Tag Archives: hand stitching

Beyond Snapshots

I remember telling my son I wanted to use his photographs in my art quilts but I didn’t mean printed on fabric; I meant the actually photograph. I know I’m not alone in wanting to use photographs in combination with fabric and fibers. In today’s post I share a few from other artists and I thank them for granting me permission to share their work here.

If there is a quilt maker in a family there’s a pretty good chance at least one memory quilt has been made that includes special photographs celebrating a person, a day, or an event.

Fellow quiltmaker Ruth O’Neil shared her bookshelf quilt top. It has a photograph printed on fabric of her brother along side her niece’s daughters and books with titles (all but one) from a her niece’s favorite author. The plant near the top has 3 dimensional leaves.

Ruth made the quilt below after a safari trip. I think the pattern and fabrics work really well with the photographs.

Ruth O’Neil artist

Ruth also shared this quilt. Her daughter gifted her fabric printed with these photographs and the blue batik. Ruth and her fur baby obviously are fans of this guy!

Ruth O’Neil artist

Susan Lenz is a prolific artist of unique work. Many of Susan’s pieces include vintage photographs or her own, some she digitally alters before they are printed on paper or fabric. To the printed photos she will add stitches and embellishments… sometimes framing them because Susan is also a professional framer. Susan always posts excellent stories and explanations about her artwork and her travels, if you haven’t already, I suggest checking out her website and blog, where the below images can be seen in greater detail.

Susan Lenz artist
Susan Lenz artist (detail of Palmer-Epard Log Cabin), see her blog for full image. Note all the hand stitches in the sky!

Joanna Mack aka The Snarky Quilter takes photographs that often capture textures, shadows, and light. She sometimes uses filters in photoshop software to alter her photos. Always learning as much as she can, Joanna explores and produces projects using a variety of techniques and methods.

I wish I could say that we collaborated but this piece is entirely hers. Joanna won a small, painted fabric landscape in one of my blog post giveaways. She started with a photograph she’d taken of a rusty textured (outdoor fireplace) barrel, altered it in Photoshop, had it printed on fabric, and later cut it into strips.

She cut the landscape fabric too and stitched it to her barrel pieces and then, as she writes on her blog; “I quilted it to resemble chain link fencing covered with the stems of weeds. The edges are finished with paint and yarn.”

“A Cell With A View.” by Joanna Mack

I appreciate that Joanna has had some of her photographs printed on different types of fabric and shares her thoughts about each one on her blog. To read more about “A Cell With A View” and see her other projects and be inspired, visit her blog.

Petra Heidrich is a textile and mixed media artist in Germany. She embellishes vintage photographs, postcards, and sometimes paper, using thread and floss. Petra’s embroidery layer draws me in, and then I look past it and notice the photograph. I think the embroidery stitches and photographs play and work very well together.

On her website, Petra writes – “I like to refer to embroidery as “painting with thread.”

Petra Heidrich artist
Petra Heidrich artist
Petra Heidrich artist

I recently rediscovered a box of postcards I’d gotten years ago from my parent’s estate. In the box I found a postcard that just called to be made into a photograph on fiber piece. I contacted the photographer, Bill Banaszewski, to ask for permission. So that he’d have some idea of what I had planned I attached two images from my Photograph on Fiber series. Not only did he give me permission to use his photograph but he also wrote that his wife is a quilter!

In my original Photograph on Fiber series pieces I mounted the photo under/onto plexiglass, I don’t use it anymore, otherwise the process is essentially the same. My landscape is mounted onto a acid-free board for hanging and for this piece I slightly edited a scanned and printed copy of the postcard’s back to use as the label.

Label on backboard.

Bill has been photographing New York’s Finger Lakes for years. To see his photographs and learn more go to Finger Lakes Images.

The photograph, in this piece a postcard, is mounted about 3/4″ (not quite 2 cm) above the art quilt.

“Finger Lakes” Photograph on Fiber, mixed media art quilt by Ann L Scott. Postcard photograph, by Bill Banaszewski.
“Finger Lakes” detail.

I hope the pieces in this post have inspired you as much as they have me.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

I remember…

I remember when I got rid of all of my embroidery paraphernalia; when I became a quilter! Before then, for years, I embroidered everything. Then a few years ago I discovered mark making with thread, more specifically, floss. So, off I went to buy all of  those embroidery tools and materials, again. But now I approach embroidery differently, not so much flowery, cutesy stuff but more as another layer and bit of interest to add to mixed media works of art. Having said that, this is what I did this week while resting with the flu. It is on a piece of my hand painted pole wrapped cotton (faux Shibori).

Even if the subject is no longer my cup of tea, it was fun to draw and stitching it was really good for my motor skills which have been feeling clumsy lately.

When Photo meets Fiber

I love to see how some artists combine photography and fiber. Today I’m posting the fabulous work of two artists who approach and combine those two mediums very differently.

Gunnel Svensson takes wonderful photographs and has them printed on fabric. She then stitches them and adds fabric and fiber embellishments. I’m fascinated by her tiny mark making hand stitches.

gunnel svensson photo
Gunnel Svensson’s image used with permission.

Photographer and artist Melissa Zexter actually stitches directly on her photographs. This method not only adds a textural element to her works, but causes the viewer to stop and examine the layers more closely.

melissa zexter image used with permission
Melissa Zexter’s image used with permission.

I’ll end with a couple of my own pieces from my Photograph on Fiber series. I thank both Gunnel Svensson and Melissa Zexter for so graciously allowing me to share just a bit of their wonderful artwork. I hope you will visit each of their websites; there is much more inspiration to be found there!

Fescue Traveler
Fescue Traveler by Ann
Bodywork
Bodywork by Ann