#quilting Archives - Arnolds Attic

21st August 202421st August 2024

Janice Gunner – Meet the Artist

Janice Gunner is a leading textile artist, quilter, author, and quilt judge. A lifelong stitcher for over 50 years, Janice presents a major retrospective of her portfolio – ‘A Lifetime in Textiles’ exhibition.

Her exhibition takes you on a journey celebrating 50 years.

Janice Gunner: https://www.janicegunner.co.uk

Janice Gunner

Always striving to produce work of a high standard, Janice prefers to experiment with a wide range of styles and techniques.

Part of the Lifetime in Textiles exhibition

If there is one technique she is most known for, it is probably Shibori, also the title of one of her books.

Shibori Book by Janice : https://amzn.to/471jMlR

Janice is an award-winning textile artist, quilter, City & Guilds accredited tutor and author. Aside from creating and teaching, she holds a MA with Merit in Textiles at the University of the Creative Arts. Her current work using natural dyes, along with screen and digital printing, focuses on memory loss and absence and how they affect personality and relationships. Janice was recently awarded the Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles Education and Travel Bursary.

Denise Labadie – Meet the Artist

Denise Labadie’s art quilts feature either Celtic megalithic stones and monoliths – think Stonehenge – or monastic ruins and passageways. They are known for their moodiness, emotion and surprisingly true-to-life realism. Each piece is created using appliqué and strip piecing and Denise’s unique hand-painted fabrics. Denise has won multiple awards at Quilt National (USA), and she’s had major exhibitions in the US and worldwide.

Join Denise as she shares her work inspired by her love of Ireland.

Denise Labadie: https://labadiefiberart.com/

Denise Labadie

“I use a wide variety of colours, fabrics, threads, and yarns in my work, and then construct the actual quilt the same way as a stone mason builds a wall – individually sizing and cutting out, piecing, and appliquéing each stone, one by one, working from the bottom up – each stone a foundation for the others that it supports or neighbours. In contrast to the realism of the stones, my skies and landscapes – which are central to the context of place and the timelessness of these sacred sites – are far more abstract. I hand paint almost all my fabric (from which – as described above – I then individually cut out each stone).

The realistic colour and texture of my stones is achieved by using multiple layers of sun-reactive transparent Seta color paints, plus various resists, in combination with (while wet) the aggressive folding, twisting, wrapping, bunching or pleating of the fabric, and (while drying) the application of sand, different types of salt crystals, sugar, dirt, and the like – basically, doing or using most anything that can influence or cause differential paint absorption, diffusion, blending, patterning, or mottling. Resulting fabrics can be remarkable.

I then use selective combinations of multiple appliqué techniques (reverse, turned edge, and raw edge), insetting, free-form strip piecing, couching, and “thread shadowing” (similar to thread painting) – plus an occasional very localised dab of paint – to achieve my trademark quilt top textures, lighting, depth of field, and shadowing and perspective. Throughout, full attention is given to proper craftsmanship, “sweating the details”, and technique precision.“ – Denise Labadie.

Filmed at the Festival of Quilts 2023.

For a more inspiration, please browse the ‘Meet the Artist’ collection on my YouTube Channel.

9th August 20239th August 2023

Grenfell Memorial Quilt

A little textile inspiration from my YouTube Collection. Today it features the community textile project – the Grenfell Memorial Quilt.

On the night of June 14th 2017, 72 people lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in London.

The memorial quilt project was created by the ‘artivist’ Tuesday Greenidge, whose daughter escaped from the tower fire. When Grenfell Tower caught alight her daughter was in the lift. She managed to escape and safely get to her mother’s home to tell her Grenfell was on fire. Tuesday guides us through the quilts and explains the hidden meaning in some of the pieces.

The Grenfell Quilt Logo

In the five years since, Greenidge has been working on a quilt in memory of the 72 people who lost their lives that night. The individual artworks will be pieced together to create a single quilt the height of Grenfell Tower.