QuiltsQuilts

More, more, MORE!

2011-09-11T09:17:00.001-07:00

Saffron to Red! Yep, got it. Mala project, next version. After the yellow got overrun by everything else with the first run, I decided to do another set.   (I need a direct pipeline to fabric from Dharma -- I'll be ordering more soon!)

This time, I decreased the concentration of the red and added 2 cc increments (yes, using a syringe) to each bag.   As you can see the first and last colors are very different, but the in-betweens are a gentle gradation. Exactly what I wanted.

Last weekend, I had an A-HA moment. Most weekends, I have dinner with my best friend, and we watch Netflix.   But I had become intrigued with a story I read on line about the Nangchen Nuns of Tibet. These Buddhist women have an incredible story, now a feature-length documentary entitled Blessings. As I watched this incredibly beautiful story, I realized that the colors I was seeking are the colors of their robes, which made the project all the more special. And the next day, I dyed them.

Now to complete the saffron to blue run. The first one was a bit too yellow, so back to the dye pots today. Stay tuned!

More Hand Dyes....

2011-09-03T08:00:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, I started dyeing fabrics for a new project. Being in a new office building certainly requires a new quilt (at least in my mind!)... and since our focus walls are a warm grey/blue, I want to bring some yellow in for a pop of color.

The gradation was supposed to be more yellow based but the red and blue overran the yellow in a big way! The photo shows 20 gradations, but no yellow to be found, even though it was the base of each mix.

Back to the dye pots today.... more yellow, less red and blue. Actually the colors are great, but not what I intended ... oh, yeah, they will get used....

My last big dye run (20 yards) is finally almost used up. With the help of a friend, we dyed 20 yards of blue yellow gradations for my labyrinth quilt.... this year, our guild had a mystery quilt and I used most of the leftovers to create "Green Nebula" -- 66 x 66" and I thought I would never finish it! Its hanging at the county fair right now, then it will be for sale.

For my friend, Nathan.....

2011-07-02T08:58:00.010-07:00

Many many years ago, when I first got on the internet, I met Darryl, a nurse from Australia via a bulletin board on alternative health practices. He was doing his thesis on the same topic that I had used for mine. And a long distance, long term friendship developed thru the wonders of the internet.

In 1998, on his way to London, Darryl came thru the US and we got to meet face to face for the first time! On his visit to AZ, we played tourist and one of our stops was Sedona, nestled in the beautiful red rock country, and one of our stops there was the Chapel of the Holy Cross. There in front of a statue of St. Francis, Darryl began to hear the call to religious life, even though neither of us realized it at the time.

Throughout his time working in England and the Middle East, the call became stronger and when he returned to Oz, he began to pursue his calling. In 2002, he joined the Society of St. Francis and became Br. Nathan James. Now he is completing seminary and will be ordained as a deacon in December, 2011.

One of the magical things about our friendship has been thru quilts. At several crossroads in his journey, I've had a psychic hit about a quilt for him.... and several quilts have crossed the ocean to his hands, and often answered questions that he was holding. As he nears ordination, I truly wanted to make him a very special gift and in correspondence with a mutual friend, decided to make his ordination stole as a surprise.

Lo and behold, he soon emailed me and asked if I would make his stole! He had no idea that I was already thinking about it. Our minds were as one as we discussed the designs. One of my sorority sisters from college had been making stoles, and she graciously sent me her pattern. It all came together.

This past week, Nathan again journeyed to AZ on his way to London and again at the Chapel in Sedona, I was able to gift him with not one, but two stoles that I created to mark this part of his journey.

The first (he didn't know he was getting two!) is called Sunrise, Sunset after the song Cradle of Dawn by Libby Roderick. The song speaks to global connection and is very special for both of us. It's a rainbow of colors of the earth and more specifically those of sunrise and sunset. (click on any image to enlarge)

And the second, is the red stole of ordination. I dyed 13 different reds (more like 22, but only used 13), then created a brickwork pattern. On the ends, I've embroidered the outline of the chapel and most importantly, the image of the statue of St. Francis where the journey began.

