Claire Sherman Art

Circular Squares and Rectangles Class!

Posted on November 21, 2018 by admin

I taught a class recently at HelloStitch called Circular Squares and Rectangles. Here are some of my samples:

Slightly Sober Path 2012

And here is some of my students’ work:

A great time was had by all!

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Placemat and coasters

Posted on November 13, 2018 by admin

My first born, who is pursuing an MFA in sound design, requested a placemat and coasters, with relevant fabrics. I went to Stonemountain fabrics, and found radio frequency fabric! I also used music note, hand tool, electric/acoustic guitars, and piano fabric from my stash. I made a wonky log cabin, since I’m teaching that at HelloStitch in Feb.

I actually like the back better than the front. I think it shows off the different fabrics better.

Here are both sides of the coasters. They don’t really have a front and back. I didn’t do much piecing on these, since it didn’t seem to add anything.

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PIQF and SJSA

Posted on October 15, 2018 by admin

Today I spent the day at the Pacific Int’l Quilt Festival (PIQF). Even though I was there from 10 AM till 4 PM when it closed, I’m not sure that I saw all the quilts. I did see most of them though. There was a special Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA) exhibit there this year. Three of those quilts I had helped make in some way. There was one that had a block that I embroidered, one that I found 6 other people to embroider the blocks, and one that I worked with a youngish artist to help her collage her quilt. In addition to the SJSA quilts I had one of my own quilts on exhibit, called Axis Mundi-Jacobs Ladder.

Above is Axis Mundi/Jacob’s Ladder.

Next is a quilt by 6 Lakota youth. I found 6 members of EBHQ to embroider the 6 blocks within a very short time span.

For the next one, I sat with Crystal for most of a day, helping her collage this quilt.

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Finally a finished quilt!

Posted on October 12, 2018 by admin

I just finished quilting and binding this quilt. I started it as a sample for the wonky stars class I taught ta HelloStitch. I wanted to see how many stars I could fit into each other. I stopped at three, because it would have gotten too large. I used a piece of ombre blue fabric for the largest star fabric. This will be one of my two quilts for the EBHQ show and tell in Nov. The other quilt will probably be the one from the previous post, which hasn’t been quilted yet.

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I took 2 classes with Maria Shell

Posted on September 27, 2018 by admin

I took two workshops with Maria Shell. Linear Blocks and Kitchen Sink Quilting. The finished top above is from Kitchen Sink Quilting. I took a pile of blocks I made in Sujata Shaw’s EBHQ class and/or from her book, and put them together in a medallion format. The finished top is above. The process is below:

I was going to put log cabin blocks in the corners, but changed my mind. Also, the blue blocks were supposed to be a zigzag, but you can see in the first photo that they didn’t end up that way. I decided not to resew it because it added another unexpected element. The two blocks with grey in them were a mistake that I turned into two new blocks.

This is from the other class, linear blocks.

Posted in Classes, EBHQ, Improvisational piecing | 1 Comment

Jelly prints

Posted on September 16, 2018 by admin

Last month’s EBHQ workshop was jelly printing with Lisa Thorpe. I took a few real ginkgo leaves to print with, rather than using her stencils. She also had a couple combs that I used, as you can see above. We used a kind of acrylic paint that has the word, ‘open’ on the label. This means that the paint dries slower, so you have more time to work with it.

I’m really excited about the September EBHQ workshops with Maria Shell, from Alaska! One of them is called Kitchen Sink Quilts. It seems a lot like Gwen Marston’s Parts Department quilts. It will be interesting what the difference is. The homework for this class is to bring in 9 orphan or leftover blocks. I have lots more than that. I have a lot of UFOs from all the workshops I’ve taken.

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Look at all these hamsas!

Posted on August 28, 2018 by admin

My friend the hamsa expert in Israel sent me this photo of an exhibit of “Khamsas,” at the Museum for Islamic Art, in Jerusalem. it’s there right now. Unfortunately I’m not there to see it.

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I didn’t need a new project…

Posted on August 26, 2018 by admin

Today I went to the Social Justice Sewing Academy to help with an embroidery class for teens. They had lots of help, so mostly I sat and embroidered one of the fabric collages that kids had glued. They get volunteers to embroider all the fabric pieces down before they are sewn into a quilt. Sara, the founder of SJSA came up to me and asked if I could find embroidery volunteers for 6 blocks made by Lakota youth. They want this quilt finished by the PIQF quilt show, so these blocks have to be embroidered by Sept. 15. I am so busy right now that I really don’t have time for this. I said yes anyway. I’m not going to embroider any of the blocks myself, but if I take them to the EBHQ meeting on Mon and the EBMQ meeting on Tue, I should be able to find 6 volunteers. It’s too dark to take photos now, but I’ll try to post photos of the blocks soon.

An update: At the EBHQ meeting on Aug. 27 I managed to find 6 people willing to embroider speedily, and take the quilt blocks home. However, I never got a photo of the blocks. I hope to post a photo when the blocks are done.

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Quilty trash cans?

Posted on July 6, 2018 by admin

I was in Oakland, and saw this very quilty mosaic star on the side of a concrete trash can. Here’s another one:

I can’t decide which one I like better! They would both make good quilts.

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What I’ve been working on

Posted on June 27, 2018 by admin

This is the basket quilt I’ve been working on. It was a secret until last night when I gave it to the past president of EBHQ. She likes to make pine needle baskets when she’s not making quilts. I received so many blocks that my basket is on the back. Actually I really really like the back!

My block is the one on the right with two baskets. Here’s a close up of it. There are directions on how to make liberated baskets like this in Gwen Marston’s book, Liberated Quilting II.

I forgot got to take a photo after it was quilted. The label on the back was a basket that I hand appliquéd on, with the signatures of the quilters who contributed baskets.

Posted in Liberated basket, Work In Progress | Tagged Basket quilt, East Bay Heritage Quilters, EBHQ, liberated basket | Comments Off