Post by CQA member, Lorraine Edmond
Elin Noble spoke to a standing-room crowd at our July 9 CQA program, where she dazzled us with her clamp-resist dyed fabric, her variegated thread, and her finished work, in the form of both art cloth and quilts. Elin has been dyeing fabric for about 30 years, which included a stint as the lab manager for ProChem. As a result of being asked the same process questions over and over, she wrote the popular and award-winning book “Dyes and Paints: A Hands-on Guide to Coloring Fabric,” which is now in print once again.
About ten years ago, Elin began making small quilts to use as teaching examples, and about three years ago, she began a series of whole cloth quilts. This year, one of her Fugitive Pieces quilts was included in Quilt National, where it also won a juror’s award. And if that isn’t envy-producing enough, you should see the pictures of her gigantic studio, which she shares with her husband, who is a sculptor. She now works on a long arm quilting machine, which makes it easier to do her intensive threadwork, especially on large pieces. She has a 16-foot-long work table as well as a separate dye and discharge room, with its own ventilation system, so she can work there year-round.
Marbling fabric is another interest, as is vat dyeing and working with degummed silk. Elin is no stranger to the Pacific Northwest (many of us have taken classes with her mother, Maurine Noble, over the years), and this time, she is in town on her way to teach at Coupeville, at the Pacific Northwest Art School. I am sure I’m not the only member of the audience who had a serious temptation to follow her right over there after such a tantalizing peek at her work.
You can see more of Elin's work as well as her teaching and exhibition schedule at http://www.elinnoble.com/