I've never made liturgical garments before, but I'm really pleased with the way they came out... and of course, Nathan is as well. Who knows, I just might have to go to Oz to see him ordained in December!

More Dyeing!

2011-06-19T14:38:00.002-07:00

Sometimes I think I'd rather just dye fabric than use it! My dear friend, The Singing Quilter Cathy Miller (and her wonderful husband John Bunge) have been visiting for a few days between their gigs. Cathy wanted to try freeze dyeing, and no one has to ask me twice to dye fabric.

She has carefully documented our experiments on her blog (which has lots of other fun stuff, too). But here are some of my favorites!

Cerulean Blue and Moss Green. Folded in 8ths, frozen before dye was added.Fire Red and Cerulean Blue. Scrunched in bag and frozen.Fire Red and Golden Yellow. Scrunched and frozen.

Catching Up.....

2011-06-17T08:43:00.005-07:00

I'm so far behind in blogging..... the usual excuses apply... busy at work (we are moving to a new state of the art building in July), and life in general. I haven't done a lot of quilting, my weekends tend to fill up and those blissful at home days have been few and far between.

I did do one small piece this spring. It's called "Jonah's Mountain" and was a birthday gift to my yoga teacher. He had posted some fabulous pix on his Facebook page and one was of this mountain-scape. My brain, doing its thing, immediately said "That's a quilt!" I dyed the fabric with gradations of true navy and fire red to get the purples. The oranges were golden yellow mixed with some fire red. Pretty true to the photo, and yes he loved it.

The big news of spring is that I had an article in the May issue of The American Quilter (you have to be a member of AQS to view the issue on line)... my four labyrinths were featured and since the feedback was so good, AQ has contracted with me to produce a pattern of St. Omer's Labyrinth (shown in the background of this post).... I'll get another pix up soon. I'm working with one of my computer buddies to create the graphics and the instructions are done for the most part.... stay tuned!

Snow Dyeing - Day 2

2011-01-01T11:02:00.005-07:00

Two of my friends wanted to do snow dyes, so we started the process yesterday..... I decided to let them use the mesh platform and just place my fabric in the bottom of a bin. When the snow melted, the dye liquid was very murky but I wasn't worried.... and am very pleased with the results.

Top left: accordion folded fabric, then folded in half.

Top right: scrunched

Bottom left: gently folded then twisted into spiral

Bottom right: scrunched

Colors used: Fire Red, Cerulean Blue, Golden Yellow, and Moss Green (Procion MX).

The blues are still an issue... they need more heat. But I got better blues than with the turquoise.

OK, this is totally addicting!

If it snows, dye fabric....

2010-12-30T21:24:00.013-07:00

Flagstaff. Winter Storms. Snow Days. Time to do some snow and ice dyeing! We had about 18" of snow yesterday and today, so the fresh powder was perfect. And here's a mini lesson on snow dyeing! My deck had a nice layer of fresh powder to play with.

So here's a mini lesson on snow dyeing!

After soaking prewashed PFD fabric in soda ash for about 30-40 minutes, I wrung out the excess and then gently scrunched it into two batches.

The first was on a plastic screen clipped to a large plastic bin. This suspends the fabric and lets the dye drain into the bin. I covered the fabric with fresh snow, about 3-4" deep. Note to self: wear gloves to handle the snow. My hands were freezing!

Over that, I poured super concentrated Procion Dye. For this batch, I used turquoise, fuchsia, and golden yellow. I used 1 cup of prepared dye for each color. I should have made more!

Now comes the hard part... wait for the snow to melt. It's sort of like watching paint dry!

It took about 6 hrs for the snow to melt, in the house! Then I rinsed and washed it!

And here's what I got:

The turquoise really washed out.... the reds did well, the yellow was so-so. Note to self: use more dye. Tomorrow, I'll try a different blue and hope it doesn't fade. Turquoise needs warmth to activate so the snow kept it too cold. The piece in the upper left was plain white muslin, instead of PFD. The dye was not take as well.

