It's Finished - Hoodoos!

I just couldn't stop!  This art quilt consumed me so much that I just HAD to keep going on it and it is now finished.


All hand dyed and hand painted fabrics. The sky fabric is shibori indigo dyed and has been written on in block and script lettering "hoodoos".


Size 13" x 23"











 The sky is quilted on the diagonal with the word "hoodoos" in variegated blue thread.

Hand stitching accentuates the texture of the hills.


There are more photos in the listing of this piece in my Etsy shop (kathykinsella.etsy.com)

Just for Me

This one's for me! 

You might have already guessed that I have a bit of a thing for spawning sockeye salmon ... I have worked on this theme from time to time over the past five years and never seem to tire of it. This art quilt has been created using hand dyed fabric by Judy Robertson. I love the vibrant red-purple pieces that I used for the salmon ... and the background piece made a gorgeous non-traditional watery setting. This is an art quilt that I started in a workshop with Catherine Nicholls over a year ago and Catherine really challenged me in the design and the four light sources on the rocks (and helped out when I couldn't see where those shadows should go!).  I'm not sure that I really got it right, but I loved the effect, once it was all quilted with watery blue variegated thread.

This measures approximately 30" square and is hanging over the fireplace in our living room.

Silk Fusion Wall Hanging - Whispers From the Deep

I started this silk fusion piece in July so that I would have a "work in progress" to work on while I was volunteering at the Festival of the Arts . . . and I immediately realized that it was going to be one of my favourites! It has been on my design wall and I have worked on it occasionally in between other projects and I have thoroughly enjoyed every stitch that has gone into it.  Let me tell you a bit about it . . .

I created the silk fusion using silk hankies and throwsters silk in shades of smokey blue and lavender through magenta.  The piece was formed into a softly curved crescent with lots of feathery edges as well as added texture in the interior of the piece.

After it was dry, the silk fusion was then free motion stitched to a background of royal purple dupioni silk and the background was further enhanced with free motion quilting. I left two areas without the dense machine quilting and later added seed stitches by hand, stitching only into the batting and not all the way through to the backing, so those areas are a bit puffy. I added layered hand embroidery on top of the silk fusion before stitching the gorgeous silk carrier rod in place and then funneling beads into the top and out of the bottom end of the rod.

This is a wall hanging that measures 9.5" x 24.5" (24 x 62 cm) and can be hung by a concealed dowel through the sleeve on the back. The backing is a beautiful batik that has the same colours as the top. It will eventually be for sale through my Etsy shop, but for now I would like to hang onto it and enter it in a couple of shows.


The dyed silk that I used in this silk fusion is some that I purchased through the Etsy seller, Nunoco, in England. The silk carrier rod that is stitched to the surface was the inspiration for the piece.

Fluttering By

 My butterflies art quilt had its first showing at the Salmon Arm Quilt Show earlier this month and it received lots of oohs and aaahs when visitors took the time for a close look at it.  It measures approximately 20" x 34" and I blogged the process in March if you would like to scroll down to find that post. I am pleased with the way that it has turned out and I'm sure that I will enjoy continuing the butterfly theme into future work.

Here is a detail shot of one of the butterflies. I created the butterflies separately and then machine appliqued them to the quilt before adding hand stitches. The bodies of the butterflies are wet-felted wool. If you click on the photos you can zoom in for a closer look.

This art quilt has been entered in the Shuswap Lake Festival of the Arts show in July.
UPDATE: This piece was awarded "Jurors' Choice Award" at the SLFA July 2013.

Northern Lights Art Quilt

Sometimes an image lodges in my mind and I can't let go of it . . . that is the way it has been with the thoughts of this art quilt depicting the Northern Lights.  Since "the kids" moved to the Yukon a couple of years ago I have become enraptured by the history and the landscape of that beautiful part of the world.

The northern lights can be many colours and shapes . . . they might greens and yellows that swirl and dance, or pinks and purples that envelop the sky, or any combination. I wanted to portray their ethereal quality using soft wisps of wool roving needle felted into a dark sky . . . and so this art quilt was born.

The sky was needle felted onto a base of two layers of black quilt batting that were first felted with midnight blue roving with a touch of violet added to it and then the northern lights were added with wisps of light greens, yellow and a touch of blue, some of which have a bit of gloss to the wool.

The tree line and lower section of the quilt were created using hand dyed fabric that I over-painted with a wash of black and green textile paint to further subdue it. That fabric was backed with fusible web and then I freehand cut the tree line.

The northern lights were free motion stitched in sweeping curves, using invisible thread and the lower section was quilted in a free motion design somewhat representative of a forest.

This art quilt measures 13" x 22.5" (33 x 57 cm) and is backed with black cotton with a hanging sleeve.

