Baby Isabelle Jackson's New Quilt

At the end of 2023, a new baby girl was welcomed to the extended family:  Baby Isabelle Jackson, daughter of my niece Rachel and her husband Court.  Happily, this gave me an excuse to create an original crib quilt measuring 49" wide by 53" high.  Some history:  In 2015, I went to India with two friends on a quest to discover fabric artists in the state of Gujarat.  Along the way we discovered the Rann of Kutch's wildlife santuary and stayed briefly at the Rann Riders Resort.  On a mini safari we saw many exotic (to me) birds including Painted Storks, a Snake Eagle, black-headed Ibis, Egrets and Greater Flamingos among others. I drew many of the birds once we got back from our trip, and created the bird fabric printed on the quilt back above.  Unfortunately I had only taken a little Canon Powershot G15 camera, which was not good enough for great bird photos. The beauty of applique is that I could use my photos as reference to create the stork image on the quilt front.  This was done by making an Adobe Illustrator image, which was then used as a template for the final fabric applique design.  Many of the quilt fabrics were purchased from Britex in San Francisco with a mix of soft whites, pastel pinks, cotton satins and more. The basic design was created with Electric Quilt's EQ8 software, then modified by accident, or intent, as the quilt was being built.   The memory of the trip, bird motif, and the quality of the different fabrics made working on the quilt another level of pleasure.

Bio Blanket

Since I'm now working on a new quilt, I thought I'd post the last one I finished this past January, after it got delayed a year due to illness.  Above Bio Blanket finished in 2020, based on Frank Miller comic art and biography photos taken by my father, E.A. Autrey, as featured in the Growing Up Autrey book, published with Blurb.  This only goes up to high school.  A great deal happened after that!

California Sunshine Quilt

Finally finished my mega quilt!  80 individual photographs printed on fabric and woven into the quilt using an original plaid design.  Photos of my artist wooden models were used as templates for the four characters, which were then appliqued onto silk swatches using some cool Martha Negley designed fabric.  They looked a bit naked, even after adding the birds, so I later added bathing suits with a fabric I designed and printed.  The quilt is so big (74 1/4" h x 66 3/4" w) I had to do it in three sections then sew the sections together at the end.  What's going on in this quilt, you ask?  Well, I love California, I love the sun, I love taking photos in my neighborhood on sunny days, and I love birds. 

Magnolias

Latest quilted wall hanging tells the story of white and pink magnolia flowers going from bud to bloom.  Center is a patchwork of photos printed on silk surrounded by raw edge applique of various cotton and silk fabrics showing a portion of a Magnolia flower's life cycle.  It's amazing how much time these things take!  But creating art works wonders in taking the mind off the horrors of our current government. 

"Sewing Tools Used and New" - a Recently Finished New Art Quilt

This quilt happened for a couple of reasons: 
1.  I started collecting old scissors on a trip to Indiana in 2013, after enviously noting my artist aunt Reva's scissor collection.  This forced me to take a class on flash photography, and buy a flash attachment for my camera, in order to accurately photograph my old scissors.  That done, the scissors were photoshopped into a polka dot star pattern I designed.
2.  On a trip to the Galapagos in 2017, a fellow traveler was always sewing and I spent a couple of hours doing a watercolor of her pin cushion, which I liked a lot.  So I printed it onto fabric.
3.  I made the mistake of going into Britex Fabrics in SF (before they moved this year), thinking I would only look, and exited with scissor and pin cushion fabrics plus some complimentary blue and white fabric as well.  I needed to do something with them.
Once all of the above happened, I thought I'd put all the elements together and make a quilt I could enter into a cool quilt contest.  The problem is my craft abilities are inferior to my creative abilities so the finished quilt, being slightly imperfect, would probably never get accepted in a craft quilt contest.  Additionally, after photographing the quilt, I transformed it in Photoshop to neatly fill a unified space and find it now looks slightly more warped than it really is.  So the only place this quilt will be featured for now is here.  It will be live for viewing at my Marin Open Studios this coming May, however.

Variations on a Bear Theme

Digital bears (from a pen & ink & watercolor original) on the left; Quilted bears on the right.  The polka dotted bear is my latest - created for a new creature quilt.  Can't get enough of this bear!