The second batch was scrunched into a tub and placed outside in a snow bank until it was frozen almost solid. Then I used Fire Red and Bronze and let the fabric defrost in the house. And here's what came out:

I like these a lot better, except for the white spot in the lower right. At the end of the batching, I flipped two pieces over in the dye at the bottom of the tub, I think that's why they got more saturated. I'm tempted to cut these into rectangles for an art quilt.

I'm declaring success... altho limited. More dye liquid, and maybe let them sit even longer than just until the snow melts. Tomorrow... more fabric and more dyeing!

I made the paper...

2010-03-07T14:16:00.006-07:00

My local guild has a biannual quilt show at the public library and this year for the first time, we got a local reporter to cover the event and a lecture we gave for the public. I was gobsmacked today to see a huge picture of me with some of my quilts on the front page of the Arts seciton. Click on the pix to see the whole thing! You can read the article here http://www.azdailysun.com/lifestyles/article_841815e0-6456-526a-b127-bb64b2f9e8b9.html

Storm Update - Is it Over YET?

2010-01-22T18:11:00.007-07:00

Day 5, but who's counting? This storm series really started on Monday afternoon, and its still going.... I have no idea how much snow will be the offical total, but I'm betting close to 60"! Last night, it raining like crazy..horizontal for the most part. That was ok, because the snow rinsed off the trees and did decrease the drifts a bit. But the snow started again about 10 pm and by 1 am (I woke up and had to look)... the view from my window made me think of a cake covered in white fondant. Here's the deck this morning, the chunk on the railing fell off in the wind last night so this is a new crop. And now its taller than the railing, which is at least 36" high. The neighbor's house from the same place on the sidewalk as yesterday's pix. Below, my house is on the left, and yes, that is BLUE SKY peeking thru...

The sun is just starting to come out! So welcome!

My poor elm tree on the driveway....

The ice cave, AKA the path to the mailbox (no mail delivery for 2 days).... those drifts are taller than I am!

Maybe we'll see more sun tomorrow!

Storm of a Century? Hunkering down in Flagstaff!

2010-01-21T12:33:00.006-07:00

Flagstaff AZ, January 2010: The predicitons have been dire. Up to 7 feet of snow in a week. Huh? Is this Alaska? Wisconsin? North Dakota? January 18, we got a few inches..... my deck is a great place to gauge the snow. Watch the wind chime.... January 19: A bit more. And this morning, January 21: Where is the wind chime? By the way, the gap between deck rail and roof line is over 24". The front of my house about noon today, after I shoveled the walk:

The drift at the end of the driveway, and no, that's not a child size snow shovel!

The neighbor's house

Trees behind the house:

And the other view of the back, yes, its still snowing!

Luckily, my condo area has snow removal. The guys have done a much better job this year than last. but I have no idea how they will keep up if the snow continues until Saturday AM! The city is pretty much shut down. But I have power, water, my sewing machine, lots of food, wine...... It's hunker down time.

Campus is closed, no work for us! Time to get going on those quilts and enjoy it. Well, sort of.....

The Great Kitchen Dye Caper

2009-08-23T07:45:00.005-07:00

So at Quilt Camp this year, I won a tub of dye supplies (door prizes are good things)... and its been a while since I've had a day to really get into it. Last week, my friend Judy and I dyed some blue-green-yellow combos, so now that I have the bug, it was time to pop the top of tub and see what was inside. The tub was donated by Hands On Hand Dyes ( http://www.handsonhanddyes.com/) (Thanks, Cindy!) and is a great way to get the basics going. They offer 3 color ways, mine was "Garden" with rich primary, secondary and tertiary colors. All from 3 dye colors. So in the tub was all the stuff, the dye: the chemicals, the tubs, the fabric, oh, and instructions.

