[upbeat music]
- Hello, I'm Tammie Bowser from Mosaic Quilt Studio.
And today I'm gonna show you how to sew art,
but I'm not gonna show you what you've seen before.
I want you to consider some new things,
and I hope to inspire you to make art quilts.
I want you to imagine that you can make quilts
that are museum-quality quilts,
and I wanna show you exactly how I do that the easy way.
This is an example of one of my students
who has followed my instructions,
and you can see the amazing portrait she has there hanging
at a quilt show.
In showing you these quilts from my students,
I want to prove to you that I'm not the only one
that can do this.
Here's six ladies that did it,
and they made these quilts in a three-hour class.
Here's some more student quilts.
They have done amazing things,
just follow the simple instructions.
And this is like a kit from the class.
And it just turns out just fantastic.
I think this portrait of this puppy is really beautiful.
And so there's many more students,
and I'm gonna prove to you that you can do it too.
But first I want to tell you a little bit more about myself.
I began sewing at four years old.
I made my own clothes in junior high school.
There's me on the left.
I made that purple velvet miniskirt,
and I had a matching vest.
And I remember making it by hand, sewing it by hand.
My grandmother showed me how.
I eventually went on to fashion school,
the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising
here in Los Angeles.
And I worked in the business as a pattern maker
for many years.
And it's probably part of why
I have such a different approach to making art, to quilting.
I mean, 'cause when I think about myself,
I don't really think of myself as a quilter.
I think of myself as sort of an architect
and it's because of my background.
Here's a picture of me when I was a young design student.
And then after that, I just, you know,
this whole thing came about, making these art quilts
came about when I was at home watching quilting TV shows.
There was one in particular called Simply Quilts .
And I decided to try making a quilt
after watching those shows while I was at home
with my baby, and I made the first quilt
in a more traditional way.
And it took so long and I really was not wild about,
you know, the fact that it took me six weeks
to make a lap quilt.
So one night as I was falling asleep,
I just said a simple prayer.
I asked God to give me an idea, you know,
and I woke up with an idea.
And the idea, I was wondering how to make,
if it's possible to make a photograph using fabric.
And so I went about, it took me about a week.
I went about, you know, I had theories in my mind,
it woke up with theories and the idea as to how to do it.
And it took me about a week to make a pattern,
and I did it and I thought it was horrible.
I couldn't see the picture.
And I thought, "What a waste of time."
I pasted it up on the wall in this very room, in fact,
and I didn't see it until I was trying to leave the house
to go to the supermarket or something.
And as I walked away from it, man, I saw the picture.
I couldn't believe it.
And it was really, you know,
it was really like that "aha" moment.
I hope you get that "aha" moment that I'm talking about soon.
I'm gonna give you some details, but so I made those first quilts
and wow, I just decided, "Okay,
"I'm gonna figure out how can I share this?
"How can I share this with other people?"
And so I made a little book that I printed at Kinko's
or someplace, a copy shop.
And I decided to do a quilt show
and try to see if people would like it.
And nobody, nope.
I didn't sell not one thing.
I did two or three shows and I decided,
"Man, this is a bad idea.
"I can't go any further.
"If I don't have, you know, something
"that's more substantial than this
"and make people get their attention."
And I decided to write a proposal to a book publisher.
And I also decided to email Alex Anderson
from the Simply Quilt show that I had been watching
and see if I could be on the show.
And I got a reject notice from the book publisher,
but I had one last thing I was waiting to see
if they would call me for, I mean, it was a long shot.
Don't get me wrong, it was a long shot, but I waited,
you know, I didn't have anything else to do with, you know,
and a few months later the producers emailed me
and told me my date to come on the show was in June.
[laughing] It was outrageous.
I felt like, I had never even been
in a quilt shop at this point.
So I made more quilts.
Here's me on that day.
I didn't have time to write a book.
So what I did, 'cause I didn't wanna miss my chance.
What I did was I made the book cover,
and I pasted it on the front of another book.
And that's what I had on the set on national TV.
I mean, can't believe I did that, but I did,
but it worked too.
So there's me on that day, I didn't have the real book.
So we taped the show in June and I began to write the book
in July, and it took me six weeks to complete the book.
I had to learn how to publish.
I had to learn how to, you know, do all the things
that are required to publish a book.
It took me the same six weeks as it took me
to make that more traditional lap quilt
that I made before, the first quilt I ever made.
So I knew when I ordered the books, you know,
when you self-publish, one of the things
that makes things a little bit different
than when you publish through an outside publisher
is that they deliver the books to your house.
