Posted 5/14/08

Sign up for some summer creative fun at the Dougherty Arts School in Austin, TX!

Principles of Color and Design for Art Quilting
Instructor: Naomi S. Adams

Explore the principles of color theory and design (balance, proportion, contrast, rhythm, emphasis and unity) and how to use them in art quilt compositions. Using creative design exercises, investigate how colors interact with each other and how to make color work for your artwork. Basic sewing skills needed. Sewing machine needed for selected sessions.

Session 1: Saturday 6/7 and 6/14, 10 am-1 pm OR
Session 2: Saturday 7/19 and 7/26 10 am-1 pm

$45

To register, please call the Dougherty Arts School at 974-4040. For questions, please email Naomi at killerbeedesigns@gmail.com

Posted 5/11/08

This is my weekly journal quilt 18/52 2008. I’m posting later than normal, as I was a bit crazy last week finishing an art quilt entry for a special exhibit for HIQF this fall. I was working until literally the last hour to get things submitted. Yikes!

This journal was a fun journey to a new technique for me. I fused plastic bags together to make an 8-ply “fabric”. You can see a tutorial for this technique here. It took a little work to get the fusing process right, but it was exciting to reuse plastic bags for an art purpose. After I fused the bags together, I cut them up into strips and overlaid them on a background piece. The different patterns and textures shown are created by using the fronts and reverse of bags, as well as varied printed patterns and open solid areas on the bags. I then zigzagged the pieces together and quilted the piece to an interfacing base for stability.

This piece is for sale for $30 in my Etsy shop here.

Posted 5/2/08

This is my weekly journal quilt 17/52 2008. So, it’s really no secret to most people that know me that I don’t enjoying mowing, or anything really to do with the lawn. I’d rather be inside with fabric. This week it has really rained and I really needed to mow. However, I thought it would be entirely more delightful to make my journal quilt about grass instead of actually mowing. The experience exceeded my expectations. I did mow later by the way…just in case our HOA is reading my blog.

The background of this piece I painted a while back with one of my original speedy-cut stamp designs. On the whole piece back I cut stylized grass out of a beautiful piece of batik and fused them down. I then stitched and outline within each blade of grass with variegated 30 weight thread.

This piece is for sale for $30 in my Etsy shop.

P.S. There is a 20% off sale in my Etsy shop all day Monday May 5th!

Posted 4/29/08

Onions, 2008, Naomi S. Adams

Check out the 235 donated collages that you could purchase next week on Virginia Spiegel’s site! There are 21 pages of gorgeous collages to choose from. You can read about the 4 collages I donated here.

Collage Mania II opens Monday, May 5 at 9 a.m. (collages for a donation of at least $80) and continues May 6 (collages for a donation of at least $40). Thanks to the generosity of the donating artists, 100% of the proceeds are donated directly to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause.

There are so many collages that I am drooling over, but I’ll just blog about one I keep returning to. It’s just so colorful and bright! Check out Gerrie Congdon’s Kimono Collage. You have to scroll down to find it, as Virginia wants everyone to peruse as much art as possible and donate $$ for some collages! Happy collaging.

Posted 4/25/08

This is my weekly journal quilt 16/52 2008. The background of this piece is a recycled paper bag that I painted with a limey-green paint by applying it with a foam brush over a bottle protector plastic netting. I then fused down 1/4″ strips of a multi-colored batik in a grid pattern. For the top layer, I stitched down the plastic grid with a limey-green thread. It was super fun to sew on plastic, even though I kept flinching in fear of breaking my needle!

This piece is for sale in my Etsy shop for $30.

Posted 4/23/08

I’m delighted to say that One Tree Quilt has won an award at the AQS Paducah, KY Quilt Show this year! It received the Olfa Young Designers Okada Award. I am completely excited and honored. This piece is an extension of a 2007 weekly journal quilt that was so intriguing that I decided to make it on a larger scale. Go weekly art! My husband really encouraged me to make this piece on a larger scale and so he is super excited about tHIS award.

And yes, I can’t wait to spend the $5000 on art quilting supplies. Here’s looking forward to stimulating the art quilting economy.

If you are lucky enough to be at the show right now, please stop by and smile! All of the AQS award winners can be seen here. By the way, I would like to point out that 3 of the Alzheimer’s Forgetting Piece by Piece artists won awards in this show. Congrats to Diane Gaudynski and Becky Goldsmith.

Posted 4/16/08

This is my journal quilt 15/52 2008. I decided to work with some more recycled materials, as I really had fun when I used recycled materials for 5/52 2008!

I started this piece by working from a palette of some leftover fiber pieces with the yellowey-green background and red/orange/black details. I just finished some slightly larger works, and I love to use even tiny leftovers for other things.

For this piece’s background, I painted a brown paper bag with green paint in a pattern created by painting over a plastic bottle protector with a foam brush. You know, the bottle protector that is plastic, green and stretchy and prevents two glass bottles from jangling against each other in a bag. I also painted the back of coffee cup sleeves with green paint for use as the skinny linear pieces. Additionally, I painted paper bags with red and black paint with a commercial foam stamp and a Magic Stamp I created from a household item.

Then, I combined all the components and worked out an arrangement that I enjoyed. I find it both challenging and fun to work with a limited amount of sizes and shapes of pieces, as with the leftover fiber pieces. It makes my brain work harder!

This piece is for sale in my Etsy shop for $30.

Posted 4/14/08

All of the Killer Bee Designs Free Fabric Postcard Patterns are now listed on one page on my website. You can find and download them here. If you are new to making fabric postcards, please read the General Fabric Postcard Instructions first.

Please feel free to use them for your own use or for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. You can make a difference by making a small quilt or fabric postcard and donating it to the AAQI for the Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts project.

I have pledged to donate enough quilts to AAQI to bring in $1000 for the cause. Thanks to generous donors who have purchased my quilts, I have helped raise $605 to date. Here is a link to the page of the quilts I have donated: Naomi’s $1000 promise page.

Some of my quilts are for sale right NOW as part of the Mother’s Day Fabric Postcard Sale. Mine are #1062, 2090, and 2091.

However, even cooler is that my sister and tiny nieces and nephews made some fabric postcards, which are also for sale! Theirs are #2140-2145. Check out the press release here.

Posted 4/8/08

This is my weekly journal quilt 14/52 2008. I am enjoying the “strip-ey” effect in the small series I’m working on right now, and thought I’d try it with a favorite combination of a black and white print and RED. I didn’t quilt this and then cut it up and zig-zag the pieces back together like I did with 13/52 2008. Instead, I just laid out the whole pattern in strips, and then fused it down all at one time. I certainly enjoy the process of 13/52 2008 much more, but this was faster for sure! If you flip the image upside down, it sure looks like the American flag to me. Maybe it’s just me.

This piece is for sale in my Etsy shop for $30.

Posted 4/5/08

For some reason, I really like to see dyed fabric in this really messy stage.  I had the opportunity to dye fabric this week (I had been needing to for a while!) I was all out of the limey yellow green that I use all the time.  I got a couple of new colors, used a pfd fabric (prepared for dyeing), and used urea for the first time.  I have tried dyeing Kona cotton, muslin, and all sorts of other 100% cotton fabrics before, and I do like this pfd cotton.  I just cut it off the bolt and dyed it.  Urea keeps the fabric nice and wet while the dye is soaking in. The results are nice, rich colors. I am happy with the fabrics.  Here’s a pic of the beautiful stack. Now I am happily down to 2 yards on the 20 yard bolt I bought in January. It’s a great problem to have!