Since I don't have a dye studio at home (yet!), I cleared the kitchen, put painter's plastic on the wall and counter, plopped down an old beach towel (that could be sacrificed to dye goddess if need be), and went to work.. These are the dye "parfaits", each layered to get a light, medium, and dark fabric in each shade. The full strength dye is at the bottom, and "bleeds up" into the next fabric and the next, so the lighter shade is on top.

After I did the first set of dyes, I had some of each base color (blue, red, yellow) left over. So I grabbed an addtional half yard of prepared fabric and tossed it in a bucket, sort of folded pleated scrunched. And poured the left over dye over the fabric in sections. The dye will bleed and flow where it wants to, and that was the idea. Since this fabric was dry, I had no idea what I would get... After the dye played for a few minutes, I added the soda ash solution and it turned a horrible green color, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. And I like it!

And finally, after several hours, crossed fingers, incantations to the dye goddess, a good dose of Synthrapol to set the colors, and a hot iron, I had 36 fat quarters in 12 families and 3 gradations... only 2 are so pale that I'm not sure where they came from, but the rest are YUMMY! And the pale ones can always be overdyed.

Now, what to do with them? The wheels are turning... and I'm off to dye more fabric this afternoon.

Dragons at the Door

2009-07-30T20:45:00.004-07:00

One of my annual treats is to participate in Quilt Camp in the Pines (quiltcamp.com) held here in Flagstaff. We enjoy nationally recognized teachers and take classes that address a wide range of skill and interest levels. I was very excited to see Esterita Austin (http://esteritaaustin.com/) was one of the teachers... her classes were on depth and perspective, something that I've struggled with over time. "Dragons at the Door" was my quilt in the first class that I took from her. The handdyed fabric had perfect serendipitous images of dragons that just sort of landed at each side of the door. We also added paint to highlight some areas which added a lot. I like this one. My second class project was not nearly as successful. It's covered on my design wall, I'm not sure I'll finish it! I just don't like the colors she chose for me.... I might do the image again someday, but in colors that speak to me!

Called

2009-07-04T10:15:00.004-07:00

Many years ago, in the early days of my internet experince, I met a nurse from Australia who was doing his graduate thesis on the same topic that I had pursued in my master's program. We began an email friendship that has lasted until this day. Darryl visited AZ in the mid 1990's, our first eyeball encounter. During that visit, we did all the northern AZ tourist things, including the Chapel of the Red Rocks in Sedona. It was at that chapel that Darryl began to feel the pull of the religious life. He tells the shory better than I do on his blog http://www.mendicantsoul.info/ - and is now known as Brother Nathan James, a Franciscan brother in the Society of St. Francis.

I have followed his path over these many years and when he told me that he would be taking his vows of Life Profession, the universe bonked me on the head and I knew what quilt I needed to make.

"Called" is the image of not only the Chapel in Sedona, but the statue of St. Francis that graces the courtyard and where Nathan first heard his call. Machine appliqued on a pieced background. Machine quilted. And cherished by my dear friend from Oz. He is currently visiting the east coast with Franciscans from around the world and was, to put it mildly, gobsmacked when it arrived to his hands this past week.

Namaste, Nathan. Sunrise, Sunset and Big Bug Hugs.

Safari and Moebius knitting

2009-03-09T18:04:00.003-07:00

So I haven't been a total slacker of late. Safari is a fun kid quilt (made with fabrics from Laurel Burch's Secret Jungle line) for a friend who is expecting in April. I promise to get a better pix when it comes home (its hanging in the quilt shop right now).... free pattern on line for everyone http://www.clothworkstextiles.com/pdfs/patterns/secretjunglequilt.pdf- I had it all ready to quilt in a weekend.

With the opening of a new yarn shop here (and conveniently located inside the LQS), I'm back in my passion for fiber and knitting (esp good on cold winter and windy spring nights).... this is a felted purse that was big enough to pack up a small village before I felted it. The strap is a moebius strip and its all knit in one piece... fab button, too! The moebius is the brainchild of Cat Bordhi, who I think, stays up nights thinking of new ways to torment knitters (and we love her for it)....

