Canmore Quilt Show & Eagle Festival

The Canmore Quilt show was fantastic. The Merchant Mall housed the tea section too so the Vendors were well supplied with goodies!

There are magnificent vistas from every direction in Canmore. No wonder the Canmore Quilt Guild is so inspired. The same weekend as the Quilt show was the Eagle Festival. Birders gathered in the town center to view Golden eagles catching the wind currents above the mountains. Birds are a special interest of mine as you can see from the Blue Jay fabric painted piece.

Someone said to me today "Red! Oh there is something about red." I agree. The cooler days are starting to turn the virginia creepers scarlet. This vine is a personal favorite of mine and I have painted it both in watercolour and in dyes on cotton which this picture is.

I will be selling my dye painted cottons, next weekend Oct 15 & 16 in Canmore, Alberta at the Canmore Quilt Guild's Show.

Eileen Gidman's Art Cloth Display Panel

All material here is 100% cotton and is painted individually by the artist, Eileen Gidman. The dye used is Procion Fiber reactive dye and the result is a washable colourfast work of art ready for framing, embellishing, or sewing into a variety of items including clothing and quilts.

Eileen sells her work at Quilt Shows in the Kootenays, at The Last Stitch, Kaslo, BC or you can contact the artist at eileengidman@kootenay.com

Sketching in Italy

In preparing for the demos I will be giving at the Nelson, Kootenay Quilters guild Show Oct 1 & 2, I came across my sketchbook with drawings from my trip to Italy. This is the dye painted art cloth I did from those sketches. It reminded me how much I liked this style of several boxes within one panel. It refreshes my memory of the trip!

New Fabric Line

Can you think of a name for this front fabric? If you have an idea send me an email at egidman@kootenay.com with fabric name in the subject line.

Front fabric: I am handpainting with procion fiber reactive dyes in a wet on wet technique onto 100% cotton. So far with the lively grey I have tried purple, red and tourquoise-all stunning. The mingling of colours happens over time as the fabric batches/cures resulting in a creative surprise! The companion pieces are dyed using a low immersion technique.

These fat quarters will be for sale for the very first time at the Kootenay Quilters guild Quilt Show on Oct 1 and 2, 2011 at the Prestige Inn in Nelson.

The hand painted (with dye) fabric pieces can be made into wearable art which is what Joan Cavers did in this beautiful asymmetrical vest. Vogue pattern 8713.

Note the front and back details of the vest. Joan used a 3 companion pieces of painted cotton fabric by Eileen Gidman's to insert into this silk vest.

quilted painted fabric

I bravely cut up one of my painted fabric pieces to use in a Ricky Timms Pattern. With a bit of rearranging of the strips so that the image was not in reverse, the image came out perfectly. To finish the piece I sandwiched batting between the top and backing, then stitched around each square of the painted fabric. My thought was to recess the painting from the other fabric strips. Today I am bordering it in black and binding it in black. I was thrilled to find the perfect backing material, a print with the mottled teal and black at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago.
This wallhanging will be on display in my vendors booth at the Nelson Quilt Show, Oct 1 & 2. The show is at the Prestige Inn in Nelson, B.C., Canada.