Author: Sue Lewis textiles

I love taking detail photos of the stitches, colors and textures in my work.

This is a detail of “Entanglement” with twigs, rusted wire, copper wire, painted paper and a quilted background

Two of my quilts have been juried into the next art exhibit at the Parker Art Center. It will run from June 1 to July 29, 2022. “Profusion” was transformed by reworking a rectangular black and white eco-dyed quilt by adding elements to the sides and to the top, plus adding shocking pink to the surface. Lots of hand stitching and machine quilting were also added.

I have completed an impossible seed pod! See below for photo. I first created a small quilt that was collaged and mono-printed, then stitched, quilted and finished the edges with satin stitch. All the results of taking a workshop by Sue Brenner. I was very happy with it and then decided to add “pish dots” made with vintage kimono silk. These were sewn or glued on attempting to make it look like seeds were emerging from the “pod”. #impossibleseedpod, #naturesartinstitch, #naturesartmotes

Then just today I finished my small quilt titled “Garden Treasure” which will be submitted into an exhibit, “Elements” at the First United Methodist Church in Boulder.

Garden Treasure

Below is “Leaves Apparent” also submitted to the Elements exhibit. These leaves were gelli plate printed on organza, collaged and fused. Added were hand stitching and machine quilting.

My two quilts have been accepted into RMQM’s Evolutions exhibit for 2022. They are titled “Emergent” and “Backcountry Hillside”. Today I was surprised that “Emergent” is on the postcard that the museum mails to all their patrons! That is a first for me.

This uses hand-dyed fabric, vintage kimono silk, painted and printed organza, hand stitching and machine quilting.

Below is my newest spirit doll names “Quinn”. My spirit dolls were inspired by Emily Dickinson’s line of poetry: “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in your soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.” I have composed two haikus which I print on the labels for my dolls, along with their names.

When hope enters in

With wings and feathers flying

Hold on with your heart

This was composed during lockdown, closures and cancellations of so many events scheduled for 2020. Creating the spirit dolls kept me busy and were a distraction from negative and depressed thoughts. Things seem a bit better in 2021, but still the virus changes our plans. “Fragile thoughts transcend. Hoping for new beginnings. Hope for endings too.

The exhibit called “Vibrant and Bold” will be showing my art quilt during the month of October 2021. My piece is titled “Lichen on Blue”. It includes hand-painted silk, heat-distressed Tyvek, felted wool, silk, hand painted cotton and yarn with hand stitches and machine quilting. I am excited because it is only my second lichen piece to be selected to be exhibited. I have a series of lichen quilts. Below is a detail of some hand stitching with French knots and the felted wool on this quilt.

Below is an image of my newest art quilt. This began as an original painting, then it was manipulated with a phone app and printed on cotton sateen and machine quilted. I added thread painted shafts of “wheat” using gold thread to float in the wind. This one is currently in the exhibit at R Gallery for the Seven Deadly Sins. This is titled, “Winds of Wrath”.

Today I worked on 2 vases that were formerly art quilts. This involved some cutting, stitching and a few additions (embellishments and a bottom to the vase).

Just completed the below quilt using a new technique – disperse dyes.  I took an online workshop on disperse dyeing from Gillian Cooper in Scotland. We had so much fun creating some beautiful fabric using dye powder mixed with water and ironing painted papers onto polyester fabrics.  I used flannel, velvet, organza and some lining fabric to create the piece displayed here.  Such fun and unusual results using masks and stencils.  The trees were painted on stabilizer and cut on my Silhouette electronic cutter.  

Face of Fiber is an annual invitational exhibit being held in the Estes Park, CO art center from June 11th through July 17th. Here are 2 of my quilts that will be on view in person or online in the power point presentation with link below.

You can look at all 68 pieces by using this link.  The PowerPoint runs about 15 minutes: https://1drv.ms/v/s!AnKj7RoYG0dMgUk2zaYnxp_tYOIv?e=wmjobB