Click on the images for larger views.....

Stepping Stones

2009-02-17T19:52:00.002-07:00

Last summer, I bought a jelly roll. That's 50 cuts of 2 1/2" strips of various fabrics. It was all batiks (one of my favorites) and in colors I would have never dreamed of putting together. A great creative challenge. After unrolling them, and putting them all on the design wall to see the choices, I decided on a simple log cabin variation. The result is Stepping Stones.

Front and Back

And since it's a bed quilt for ME (first time since 2003), I decided to have it machine quilted, and my quilter did a fabulous job. Yes, that's some trapunto in the alternate blocks.

Now, to remake the bed with my new quilt!

NeedleNooks

2009-01-12T20:47:00.003-07:00

So lately, I've been pretty dry in the quilt inspiration department.... and so since its winter, I've felt more like knitting. We have a new yarn shop in town (conveniently located inside the quilt shop!) and I've been playing with samples and hats and little projects. I opened my knitting box and found a nest of needles, and I wasn't able to really tell what was what or what I had. I've seen fabric needle holders and decided I could make them! Here are my three, all folded up and easy to store. This one holds my smaller metal and plastic needes (single and double pointed): This one has my larger wooden needles and circulars:

And the last one has my crochet hooks, rug hook, cable needles and other small assorted accessories (in the small pouch on the left):

And NeedleNooks were born..... now the yarn shop is carrying them and I'm taking special orders!

Muses Shoes

2008-12-18T16:29:00.008-07:00

An online friend of mine has enlisted the help of our gals group to create wildly decorated shoes for the 2009 Mardi Gras Parade. Since this has been a week of bad weather, and 2 days that work was closed, I decided to rock and roll. I donated the surviving pair of stilettos, the ones I can put on but not walk in!

First, spray painted them purple, inside and out. And then add lots of glitter, sequins, fabric, glitz, bling, glamour. Not to mention burnt fingers from the hot glue gun, and a glitter explosion in the kitchen. I just to to add a coat of clear coat (I'll get that when the roads clear... maybe tomorrow, Saturday for sure, we've had 36" of snow in the past few days). And then I'm ship them off to Crawbaby!

Not bad for a first attempt!!

Oh no, here comes the snow plow again.... that means the fourth time I've dug out today!

Halloween - Totally NQR (not quilt related)

2008-10-31T20:23:00.003-07:00

Goofy Halloween Fun at the Campus Health Center The nurses: Me: I'm a Nuva Ring! Me and my adopted son Tony (he's Fast Food Fred)

Andromeda

2008-10-19T19:37:00.003-07:00

I've been ignoring this blog since summer... job changes and life just get in the way. But I did find time to make Andromeda, which is now hanging at the Coconino Center for The Arts in Flagstaff AZ.

The current show is "Night Visions III" and celebrates 50 years of Flagstaff being a dark skies community (we have several planetariums and astromony centers in the area, so street lights and other lighting is either a yellow light or an other hue that won't interfere with star gazing. This quilt had a strange start. One episode of this season's Project Runway (I am addicted to that show!) featured a challenge where the designers took photographs of New York at night and based their garments on their images. Leeann Marshall, who went on to win the season, based her design on a photo of a tree grate, which suddenly sent me into the "what if" mode. I searched the net for pix of tree grates and manhole covers. From those images, I drew the foundation pattern for the 279 individual pieces in the arch. Placed in a starry sky, its up to the viewer to decide what it really is! Could be a star ship, could be a virus, could be a manhole cover!