Freehand Drawings of Various Well Worn Running Shoes

to be printed on fabric and sewn into daughter's in-process marathon race-running quilt, composed primarily of Ts won at a multitude of races.  In fact, there are too many race Ts for one quilt, so I'm having to be selective, but I also want to personalize it, hence the Asics,  Newtons and Nike's above.

India Polka Dot Batik Quilt

Latest quilt, my largest yet!  Queen size, with DreamWool brand merino wool batting, and hand tied with red cotton embroidery thread (also from India). I fell in love with the polka dot material on a fiber arts tour of India in January, 2015.  Visiting batik artist Shakil Ahmed Q. Khatri, near the area of Mundra-Kutch, in the state of Gujarat, was a surprise treat. He had so many beautiful batiks, I wanted to buy them all.  One pink/red batik fabric, quilted with pink silk/satin, has already gotten away, sold to jeweler/friend Gemma Rose at cost, without my photographing it first.  This polka dot design was unusual. It was hanging outside the artist's house, drying, when I spotted it.  It took awhile to find another batik (the turtle fabric backing) to match sufficiently.  The polka dot fabric was so beautiful on its own, I didn't want to cut it up to much, so merely cut what I had in half, sewed that together and (after months of work) voila.

More info on the artist can be found here:  http://www.kala-raksha-vidhyalaya.org/2009/men/eportfolios_shakil_ahmed_kasambhai_khatri.php

Spoonbill Applique

Rough, not yet quilted, block for a new Spoonbill Windows of India quilt I'm working on.  I love working with raw applique (ie the fabric edges are not turned under first.)  The lazy person's way to sew!

Crafty Weekend

Top Three:   Simple Ecology brand organic cotton canvas grocery bags with original art quilted panels: Black Bird in Marin, Parrot with Baobab Trees and Tokay Gecko
Bottom Two:  Two new T shirt applique designs (not yet embroidered):  Blue Jay and Crow

Antique India Quilt With Birds and Roses

New Wall Hanging Quilt front and back.  Centered antique hand sewn satin/cotton quilt from India with four of my hand drawn Indian birds (seen in India in January of this year) printed on cotton (painted stork, flamingo, two ibis).  Cotton, satin, glitter trim, couched rat tail and some hand embroidery. Rose pattern cotton back and rosebud cotton binding (both designed by Martha Negley for Rowan. Westminster Fibers).  Measures 28 1/2" wide x 43 3/4" high.

Wild and Woolly Quilted Wall Hanging

Experience the freedom of the outdoors with a Wild and Woolly (wool punched creatures on cotton fabric) quilted wall hanging indoors.  38 1/2" wide x 44 1/4" high.  Top to Bottom:  front, details and back

Garden of Delight

Latest quilt finished 8/6/2014.  50" wide x 67 1/2" high.  Cotton, silk, wool-punched birds and Proteus, and my own designed bee fabric.  Full front view and quilt close up.

Protea

Detail of a Protea flower for a new quilt in process.  Wool punch, embroidery and applique

Bird Quilt

Latest cotton quilt, measuring 47" wide x 67" high featuring wool-punched birds, free style quilting, digital blue jay photo prints on cotton percale, larger original images printed by Spoonflower, various commercial fabrics, machine stitched.  Front, detail and back featured

Queen Tut Silk Quilt

Latest, very time consuming, quilt finished!  Measuring 48" wide x 66 3/4" high, this lounge-worthy original design is composed of all silk fabrics with a cotton flannel backing.  The light and darker brown silks are from a Thai silk spread purchased by Elsa and Rick Zisook in Thailand - now cut up and reused by me.  The central "watercolor" quilted section is composed of eight separate pieces of silk, some originally retailing for close to $300/yard, purchased from eBay (for much less than their retail price) in a box of assorted silk samples.  These eight silk samples were cut up into 768 1" squares, then sewn together on Pellon 820 Quilter's grid fusible polyester.  Stitch in the ditch quilting applied to the top portion of the quilt, but the bottom was finished using two separate stencil designs.  It was hard getting the entire quilt through the small space on my Bernina B215 sewing machine, but I managed it without breaking anything.  I love my machine!!

Space Garden

Latest cotton and silk quilt masterpiece: 45 1/2" wide x 63" high, including digital fractal & original insect art printed on silk organza, applique on a central quilted silk panel, cotton polka dots, and some cool Jone Hallmark commercial bugs fabric