Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Quick Draw for Kids

Usually nothing about quilting or creating art is quick! When my local art association (South Mississippi Art Association) in Hattiesburg announced plans for a Quick Draw at Brewsky's to benefit South Mississippi Children's Center, it sounded like a fun activity.

     The plan was this: artists would bring their supplies (in my case, sewing machine, table, threads, etc.)—and set up at the venue, where they would have one hour to create their piece, and 15 minutes to frame it. Then the pieces would all be sold through a live auction. A very loud and lively band was playing while patrons were enjoying hors d’oeuvres and drinks and circulating among the artists to watch the pieces take shape.
     Being the only one of the 25 participating artists with a sewing machine makes my station a must-see, so this is quite fun! This is the fourth year I have participated, and I have done landscapes, ghost quilting, and this year did thread-painting on a large floral print, adding polyester and rayon threads to enhance the design. I had lightly adhered the print to a stabilizer with a glue-stick on the edges. The fabric I chose had two major flowers in orange and pink, so my thread choices were fairly limited to shades of these plus a green stem. My frame was 11x14 with a white mat, and I knew batting would make it too thick to pop into the frame. That meant the stabilizer was essential for keeping the work flat.

The band, Bobby Walters, Sherry Kuespert, Scottie Whigham, me in background

Fitting the mat over the thread-painting

    
     There were many positive comments, even this one: “I love your work, and can you fix my favorite pair of jeans?”

7 comments:

Norma Schlager said...

What a cool idea! Yours looks fabulous. I hope it brought a good price. I also hope that you bopped that person over the head who asked you to fix his jeans!

Jeanne Marklin said...

Quick free motion quilting was a great idea for this challenge. Your piece looks wonderful in that frame.
Jeanne

Karen S Musgrave said...

I love this and what you did. BRAVO on all levels.

Martha Ginn said...

Thanks, Norma, Jeanne, and Karen. I love to participate in this--really is a good way to get people to see quilting and especially art quilting in a new light.

Ellen Lindner said...

Martha, I hadn't been to your blog in a while and I SO enjoyed reading about your trip to China!

You've got a lot of wonderful things going on and I'm thrilled for you.

Love the "quick draw" idea, as well.

Martha Ginn said...

Thanks, Ellen. It's been great sharing the China experience. I've prepared a PowerPoint program so I can show it to my friends and quilt groups. Still seems like a dream!

deb-of-pixeladies said...

Love the quick "draw" idea, Martha.