakfast room.
I have several others she will be quilting for me. I intend to keep her very busy.
On a future blog post I will share close ups of some of the blocks.

Heidi’s Millennium Quilt Goes Home With Her!

Tonight Heidi and Nate visited me. This is one of the 8 quilts I made for my grand children for the Millennium. Each quilt has 2000 different fabrics and was bordered and backed with Jinny Beyer’s Millennium fabric.
I had the quilts belonging to the local grandchildren here for safe keeping. Now that Heidi and Nate have their own house they have space to keep this quilt safe. It is King size.

I made a special label for the back of each quilt sharing information about it.
I also made a bag and drawstring from the Millennium fabric to match each quilt.
My hope is that each of the quilts will be an heirloom that will be passed down in each family.

My Artistic Heritage

I decided to see if I could find any photos of my maternal grandpa August G Wolff online this morning. I post often with pictures from the paternal ancestors.
I didn’t find any photos of him but I did find this photo of a house he designed in 1922. It is in the South Layton Boulevard Historic District. The address is 1959 S Layton Blvd. I t is a Milwaukee address. The original cost of the house was $5500 which I would think was a lot in 1922 shortly after the end of WW1.
I am impressed with the design and all the details of the house. I see more details each time I look like it. That is also a trait of a great quilt!
The historic name is:

FRANK J. SURGES HOUSE It was added to the historic records in 1996. I found this information on another site about the homes built on Layton Boulevard: The city's construction boom after World War I stimulated house building on Layton Boulevard, and between 1918 and 1928 some 107 buildings were erected with 32 of these constructed in 1921 and 19 in 1922 He lived with our family off and on when I was growing up but I wasn’t familiar with his work for the most part. One thing I do remember is that he drew his plans for his buildings on a stiff linen. When he was done with them he gave them to my mother and she washed out the stiffness in her Bendix front loading washing machine that she bought when I was born and made handkerchiefs with them.

I Have A New Room

Thanks to Kim’s furniture arranging skills and my finishing touches.

This is the sitting area/lounge for guests if I only have one room of guests.
So it you are coming you will have access to this area to relax or get some work done.
The colors are not true and that is because of my limited photography skills!

Glorious Felted Noro Scarf

Do you remember when I knit this scarf? I had several skeins of Noro yarn, each a different color combination. I was pleased with the finished piece, but it really needed to be slightly felted. Now that I know I could do it in my front loader washer it is done.

This is a closeup and you may be able to tell it is slightly felted….just enough to tighten up and even the stitches, but not enough to make it tight and stiff.

This is the picture I took right after I finished knitting it. The stitches are a little irregular, much as you would get before you block it.
The felting did what blocking would do and tightened up the stitches and made the scarf only slightly smaller.
AND …as with everything about me, it’s all about COLOR!

Wet Felting July 2017 Series

I am showing you the last piece from this series first. I had a group of yarns I combined to knit all these pieces. When I knit this one last the shape was determined by the amount of the different colors I had left.

These are all 6 of the pods and bowls I made.
You may remember when I asked if you knew what these were on a blog post a while ago?

They look quit different now as the the colors blended and the texture tightened up so much. You may know I hardly ever follow a pattern. If I do I change it to fit my needs. These are a VERY LOOSE  adaptation of some directions I found.

I love how these three look with this piece or art. I never make things for a specific place/use but so often this happens.
I could never have envisioned these would have these colorations in the finished vessels.
It’s all about playing and what I have saved in my brain from a life time of living, whether I am creating a quilt, ice dye, knitting project, or other art.

Wet Felting

I do two kinds of felting: Wet felting and Needle felting.
Yesterday I showed you some pieces I knit and then wet felted using my washing machine.
I am going to share some others I’ve done in the past while you wait for me to finish this series of pieces I am currently working on.

One of the things I did was finish two felted purses. I made them several years ago but never attached the straps. I added the straps and it was so easy I don't know why it took so long.

