My Quip - Sleep Jezebel and Warhol's Itch Return Home

Good Day,

Our Sleep Jezebel and Warhol's Itch have both arrive back home from England and the Festival of Quilts 2015.

The following are the judge's comments. Andy and I always take judge's comments and notes in stride. It is a part of our learning experience.

Sleep Jezebel - JSAB

Sleep Jezebel -

Judge - "A novel approach to patchwork with interesting results - the quilting creates a vivid secondary design, but the work would improve with a bit more quilting."

Judge - "Lots of 'jaggy' shapes here in the piecing and quilting. On one interpretation, colour choice might be described as bland. A worthy attempt."

Warhol's Itch - JSAB

Warhol's Itch -

Judge - "An interesting combination of cross stitch on bright colored backgrounds. An original idea and the pleated background fabric adds depth - however I feel the blocks are a bit lost on the light background."

Judge - "An unusual quilt and an ambitious project. It will create interest at the show."

I asked the following question on a couple of quilting forums –

“Does anyone know of any venue for display and/or competition where the quilt expectancies are not necessarily “pigeon-holed” (if that makes any sense)?”

Not sure if anyone understood my question. I could reword the question to read -

“Are there any open/free-form quilt displays and/or competitions?”

If you have any comment, thought, ideas feel free to contact us at Quilts SB.

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy

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My Quip – Sleep Jezebel and Warhol’s Itch Off to England

Good Day,

Our two quilts Sleep Jezebel and Warhol’s Itch have been accepted for display at The Festival of Quilts 2015 in Birmingham, England.

The show and competition will be held at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) Thursday 06 August 2015 – Sunday 09 August 2015, Halls 7 – 9. (http://www.thenec.co.uk/whatson/the-festival-of-quilts)

Check out the links to our write-ups.

Sleep Jezebel - Andy Brunhammer and Jim Smith, 2014

Sleep Jezebel – http://quiltsb.blogspot.com/2014/10/q124-sleep-jezebel-quilt-and-wall.html

Warhol's Itch - Andy Brunhammer and Jim Smith, 2014

Warhol’s Itch - http://quiltsb.blogspot.com/2014/04/q117-warhols-itch-quilt-and-wall-hanging.html

If you have any comment, thought, idea, question, please feel free to contact Andy or me via email at Quilts SB.

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy

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My Quip - Equality - 2015 St. Petersburg Gala

Good Day,

Our Equality Quilt will be auctioned off tonight at the Equality Florida 2015 Greater St. Petersburg Gala at the Mahaffey Theater.

Wonder who’s home will be it’s new home?

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy Click here to continue reading...

Q126 – Equality – Queen Size Quilt

Good Day,

Andy and I would like to present to you our newest and latest completed quilt, Equality.

Our Equality is composed of 81 9-inch squares, sewn together in nine rows. All blocks were completed and the arrangement was set and sewn together. They are each composed of four Robert Kaufman Kona 100% Cotton fabrics: blue, yellow, red, and rose. Including the border and the binding, the quilt approximates 88” (224 cms) by 88” (224 cms). Equality is about the size of a queen-size quilt.

The borders is made up of 648 cut pieces. The four corners are constructed of 28 pieces. All fabric is Robert Kaufman Kona 100% Cotton solid colors.

Here are some images.  You can click on them to enlarge.

And the quilting is completed. Thank you Keith Haring for your vision.

With permission of the Keith Haring Foundation many months ago Andy and I received the go ahead to use Keith Haring’s art as a basis for our quilting work. We discussed a number of issues. The main issue we discussed was the possibility of reproduction for commercial use. (Obviously there are a lot of persons on this planet who do not necessarily follow the rule-of-thumb regarding copyright.)

I actually redrew Keith’s 1987 Untitled work on acetate. Next I then burnt a stencil through the acetate.

Andy then pounced the stencil with chalk powder. He then quilted each of the 81 blocks. Each block has 80 starts and stops which each has to be knotted and buried into the layers of the quilt sandwich. It took him about 3-plus hours per block. Oh and that’s about 6,480 starts and stops.