Hoffman Challenge 2008

2008-10-19T19:11:00.002-07:00

Path of the Lotus

The Hoffman challenge fabric for this year was a curious print of a large peacock. and a strong Asian feel. The coordiates included a black metallic stripe and some nice blenders, but I knew that I didn't want to focus on the peacock, just not my style! I've been working on ideas for labyrinth quilts since last year's Challenge and this seems to be the next installment! Challenge quilts have to fit a certain size (width and length) but there are no restrictions on shape, so I decided to start drawing a path. It almost drew itself! The half starts are all fussy cut from the challenge fabric and a darker colorway. The corner points are foundation pieced and the lotus at the top and bottom centers are stablized, hand beaded, and sewn on as 3-D elements. I was inspired more by the colors than the print in this case. Picture courtesy of Karen Pharr, and taken at the first public showing of all of the Hoffman Challenge Quilts for this year. Mine is off traveling for a year... to places I can only dream of. And the first labyrinth should be home at the end of month!

Eleanor's Legacy

2008-06-02T20:36:00.003-07:00

I am so very blessed to have long time friends in my life. Celebrating 50 years of friendship is so very amazing! One of those friends is Jane, with whom I shared Brownies and Girl Scouts, and grade school and high school. This winter, she asked me to make a quilt for their family compound at Big Cedar Lake WI. The home has been in the family for several generations and is a very special place for the whole clan. So off we went through the design process, fabric selection, and for me, a marathon of sewing... but I met the deadline and the quilt is now on its way to her in Milwaukee.

Based on the traditional square in a square, I did some of my usual wonkiness that created a diamond more than a square, and then by changing directions, gave the quilt some movement. Jane had chosen a delightful small scale red print as the focus, and by adding a variety of other harmonizing reds, the quilt came alive (click on image for a larger version and see all the fabrics). Machine quilted by a professional longarm quilter. It is named for the matriarch of the family, Eleanor, and for the legacy she left for her daughters and granddaughters.

View from My Window (um... front door this AM)

2008-05-13T06:34:00.004-07:00

Yes, its May 13. Friday the 13th came on a Tuesday this month, and it's snowing. Huh? Mother's Day has come and gone and it's snowing. Huh? These pix were taken from the front door at 615 AM. My radio comes on at 610, and I heard the local DJ's say there was a 2 hr school delay!

Yesterday I was wearing capris and sandals. Now where did I put my boots?

The deck thermometer is reading 40 degrees already, so it won't last long, thank goodness. Life in the mountains.....

Fast Friday Challenges - Kano Isa

2008-01-11T17:22:00.000-07:00

For the past year (almost and a half), I've been involved with an online challenge group called the Fast Friday Challenge. On the last Friday of the month, we get information about the month's challenge (theme, technique, whatever the hostess decided) and have one week and a day to get a piece done and posted on a Yahoo group. We also have a blog at http://fastfridayquilts.blogspot.com/ for public viewing. It's been a great exercise in stretching talents and imaginations!

This month, the challenge was FIRE or ICE... to interpret the emotions and sensations of those two words..... and this month's submissions were especially wonderful!

I decided to do some improv piecing and came up with Kano Isa, which is named for the Runes for Fire and Ice. The characters also mean "forward movement" and "standstill" which I find interesting! I thought of the glaciers we saw in Alaska, how the ice appears to be still but there is underlying movement, which is not always visible from the surface. I placed the fire under the ice for this quilt, knowing that sometimes we need a fire lit beneath us to create that forward movement. The layers of meaning are still being revealed.

At any rate, I'm pleased with the results and have entered the quilt in the state show for March. Fingers crossed!

2006 Hoffman

2007-11-22T08:42:00.000-07:00

Bamboo-zled: Suduko was my entry for the 2006 Hoffman Challenge. I started with a original design foundation-pieced block that had 9 pieces. Each of the 81 blocks in the quilt is a variation of that block, but with from 1-9 pieces of fabric representing the nine numbers in a suduko puzzle. As I was sorting the blocks on the design wall (and yes, it is a true, solved suduko puzzle), the diagonal pattern began to emerge. And I finally got a decent picture of it, finished! It's only taken a year or so.... it was out on tour with the collection and just came home in September.

Hoffman Challenge 2007

2007-09-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

OK, I admit it, I'm hooked on the Hoffman Challenges. I first participated in the early days of my current quilting era, 1999, used a pattern (*gasp*) and didn't win anything (no surprise) and the quilt came home. Lesson learned: get original.