You know, and I ordered 5,000 books
and I live in a 750-square-foot house.
So, you know, I just remember
them unloading all these books.
So I knew I needed to sell some books,
and I decided to go to the big Quilt Market
and Quilt Festival and you know, I was all in.
So I did go and I start to get more attention.
There's on more of the TV shows,
including Nancy Zieman and Sewing with Nancy .
It was very exciting.
And it's, you know, it's still remarkable to me
when I look back at all the things that occurred
just from this one little idea.
So my work has been in many books, many magazines,
and I'm gonna show you how, just show you how right now.
So what is this quilted photography?
I want to show you what it is.
It's very simple.
It's squares of fabric put together in a way
that causes you to see a photo.
It's a study in color value.
That's one of the major things.
I'm gonna give you some tools on how you can understand it.
Hopefully before we finish, you'll be able to even
just look at fabric and notice the color value.
It's a weekend project.
And it's an exciting way to transform
your cherished photos into works of art.
So if you look really close at any image,
whether you're on a computer screen
or whether you're on your phone or even a newspaper,
it's always pixels.
Those pixels are just colors, or values.
You know, that one of the things,
I haven't mentioned this yet,
when I was wondering if I can put fabrics together
to create an image using these pixels,
I didn't know if it was gonna be a lot of pixels
or if it was required to have, you know,
hundreds of fabrics to make the image appear.
So my initial experiments were reducing the numbers
of pixels and also reducing the numbers of fabrics.
Of course, to keep it simple.
We want to make it easy, not make it hard.
So this is the book I made,
that first book I really did make.
I really did publish the book, and let me show you
what is in there and how these pixels become an art quilt.
All the patterns are just squares with numbers.
And so the patterns always have numbers in those squares
and that represents the color value of the fabrics.
And it looks complicated, but it's really not.
If you're using nine fabrics,
the numbers would only be one through nine.
One is the lightest and it progressively moves up
to the darkest.
That's it.
And so when you make your palette at the beginning,
you just make it light to dark.
Number them, one is a lightest up to the darkest,
and where the numbers are, you place those fabrics there.
And as you keep placing the fabrics
according to the numbers,
the photograph just shows up in fabric.
It's pretty wild, it's pretty great.
And this is, really the bottom line, it's the basis.
I mean, we're gonna get a little more fancy than this,
but this is the bare basics of what quilted photography is.
I really like what Vincent van Gogh said in 1885.
He says, "The best pictures, and from a technical point
"of view, the most complete, seen from nearby,
"are but patches of color side by side,
"and only make an effect at a certain distance."
That's exactly what this is.
So I really didn't make it up.
It's something that is,
it's just always there in your everyday life,
you just probably haven't noticed it.
Nancy Zieman, she spotted me at Quilt Market
probably a year or two after that initial book.
And I have this quilt here on the cover.
It's a picture of my grandmother hanging in my booth,
and she saw that and she said, "Well, what is this?"
You know, and I told her, "I call it quilted photography."
And she invited me to come on her show,
but this book was a little bit different
because I was tired of sewing all of those squares together.
And I was wondering, "Can I just fuse them down?
"You know, will it work?
"You know, will it still look like the picture?"
I really didn't know.
And so everything has been an experiment,
and I share my triumphs or my things that work.
And I also share my failures,
but this was one that was really, really good.
I also had to learn how to do free motion.
'Cause remember, I wasn't really a quilter.
Even though the end product looks a little different,
'cause I'm not lining up and put it, matching a square
into each square pixel.
I still start with a grid with numbers.
It's the same thing, you know,
just because there's a line here or a line there
doesn't mean I have to stay in the lines.
So in this book I started to place fabrics, twisting them,
turning them so that I'm following the numbers,
but not staying in the lines, and fusing them down
instead of sewing all of those seams.
You can use, you know, squares and twist them and turn them.
You can also use strips.
This is one technique I really like
because you get the chance to learn the concepts.
And the quilt goes together very, very, very quickly,
like a day or so.
You keep following the numbers, and the more numbers
that are in the same row, that's how big the piece becomes.
You can also turn them the other direction
if the number dictates that.
That's one of my favorite techniques for beginners.
And so this quilt is, it's a quilt of my grandmother,
and actually it was traveling in an exhibit
for quite a while.
And when it was finished,
I got a call from a museum and they wanted to purchase it
for their collection.
So I'm real proud of that.
And but I'm trying, you know--
My aim is to show you that you can do
the same thing because the process is easy.
So I'm still always exploring.