I can see that this will be only the first of a series of quilts with a northern lights theme ... in fact, I might have to go and start the next one right now . . .

Sorrento is 100 Years Old

I live near the village of Sorrento which is located about half way between Vancouver and Calgary on the Trans Canada Highway.  This year Sorrento is celebrating it's 100th Anniversary and there are lots of celebrations taking place throughout the year.

The Shuswap Lake Festival of the Arts is an art show and sale that takes place in the village every July.  This year I wanted to create something that would speak to the 100th anniversary, and I decided on an art quilt that would represent a bit of the landscape of the area and have some words that would celebrate 100 years.

I was originally going to do a topographical map of the area but started sketching a slightly aerial view looking down the lake and my hubby was so taken with the sketch that he convinced me I should try this image in fabric.  In this image, Sorrento is located in the foreground of the piece (I chose not to include any buildings or highways ... only the land and the lake which have remained the same for 100 years) and looking further east down the lake you can see Copper Island in the middle and the mouth of Blind Bay on the right side (since it really is a blind bay, you can't see that opening when you are just looking east at lake level ... but I wanted to have it more noticeable since that's where I live!).

The dates, 1912 - 2012 and the name, Sorrento BC, have been stencilled onto the asymmetrical borders using Shiva Paintstiks in two colours to give the letters a bit of character. The texture that has been quilted over the landscape portion has been achieved by writing a little story about Sorrento in free motion quilting.  It is my first attempt at writing free motion so I am sure that future art quilts will show some improvement but I am very pleased with the effect that it creates.  Both the stencilling and the quilted writing were something that was covered in a course I took this spring with Catherine Nicholls ... it was a great workshop and I came away with numerous things that I would like to experiment with.

The heart that is quilted into the top left corner of the quilt is there because Sorrento is known as
"The Heart of the Shuswap".

Tree of Life - the finale

It's been a long time since my last blog post so . . . . as I said at that time, this tree of life landscape was commissioned to be used as a book cover so there were some design factors that had to be considered for it to be functional as well as an inspiring piece of art.  After a consultation, we decided to eliminate the roots of the tree and bring in more of the spring garden aspect of the landscape.

I re-worked the lower section of the landscape with a cheery hand dyed green fabric and then added flowers in the garden with hand embroidery.  It is a representation of the memorial garden at Sorrento Centre.

The book cover was then cut down the spine and I inserted another piece of hand dyed fabric that I printed with the name of the centre.  There is a pocket in the front flap to hold pamphlets or papers and it has been tightly fit to the scrapbook sized binder.

Work in Progress - Tree of Life Landscape

It's been ages since I have last posted new work ... but it's certainly not because I have been idle.  The winter has been full of fibre art experiments, workshops and dabblings . . . and now that spring is underway, I feel that I would like to post some photos of a piece that I am working on right now.

This is a small art quilt that will not see life as a wall hanging, but as a book cover ... I will post more on that, and final photos, once it has been presented to the organization that commissioned it.  In order to make this as durable as possible, I had to reject some of the techniques and fibres that I might have liked to use in this piece.  Because it will be handled (although not heavily) I felt that I should use woven fabric and stitching to achieve the look I wanted.  The fabric is all hand-dyed or hand-painted ... some of it by me, some by others.

The background design is a slightly abstract landscape of our beautiful Shuswap Lake and the tree has been created as a tree-of-life, with the roots going down into the ground and the branches and leaves reaching to heaven.  The tree has some limbs that have been cut off at some time, but the other branches are still carrying on and bringing life to the myriad leaves, represented by hand stitching in a variety of green threads.

There is still more work to be done on it, but I am pleased with how it is developing.

Daisy a Day

This is a little art quilt that I created as a sample for a class I will be teaching at Pleasant Valley Quilt Shop in Armstrong, BC in April. The main focus of the class will be creating a piece of unique fabric from bits and pieces of fabric, thread, glittery bits and organza and then the participants will use that piece of unique fabric to embellish an art quilt, a purse or a greeting card. It is such a fun "play day" and I thought you might like to see how I translated it into an art quilt.

The centres of the flowers are heavily beaded with additional bead dangles and the dragonfly is adorned with a few tiny seed beads and black sequins for his big eyes ... the wings have been made from Angelina that has been stitched with silver thread.

The grasses blowing in the breeze have been created from organza that has been stitched and then the edges have been left to fray in order to create more wisps.

The stem of the plant has been created by layering two decorative ribbons and yarn and then free motion stitching to give even more texture. The leaves on the plant are made from another piece of unique fabric that I created in green tones.

The background has been stitched in midnight blue thread. The outer edge of the art quilt has been couched with shiny black cord.

This art quilt measures approximately 12" x 20"

"Fiery Incline" - A Three-Dimensional Art Quilt

I have been playing with the idea of creating a 3-D art quilt for some time and this fabric called out to me to try it!

