Suzan Engler - Transitional Textile Artist

Experimenting with Photoshop Elements

2010-03-11T01:27:36Z

Thank you for your ideas on "What Next?". Suggestions include beads, crystals, streaming sunlight, a gazing cat, textures, tiles, velvets and satins; all make for intriguing design elements!

I am exploring options using Photoshop Elements and CorelDraw. I cropped the focal point into a circle with Photoshop Elements and exported the image as a .gif.

With a .gif file format I get just the circle and can then place it on top of other images in CorelDraw (or other graphic program).

Do I want a single fabric or patchwork background?

How light or dark? What about a large border? Or maybe a pieced border?

Now what?

2010-03-07T18:06:22Z

I have painted the background black. Now what? I'm a little underwhelmed. It needs something more. Quilting will help give it texture but I'm not sure that will be enough.

I had planned to quilt it and mount it on a round canvas. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe I'll finish it off round and mount it on a square patchwork "under quilt". Any suggestions?

Patching Jeans

2010-03-07T03:12:10Z

Brand new jeans with holes in them are quite popular. Not so much with Daddy and the principal at school.

I patched the holes with some left over fabric. The patches are two layers fused together to make it more substantial.
I got the idea from some RL jeans in a fashion magazine. The ones in the magazine had a buttonhole stitch around the patches in a contrasting thread. Reminded me of some I had in the 70's...

Inspiration

2010-03-06T13:41:56Z

Circular shapes fascinate me. These are Maharam and Arc/Com upholstery fabrics. The one in the lower left corner is a reintroduction of a design from 1960.

I'm supposed to be painting the bathroom

2010-02-27T17:39:46Z

I'm supposed to be painting the bathroom but could not resist painting a bit on my work in progress. It is the same design as the fabric painting in my blog logo but with different colors.

The white lines left by the Elmer's glue resist did not provide enough contrast so I am painting the lines with black Pebeo paint. I like the contrast and the "painterly" look. I plan to mount it on a round canvas for hanging once quilted. Half quilt and

I tried two projects in the past two weeks with black resist but the resist looked plasticy no matter how much I thinned it. I threw away the half-full bottle of black resist; not wasting my time or fabric on that anymore!

The Libby Lehman Organizational Method

2010-02-19T20:43:39Z

Also known as a great way to justify all the office supplies that I have lying around. I counted; I have 14 types, colors and sizes of sticky notes (I think there may be support groups for this affliction).

When I saw Libby's show on TQS it made perfect sense to me. Now all my art supplies are happily in labeled boxes.

I have cool black clip boards for major projects and one for things that have to be completed this week (refill prescriptions, pay bills, thank you notes, etc.).

I have even started using this method at work. I have a plastic divider page that holds all my sticky notes so that it can be carried over from day to day.

I find I have a better sense of accomplishment if I compete something and get to throw away a sticky note so I have one for each individual task.

Rather than one note for make baby quilt, I have one for each step:

cut out baby quilt,

sew baby quilt,

quilt baby quilt,

bind baby quilt.

I might even have one for attend baby shower and eat cupcakes. No wait, that would be two sticky notes.

When you get overwhelmed

2010-02-19T20:40:49Z

When you get overwhelmed what do you do? I eat chocolate.

Close to 10,000

2010-02-05T19:59:29Z

I've blogged for a little over a year now and am nearing 10,000 unique visitors to my blog! However, I don't get too excited about the number of visitors. Why? Because on the internet there are so many ways (intended and unintended!) for a visitor to end up on your blog or website.

There are many free services that you can use to monitor activity on your blog: among them Stat Counter, NeoCounter, and Google Analytics. They can tell you the number of visitors, pages visited, referring websites, popular content, etc.

Top 5 internet searches that resulted in a visit to my blog:

1. Georgia O"keefe (I stated that my trumpet flower photograph reminded me of Georgia's flowers)

2. Alien Footprints (A description of a hand carved stamp). I'm fairly certain that most of those Googling "alien footprints" were not searching for quilt-related information!

3. Textile Artist -this one makes me happy!

4. Glue Resist

5. Baby Quilt

Number of visitors to my site by country:

1. US

2. UK

3. Canada

4. India

5. Belgium

Referring websites (not counting Google searches):

1. The Quilt Show Member Blogs

2. Julie Prichard

3. Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles

4. Jules Rushing

5. Janet's Fiber Artistry

I so appreciate others linking to my website. I work hard to try and write about things that are of interest to my current and future readers. Thanks for getting me to 10,000 visits and if you were really looking for information on extra-terrestials I hope you enjoyed you visit here!

Valentine Postcards

2010-02-01T02:48:45Z

QuiltedKathy made the cutest valentine postcards, I just had to make a few!

The pattern is from http://www.emblibrary.com

Green Cobblestones

2010-01-25T03:52:48Z

Green Cobblestones is ready to ship. This is such a simple and satisfying quilt, great for a beginner or those with little time.

It is a log cabin block that is constructed with 9 strips each. I like that the quilting pattern makes it look as though it is more complex than it really is.