The border is one that I created myself. Same technique with the burning tool and the acetate. Each set of "crowd" is 9 characters, which I also drew connected, Andy did not have as many starts and stops as for the blocks.

The quilting and the binding on our new and completed Equality quilt has been done. The four corner figures are done. And we used the 4 individual characters to quilt in each one of the corners.

Andy and I are both extremely pleased with our work and the final product.

You can see the quilting work highlighted on the back of Equality.

If you have any questions, thoughts, ideas, and comments please feel free to email Andy or me at Quilts SB.

Also please note that our Quilts SB new URL address is http://www.quiltssb.com.

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy

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My Quip - Equality Stencils Completed

Good Day,


We have finished our final stencil for our new Equality quilt.

Thank you Keith Haring.

Pounced stencil.

Follow our progress and work at Quilts SB - www.quiltssb.com.

If you have any comments, questions, thoughts, please email us at Quilts SB.

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy

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My Quip - Just Announced - Two Finalists

Good Day,

Andy and I just received news this morning that two of our quilts have been accepted as juried finalists at the MQX Quilt Festivals - New England 2015.

Our two accepted quilts are Equality and Sleep Jezebel.

Equality

Sleep Jezebel

MQX Quilt Festival, New England will be April 8 through 11 and held at The Center of NH / Radisson Hotel in Manchester, New Hampshire.

If you have any questions, thoughts, comments, ideas please feel free to contact us at Quilts SB. Enjoy,

Jim and Andy

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My Quip - A Quick Update

Good Day,

Just a quick update of our current projects.

The quilting work continues on our new Chopsticks quilt.

And we have begun the elementary designs of a new project.

We’re calling it the Post-it Network.

This one should prove something completely different once again.

The canvases to both our Reflection

and our new commission Moon Over Bayshore have been completed.

Our commission TBAJ is finished.

We're just waiting for the time of day.

Follow updates and our write-ups on Quilts SB at www.quiltssb.com

If you have any questions please feel free to contact via email us at Quilts SB.

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy

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Q125 – NT Celebration – King Size Quilt

Good Day,

Our new commissioned quilt, NT Celebration has been completed.

All-things-being-equal, Andy and I have tried to create, construct and present a quilt that held to the following requested guidelines:

• We used fabrics from the client’s, her husband’s, and her mother’s used shirts. 
• We used the main colors of red, white, and blue. 
• We were able to create a design that expressed and conveyed the client’s request. 
• We believe that we have created a quilt with a patriotic boldness.

NT Celebration has been our way of touching the ever popular tradition of quilting and the same time while creating warm bedding. It is now at its new home in central Florida.

NT Celebration is a king size quilt measuring 97 ½”- width by 114”- length.

The quilt is constructed of all salvaged and recycled clothes except the backing. 

The quilting is edge-to-edge in an interwoven curve pattern. The “patchwork” of the top is made of a series of blocks, all cut in two sizes – 4 ½” and 2 ½”, which were all cut from the clothes provided and then assembled.

The top is a representation of the Red, White, and Blue. The exploding fireworks are the celebrations we were asked to express.

Check out the creative progress and working of NT Celebration at the following links.

My Quip – NT Celebration – A New Quilt in Progress – October 13, 2014

My Quip – NT Celebration – Top Completed – Progress Update – October 22, 2014

If you have any questions, comments, ideas, please feel free to contact Andy or me via email at Quilts SB.

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy

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My Quip – Chopsticks Update – The Inner Top Completed

Good Day,

The inner top of our new Chopsticks quilt has been completed.

All 120 blocks, constructed of 1,200 1 ½” by 5 ½” strips, have been pieced to create an inner top.

Now next to add the inner borders.

All fabric is a batik line from the Robert Kaufmann jelly rolls Chop Chop. Stay tuned for the soon to be revealed original design and final size.

Oh and by the way our commissioned NT Celebration king sized quilt has been finished. Come back to Quilts SB for our final write up.

If you have any questions, comments, ideas, please feel free to contact Andy or me via email at Quilts SB.

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy

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