The fiery oranges and rusts are set off by the black silk and fibre that have come to remind me of a forest fire on a steep slope ... can you find the charred fir needles?

This is a three-sided vessel that is 13-1/2" tall and has a 6" base. The foundation fabric was created as a strip-pieced quilt which was then cut up and stitched together again as pieces that would eventually form a vessel.

The bottom is weighted with plastic pellets so that it doesn't tip over and there are numerous embellishment techniques that have been used on the surface. It is a delightful piece that has much potential.

This entry won a Juror's Choice award at the Shuswap Lake Festival of the Arts July 15th.

From Fallen Oak Leaves to Art Quilts

Last fall I spent some time picking up fallen oak leaves and acorns in Salmon Arm and I had a great time experimenting with the various ways these could be incorporated into art quilts.

I love working with hand-dyed fabrics and this beautiful light sage green piece is one that I'd saved for quite a while before the right project came along for it. I love the way that I was able to create a circle of oak leaves by rubbing the real leaves with dye sticks and then creating organza leaves from the same shapes and layering them in the centre of the quilt.

The stitching is a combination of hand embroidered seed stitches, with varying combinations of brown and green in the threads, and free motion machine quilting. The finishing touch is some beautiful hand-dyed and hand-spun yarn from a friend . . . with some of the acorns threaded onto the yarn. There are just a few clear beads stitched onto the quilt. Approximately 18" square.

Click on the images to enlarge them to see more detail.


The photo of the second quilt made in this manner is actually done on a piece of commercial batik and the leaves are arranged in such a way that the stitching around them created a bit of a heart shape . . . the pale gold colours have just a touch of rust and they swirl with a bit of bluish-grey to create a beautiful backdrop for the leaves. Approximately 16" x 20".

I will be teaching this as a workshop at Sun Peaks Resort in July 2011. www.sunpeaksresort.com

More Spawning Salmon Art Quilts

It is now late September and fall is really in the air. The leaves on the trees are starting to change their colours and the air is decidedly cooler. The salmon are en route to their spawning grounds and already we are seeing the streams turn red from all the sockeye that are returning. It is so incredible to see how very red their body becomes and how the head is a true olive green. The best time to see them on the Adams River is October 2-24 when there is an abundance of salmon as well as lots of festivities celebrating the salmon. Roderick Haig Brown park, just across the Squilax bridge from the Trans Canada Highway is the place to go.

I couldn't stop at creating one spawning salmon art quilt this year so here are photos of two others.

This is a small art quilt (approximately 23 " x 11.5") with a background that is charcoal and black. The background is also hand stitched and beaded and the salmon has additional hand stitching. It has additional organza ripples and free motion machine stitching. This quilt is SOLD.


The next quilt is approximately 18" x 28" and it has been entirely free-motion machine quilted. It has been quilted quite densely and I am very pleased with the results. Be sure to click on the images to zoom in on the details . . .Many of the free motion designs used in this quilt were inspired by Leah Day (daystyledesigns.com) who has created and blogged over two hundred free motion designs that are posted on her website. What an incredibly talented person she is.

This art quilt won a Juror's Choice award at the Shuswap Lake Festival of the Arts in July 2011. SOLD

Spawning Salmon Art Quilt

2010 is the year of a big run of sockeye salmon that spawn in the Adams River, near our home. In October the river will be the scene of millions of these salmon that are returning to the river of their birth to lay their eggs. There is a salmon run every year . . . but every fourth year is a "dominant" run and this one is the biggest since 1913 with an estimate of 30 million sockeye spawning.

This art quilt has been made in honour of the salmon returning to the Adams River. The sockeye salmon becomes very red as it returns from the sea, the head becomes green and the shape changes. To see more about the salmon run click here.

This art quilt measures 19.5" x 27.5" and is constructed from synthetic crushed fabrics and dupioni silk that have a bit of sheen and iridescence that mimic the waters of the river and cottons that I have used to create the salmon and the rocks of the river bottom. The bright salmon eggs are laid in the gravel rock bed. This has been made using curved piecing as well as raw-edge applique to add some more texture to the water. There is hand embroidery and beading on the background as well as on the salmon and the tail-end of another salmon is ghost-stitched on the top left side.

If you click on the photo you will see more of the details of this piece.

UPDATED July 9, 2010: This art quilt has been awarded a "Juror's Choice" Award at the Shuswap Lake Festival of the Arts this week. This quilt is SOLD.