I finished another felted bag. This one is slightly larger than my previous ones.

This is what it looked like before I felted it.
Before felting this measured 29 1/2 inches high and 24 inches wide. After felting it measured 21 1/2 inches high and 19 inches wide.

This sweater was the inspiration for the pattern on the bag.

These are the slippers I knitted and then felted. I forgot to take a picture to show you how big they were before I felted them. They are knitted with Noro Kureyon yarn.
For yarn to felt it must be 100 percent wool and not be treated to keep it from shrinking.
I do enjoy seeing what happens as this felts. There is no way of knowing exactly how much or how quickly it will felt. It is important to keep watching it as you do the felting process in the washing machine, taking it out and checking to see how far it has come.

Knitting, Felting

This may have been the longest time I have gone without posting to my blog.
I have been making things but haven’t been documenting them.
I find knitting to be one of the most relaxing things I can do.
In the foreground you see a Pod I knitted.
In the background a little tote that still needs the handles attached.
Laying flat is a small purse.
Each one of these was felted in my washing machine.
I put off felting them as I wasn’t able to use my top loader in the basement.
It has been said that things felt better in a top loader so I believed that.
I decided to use my Asko front loader and the results were amazing.
The fact that I can turn the water temperature up to 205 degrees is a big help.
In fact when I opened the machine and the temperature was 205 degrees I couldn’t even touch the pieces.
Yes, I do have to open, close, open, close, drain, rinse to make this work and stop the felting when appropriate.
I have to say I am quite thrilled with the results.
As I write this I have a scarf in the washer doing light felting.
I will be doing a lot more felting in the next week or so as I have many pieces ready to work on.
I only do one or two at a time as I need to make sure I can do what I need to so that they are properly shaped after washing.

Serendipitous Pouch For Olfa Cutter!

When I posted this and asked why it had such an unusual shape this was NOT the answer as I was creating it.
I had created a bargello rectangle and from it I cut the back of a vest. This was the small amount of patchwork that was left at the top. It had this unusual shape created by the cutting line for the shoulders and neckline.
I decided to just use as much of the leftover scrap as I could to make an irregular pouch.
When I shared it and asked if anyone knew why I made this unusual shape several people thought it was for my Olfa cutter. Once I thought about it, I decided it was the perfect shape to carry it and that is why you see the above photo.
I have such smart people reading what I share!

Can You Guess Why This Is Shaped Like This?

I made this bargello patchwork pouch today.
Can you figure out why it has such a unique shape?

In Full Bloom

My flower garden is now in full bloom with a riot of colors.

Green is natures way of setting off all the colors in a garden,

I love the colors of stain glass in this old window frame. It picks up the green of nature and also flows into the blues with red as accent.

More red directly below the deck. The smoke plant is a nice variation of the red from the globes.

On the other side of the sidewalk there is more red.

Red mosaic mirror balls on the deck.

A collection of pink gazing globes.

Variation in shapes is always good and these help unify the colors.

It’s always nice to have some neutrals to set off the glorious colors.

More neutrals to finish off this years back yard garden.

WHAT Do You Think These Are?

I wanted to do some knitting but even though I have lots of yarn to knit my special afghans I didn’t want to get “that” involved.
So I decided to knit some smaller “things”. I carried a color plan throughout the group.
Originally I hadn’t planned to knit this many but I was enjoying it so much!
So WHO know what these are of will be????

Quilts Radiating From The Center

A majority of the quilts I made for my solo show Ice Tapestries and Shibori Quilts radiated from the center.

Long before I started making those quilts I found many of my most effective quilts radiated from the center.
I do find this interesting as I consider myself an asymmetrical artist and yet these are some of my favorite most successful quilts in my opinion.