That's part of the fashion industry in me,
I'm always exploring new ideas and trying to understand
and stretch myself.
And so at this time, after that second book,
this time I was wondering, "Well, what would happen
"if I would slash it up and chenille it?"
You know, I didn't know if it would work.
It's just, you know, was it gonna be a failed experiment?
And of course, you see that there's a book.
So you know that it was not a failed experiment.
It works as well.
And it works really great.
But at the time Nancy Zieman, Sewing with Nancy ,
they were doing well, selling the book and the catalog.
And they heard that I was thinking about
doing a chenille book.
I don't know how they figured that out,
but I wasn't ready to do this book yet
because I was thinking about some other things,
and I'm gonna show you what those things were.
I was starting to be inspired by artists like van Gogh.
And I wanted to know or figure out how I can make pixels
or quilts using pixels and have all of this
organic kind of movement.
You know, I wanted to be able to stitch
and do all of these things.
In the last book with the ballerina,
I was avoiding free motion
because I didn't know how to do it.
I had never--
I have never taken a quilt class to this day.
So for that, I had an embroidery machine
and I digitized the spiral and then I hooped it over and over
for the one that the museum purchased.
So I was skipping around, avoiding this free motion.
But at this time after, you know, after this,
I didn't want to do anymore of that.
And I was looking at artists like this,
and I just wanted to figure out how is it possible to make
my quilts look more like, you know, more like true art,
not like, you know, digital stuff.
So I also like Andy Warhol because he uses color in a way
that's, you know, not necessarily traditional.
And I found that I liked that approach as well.
And here's another saying by Vincent van Gogh, he says,
"Instead of trying to reproduce exactly
"what I have before my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily,
"in order to express myself more forcibly."
And that is exactly right.
You know, if you decide to try what you've seen today so far,
I urge you not to look for ugly, flesh-tone fabrics.
They're not very pretty.
There's much more that you already have,
much more beautiful things out there,
and they make fabulous, fabulous quilts.
Here's another artist, his name is Chuck Close.
And I liked him because he is, you know,
playing around with pixels as well,
and he does fabulous work.
They're using paint, of course, but still fabulous.
And Gustav Klimt.
I saw these paintings and I was like, "Wow,
"look at all of those textures and all these things."
You know, to me, I'm thinking in fabric,
that would be amazing, so it was like,
I was trying to figure it out and look,
this is what I came up with.
And I'm gonna show you why it's exactly the same thing.
I have written a book, How to Sew Art ,
and it's still starts with a grid with numbers.
You know, like, you're wondering "How is that even possible?"
Well, you see the numbers,
and if the numbers are the same and touching,
those numbers get grouped together into a bigger piece.
And then you round off all the edges
because when you do a portrait, there's no hard corners.
So each piece is different because it all depends
on the shape of the piece.
All depends on what the numbers are
and where they are relation to one another.
If they're touching, then they become one piece.
So you just follow the numbers.
And the end result is something like this one.
This is my quilt called "Song."
I actually entered Quilt National in 2007.
And I won the Japan Award.
I hope you are learning something so far
'cause I do not withhold any secrets to keep you
from having the same kind of success
I've had with these ideas and with using pixels
in such an amazing way, but we haven't talked too much.
I've only talked a little bit about what makes it work
and that's color value.
And I'm gonna show you that in just a moment,
but this quilt, "Song" has also been recently
purchased back by the people at Quilt National
for the International Quilt Museum.
So I'm really proud of that.
And I made this quilt in just two weeks.
How is that possible?
It's because it's simple.
It really is.
So color value, let's talk about it for a moment.
Color value is what causes you to see 3D images pop out.
Look how you see all of these shapes coming out at you
and it's just light, medium, and dark.
That's what causes it to happen.
There's another example of what you can do with 3D.
There's the houses look like they're coming
off of the quilt.
So this technique or this understanding of color value,
I'm gonna give you some tools in a moment.
This understanding of color value
will make your art quilts better
if you're doing quilts like mine,
or it'll also make it better if you do traditional quilts.
So this is an important, important skill to have.
To see color value.
You see those triangles and squares coming right at you,
but it has to do with color value.
I mean, I know when you go in a quilt shop
or at a quilt show,
and you're looking at all the fabrics,
everyone's always drawn to the most beautiful,
colorful fabrics.
But if you have a quilt of only those, then it becomes flat.
What makes these boxes?
They're hollow boxes, makes you see those,
those shapes and these images,
it's because of light, medium, and dark.