Horse Chestnut Leaf Art Quilt

This art quilt is made with hand painted fabric that I sun-printed with leaves and blossoms from my garden. I later used that fabric to produce a rubbing of a horse chestnut leaf from the beautiful tree outside my studio. If you are not familiar with horse chestnut trees, perhaps I should explain that their leaves are HUGE and the chestnuts that are produced must number in the tens of thousands on this one tree. So, you see, I have lots of reason to love and loathe the horse chestnuts :)

This art quilt showcases the rubbing of the horse chestnut leaf with machine quilting and hand stitching. The four small squares that hang below the leaf each have a chestnut stitched to them . . . from the prickly, spiny horse chestnut that is just opening to the remnant of the outer shell and the shiny chestnut within . . . the chestnuts at the upper loops have been drilled in order to hang like beads.

The edges of the quilt are finished with a handmade cord that I created and then couched to the outer edges. The same cord suspends the quilt from the wooden hanger which was purchased from Ten Thousand Villages.

This photo isn't the greatest (what else is new) but if you click on it, you can see the details more clearly.

Thanks for checking in to see my latest work.

Tree A

What an original title for this work "Tree A" . . . but I guess that is what it will be called until I come up with something more creative. This is a wall hanging that I worked on this past week and it has been an experiment in using techniques that I have worked with in the past incorporated into a quilt that came to be as a result of some serendipitous trees that appeared during the drying process of a piece of fabric that I painted. I wanted to bring the trees out by using this piece of the fabric in a landscape . . . but I wanted it to be a little less "realistic" than the last few landscapes I have done.

The result is this 17" x 23" art quilt. All the fabrics are hand-painted or hand-dyed by me and the foreground is constructed of cheesecloth, organza and other fibres that I needle felted by hand before applying it to the surface. There is even a bit of white cheesecloth "foam" around some of the rocks in the river.

You can click on the photo to see more of the detail. I'd be interested to know what you think.

Yet more purses

There can't be too many more new purses, can there?? Oh, yes -- here are a couple that haven't appeared in the blog yet -- and there are a few more waiting to be photographed so you'll just have to check back for them.

The bag created in the autumn colours is one that I made a few months ago but I've been having a hard time getting a good photo of it. It is slightly larger than my usual little bags (by maybe one inch) and the lines are much more geometric than my usual flowing swirly lines. Click on the photo for a zoom view.

The turquoise and dark brown bag is made from an Amy Butler fabric and is lined with a batik that echoes some of the colours.

Both these bags are in my Etsy shop, too, with photos of the inside as well.

Thanks for looking.

More little purses

I have been having lots of fun creating new little purses lately so here are a few more that have emerged this week. . . I'll add some more photos of others in the next while.

Most of these little bags are approximately 6" x 7" (give or take an inch) and have a strap that is long enough to wear across your body.

The first photo is of the detail on the flap of the purse that is shown on the model. I have included the model photo so that you can get an idea of the size and the way these little purses fit.

The third photo shows a bag that was made from re-purposed fabric given to me by a fibre art friend (so I'm not sure of the fibre content). The design and stitching is part of the original fabric and I have simply created a purse from it (this one has a little buttoned pocket on the inside, too) and then I added the bead cluster on the lower flap and bead trails on the front and back of the purse. The fabric has some "pleats" in part of it which adds to the texture and interest.

The brightly coloured bag was so much fun to make with leftovers from a quilt -- the little circles and ovals are added and stitched in layers and it has a wonderful bright lining in similar tones.

Finny Fantasy

This wall hanging started out as one of the samples for an upcoming embellishment class but I soon realized it was too large a project for this particular class -- and the theme might not have been the greatest for a bag (which it was to become) . . . but what a wonderful image for the wall! With a bit of creative cutting and re-positioning, the large fish and the smaller fry are heading off in search of who-knows-what. Of course, there's always one who wants to swim against the tide. You might have noticed that the fabrics are the same as those I used to create the fibre art purse in the previous posting . . .

Click on the image to see more of the details that include layering sheers, encasing glitter, layering gold netting and hand beading. It measures approximately 45" wide by 18" high.

Updated July 11, 2009 -- "Finny Fantasy" won a Juror's Choice Award at the Shuswap Lake Festival of the Arts in Sorrento this week.

Dragonfly Dreams

This art quilt is featured in a Treasury on Etsy until February 6/10 http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=111189.

This piece started off as an experiment in techniques and ended up being a wonderful, fanciful exploration of colour and texture. I hand-painted the background fabric in soft blues with a touch of violet and I hand-dyed the border fabric, cheesecloth, and pearl cotton used for some of the bobbin stitching. Commercial sheers create soft swirls that encase iridescent and silver particles and are further embellished with free-motion stitching and hand beading. The yarns used to create the grasses were cast-offs obtained from a spinner in Vancouver. The trails of beads are also stitched by hand.

The wings of the large dragonfly are created with cheesecloth and the smaller dragonflies clinging to the grasses are free-motion embroidered. . . Click on the image to see more detail.  SOLD