It is amazing I ever finished piecing this quilt. I can't tell you how many times I lost/misplaced pieces of it and there was no more of the fabric available.
Yes, I am studying this quilt to decide how I would like to quilt it to enhance the design. That may take a while!
This could have been the entire quilt if I had not found all the pieces. It includes a lot of hand applique so it travelled with me to many different places.

It was my attempt to create this quilt in hand dyed fabric.

This is one of my most successful quilts and is a prize winning quilt. Everyone who sees it, quilter or not, stops, looks, studies it and comments.

Here is another work in progress. I am also waiting for it to tell me how to finish it! I am continuing down this center radiating path with my current ice dyes until I change course.Of course in addition to that I am working on finishing works in progress at this time.

Who Can Tell What’s Different?

Can you tell what is different about this Ice Dye from anything I’ve ever done before?
It is something I tried before but didn’t accomplish.
I figured it out this time.

Newest Ice Dyed Mandala

I am still making wonderful new Ice Dyed work. This is one of my new pieces and it is  favorite of myself and others who have been able to see it.
The colors have a very Southwest flavor. The design is quite different that anything I have previously created.
Don’t ask me how I manipulated the fabric to get this design as I don’t know. Each time I do a new piece I try something new. Not all pieces are this successful , but when they are it makes my heart sing. My goal is to continually create new work and not duplicate what I have already done.

Time To Decide This Season’s Priorities

The last few years my main priority was working on pieces for my show Ice Tapestries and Shibori Quilts.
I am prioritizing finishing some of my Works In Progress this season.

I have some pieces stacked in the order I intend to work on them but that is subject to change on a whim!
I also have some other things I would like to accomplish in the next 4 months. I know I may not get it all accomplished but having a sense of what I’d like to do will make it more likely to happen.
Of course I plan on doing a little purging but I am no longer counting how many things I get rid of because i’ve made quite a dent in the possessions I could purge. I even have an empty shelf, and empty bin and I might even have an empty drawer somewhere!

Embellish, An Australian Magazine–Article And Pictures From My Recent Show–Ice Tapestries and Shibori Quilts

I was contacted by this magazine and asked to write an article and share photos from my show.

This is the June 2017 issue or Issue number 30

These are the first 2 pages of the article. and you can see 5 pieces from the show.

This is the 3rd page with 4 quilt photos.
I felt honored that they thought so much of my quilts and wanted to share them in their high quality magazine.
I have not found any place in the US where the magazine is available but I am including information about how to get your own copy.

Embellish Magazine updated their cover photo.

· Yesterday at 12:31am · For back issues of Embellish visit: http://artwearpublications.com.au/…/single-issues/embellish…To subscribe for one year visit:
http://artwearpublications.com.au/…/embellish-for-shibori-m…...To subscribe for two years visit: http://artwearpublications.com.au/…/embellish-for-shibori-m…To subscribe to Embellish as part of a special bundle of our magazine titles: http://artwearpublications.com.au/…/subscriptions-15/subscr…To visit our the ArtWear Publications Facebook page go to www.facebook.com/ArtWearPublicationsSee MoreI am very impressed with the quality of the magazine as well as the articles they choose to print.

How And Where To See My Work

When I posted the photos of my work on my Studio Design wall this week I got a lot of inquiries from people who wanted to see my quilts and Ice Tapestries.

You can follow my blog at: http://quiltspluscolor.blogspot.com/

If you go to the right hand column you will see FOLLOW BY EMAIL

Enter your email in the space and you will be notified each time I post. This will also notify you of new shows and places to see my work.

I am currently taking bookings for my solo shows at Art Centers or Museums for 45 days or more.

If you know of a museum that would be interested in showing one of my shows have them contact me at: kay@kaysorensen.com

I have a show scheduled in Ocala, Florida for March and April 2018. If you follow my blog you will get the details when we are ready to share them.

I hope you will get to see my work in PERSON as that is the best way to view it.

As much as I would love to invite each and every one of you to see my work in my studio I am afraid that isn’t possible as that is where I work and it is not a place to show my work in person.