She’s weaving the threads of LIFE

When the clutter prevented her from opening the door to her son’s

bedroom, Laura Wasilowski decided to do something about it. So, she

created a quilt.

Titled “Gus Cleans His Room,” the whimsical wall quilt features a

giant vacuum outside the bedroom window sucking everything out of the

room.

Wasilowski says her work is unique because there is a story behind

the illustrations she incorporates into each of her quilts and the

stories are usually funny.

“I have a quirky mind,” she said. “I live in a funny family. I’m

surrounded by comedians: my husband, son and daughter. This is how I

stand out from the rest of the family, by expressing my humor.”

Wasilowski creates the pictorial art quilts by fusing appliques

onto the fabric with the heat of an iron and then quilting it on the

machine. She teaches quilting and creates colorful hand-dyed fabrics

and threads available for sale through her business, ARTFABRIK, on

her website. A resident of Elgin, Ill., she travels around the

country sharing her expertise with members of quilt-making

organizations.

She will give a talk at the Glendale Quilt Guild’s meeting tonight

and conduct a daylong workshop Saturday at the Glendale Central

Library.

In her talk tonight, “I Quilt, Therefore, I Am,” she will show

different pieces of her artwork.

“I will tell the story of my life through my quilts,” she said.

“Then, at the end, I show them how I make my quilts. They get

entertained, and a little education.”

To keep her audience awake, she intersperses her talk with singing

parodies of folk songs, she said. Like in the song, “If I Had a

Hammer,” she changes the words to “If I Had an Iron.”

“I like to make people laugh,” she said. “It gives them a break

from the horrible things going on in the world. And, I’m addicted to

whimsy and goofiness.”

At Saturday’s workshop, her subject will be “Nine-Patch Polka.”

“She will take the nine-patch traditional quilt block and

demonstrate her fusing techniques,” said Ruth Berkey, president of

the Glendale Quilt Guild.

It’s a technique for making an abstract fused art quilt,

Wasilowski said. The appliques are applied to fabric by a fusible web

activated by the heat of an iron.

She compared it to cutting shapes out a piece of paper, which

gives you the flexibility to create organic shapes, like circles,

flowers, chairs and T-shirts flying out of a bedroom window.

“The glue on the webbing is so strong, it holds all the shapes in

place,” she said. “Stitching is another way to add a decorative

feature to the quilt, but in my case, the stitching is not

necessary.”

Marilyn Green of Burbank, the vice president of the guild, said

Wasilowski’s technique would help people who like to create their own

design for a quilt.

“Some people like to do their own house, their pets or children’s

faces, or favorite car,” she said.

As a gift for her niece, Green said she would like to make a quilt

that would depict the first house she purchased with her husband

after they were married.

“They’ve now sold that house, but this would be a nice memento of

their first home,” she said.

Wasilowski learned to dye and paint fabric while earning her

degree in costume design at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph

in Minnesota.

Twelve years ago she started a business of dyeing, stamping,

painting and silk screening onto fabric, and then began making

one-of-a-kind clothing -- or wearable art -- out of that fabric.

Her neighbor, Janet Dye, was a quilt maker, and introduced her to

the art, which led her to incorporating her fabrics into art quilts.

FYI:

WHAT: Glendale Quilt Guild’s monthly meeting featuring Laura

Wasilowski of ARTFABRIK, www.artfabrik.com

WHEN: 6:30 p.m. social, 7 p.m. tonight

MEETINGS: The second Wednesday of the month

WHERE: Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St., Glendale

COST: Free for members, $5 for nonmembers

CONTACT: (626) 355-6036

WHAT: “Nine-Patch Polka” workshop

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St., Glendale

COST: $25 for members and $35 for nonmembers

CONTACT: (626) 355-6036

WEBSITE: www.glendalequiltguild.org