So if you incorporate, make it your mission
to always incorporate light, medium, and dark
in any of your quilts,
it's gonna make those beautiful, bright mid-tones show up
and be able to be seen a lot better.
So here's one of the ways I do it,
I call it the photocopy method.
And you just tape 'em to your fabric choices,
try to get light, medium, and dark fabrics,
and put them on a sheet of paper.
Well, nowadays you can use your cell phone
to take a picture and change it to gray scale.
You can also use a photocopy machine.
You just photocopy them in gray scale.
And what that does is it erases the color
and leaves the value and makes it easy to see.
Now you're not distracted by the color anymore.
And then you just move them in order
from the lightest to the darkest.
Look how different that looks.
And then when you put it back and in a regular colors,
then you're not confused by it.
That's one of the best ways to do it.
Here's one of my other great techniques that I really like.
And it's called-- I use a value isolation tool.
That's what I like to call it.
And if I placed my fabrics in order,
my intention is to go from light and dark
from this direct, you know,
starting from the lightest this way
and moving along toward the darkest.
I place the isolation tool on top.
And I only ask one question over and over.
My question is, "Is the second one here
"darker than this one here?"
And if the answer is yes, then you move over
and continue asking the same question over and over.
If you're trying to put a whole pile of fabrics in order
from light to dark,
and you don't have a method to break it down,
it's gonna seem like a really daunting task.
But if you break it down into smaller,
easy-to-answer questions, then it becomes simple.
So again, I'm gonna ask,
"Is this one here darker than this one before?"
I think it is, so then I move it over.
It's that simple.
And I'm gonna ask the question again.
It's only one question, "Is this one darker than this one?"
I don't think so.
So what do you do?
You just find its place.
Its place will have to be behind it somewhere
if it's lighter and not darker.
So you change it and you continue on.
Then you keep asking the same question.
You ask it again and again.
That one was lighter, so change it.
And then it's in its right order.
So I hope you understand that.
If you want to come to my website,
you can and request one of those value isolation tools,
because this is a valuable tool.
And I hope you will use that in all your quilts.
Another way I like to do it is by using software.
My software method.
I have software called Valuations,
and you scan your fabrics, little pieces of your fabric
and make JPEG files.
And then you just click "load fabrics."
And then you locate wherever you saved those fabrics,
locate them and select them all; when we push "okay,"
they will show up in the window, all of them.
And the last thing you need to do
is push the button up here,
"sort fabric," and look what happens,
puts them in order from light to dark, just like that.
So you can also find that at howtosewart.com.
Again, I'm gonna give you an overview.
This is a quick overview, so you see the whole process.
So again, we always start with that grid with numbers.
Those numbers are not complicated
and they're not scary.
They just represent color value.
You choose your fabrics, any fabrics you like,
but the rule is you have to have lights, mediums, and darks.
You put them in order from light to dark,
you can use the photocopy method.
You can use the fabric isolation method.
You can even use the software method.
And then you put them in order from light to dark.
And I like to place them, if I'm using small pieces,
in a craft box like this and number the compartments
so I remember what number each fabric is,
so I'm not struggling when I'm putting the quilt together.
So the pattern also gives more information,
like how much fabric you're gonna need,
how many of each square of each color,
all the information you need.
The pattern prints out in 8.5 x 11
sheets of paper, and you tape 'em together
to get the whole picture.
I lay the pattern on the table and I always put
some sort of stabilizer interfacing
with the sticky side up right on top of the pattern.
And I like to use a nice lightweight interfacing
because it allows you to see the numbers right through it.
And then you place the fabrics by the numbers,
pulling them from the little craft box
and following the numbers.
And the more you follow the numbers,
the more the picture shows up in the fabric.
It's simple, but it's really amazing.
So if you want to get Valuations, you know, you can,
I want to offer you a 50% offer for bearing with me
and listening to me.
So if you wanted, if you're interested in that,
you can get it for $20.
Also, if you know, if you want to try quilted photography,
my software is called Quilted Photo Deluxe,
and I want to offer you a $70 off Quilted Photo Deluxe.
I will throw Valuations automatically included
in the software package.
And of course, I'll send you a value isolation tool
to go with it for free.
You'll also get my online video course
to go with it for free 'cause I don't wanna let you
get the software and you forget everything
I just showed you and explained.
So if you wanna get that special,
go to howtosewart.com/deal.
If you were interested in any of my books,
they are available on Amazon.
You can search for How to Sew Art or Quilted Photography ,
and you'll be able to find all five of them.
So I want to thank you for watching.
And I hope you learned something today.
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