I next ventured in 2006 and decided to do something original (I'll post that one in the next blog, gotta take a decent picture of it first!), and lo and behold, I made it in to the traveling show. Lesson learned: do something that has nothing to do with the print selected as the challenge fabric.

When the 2007 fabric was announced, I honestly realized I would walk on by if I saw it in the quilt shop. Flowers, sunflowers, butterflies. But hey, that's the challenge. So with the above lessons learned, I started paying attention to shapes and concepts. And during that observation period, I started talking with my massage therapist about walking a labyrinth. Hmmmmm, a labyrinth. And that's where it started.

This design is from the Amiens Labyrinth in France, an 800 year old design, paved in the floor of the noted cathedral. Like the Chartes labyrinth, this is an 11 circuit labyrinth, but with straight paths instead of curves. With assistance from the Labyrinth Company http://www.labyrinthcompany.com/, I drafted the pattern for foundation piecing. The center features a machine embroidered asian lily. Machine pieced and free motion quilted.

I'm very grateful that the Hoffman Challenge has chosen my quilt, Caerdroia: Castle of Turns, as part of their traveling exhibit in Trunk A, which will show at Houston this year.

Fractured Quilt Challenge

2007-09-16T18:08:00.001-07:00

There is an internet culture of quilters who participate in challenges. Anyone can host, rules are determined, and we go for it. I just completed the Fractured Quilt Challenge, where we each got a photograph of a pink daisy (photo on bottom). It was separated into 4 uneven segments and we each replicated the segments in fabric. We sent them back to the moderator who "shuffled the deck" and sent 4 quadrants (made by 4 different people) to the participants. I did my quadrants in applique, then beaded and even added crystals. But I was very disappointed in what I received in return. One quandrant, especially, looked like a total afterthought and that the maker just slammed it together. The centers were way off and the colors clashed. I tried transparent fabric paint to dull some of the colors, but as it was, there was no way I would finish it as it was. So after a few weeks of really looking at it and listening to it, I decided to cut it up. After all, there were no restrictions on how to finish it, we only agreed to finish it. The result is There's No Place Like Om, a lotus floating in a starry night. I looked at some of lotus images on line and drew a fairly symmetric lotus and appliqued the petals (cut from the pieces I had received) with a variety of rayon threads. The OM is also appliqued on the top. Due to the variation of fabrics used by the challenge participants, some kind of shrunk with the heat of the steam iron, but I like the puckering that resulted). The sky is bobbin quilted with blue metallic and the base with variegated green rayon.

And the funny thing that happened on the way to finishing it: I had originally intended for the blue to be the bottom, but I placed the OM upside down.... so now the foreground is the background, and a lotus at night is a lovely thing to behold.

Journal Quilt 2007

2007-09-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

The final year of the Journal Quilt Project will premier at the Houston International Quilt Festival in late October. Our assignment was to create one piece, 17 x 22", using techniques from the compliation of the previous years work, Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project, edited by Karey Patterson Bresenhan. My Entry "I Hope You Dance" is a fabric weaving with encrusted beadwork and applique. It is dedicated to the memory of Hazel Raines, who died in July after a valient struggle with cancer. I was working on the weaving during her final days and realized that she had danced into this piece.

In the Artist Statement I wrote: At her memorial service, a dear friend spoke to her love of music and dance and ended his comments with the words of a LeeAnn Womack song: "And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance, I hope you dance." In that moment, I realized that my friend had danced into the quilt, and I dedicate it to her memory. The dancing figure is adapted from "Sophia," original art by Lynn Rae Lowe of Tucson AZ (http://www.lynnraelowe.com/) and used with the permission of the artist.

Starting out...

2007-09-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

Since many of the free photosites are disappearing, and the ones taking their place do not allow remote hosting, I guess its time to jump into the world of blogs. So many friends ask to see my quilts that an online forum to display them makes sense. Plus, I may find the time to post musings as I walk thru the world. My latest project is an apron and potholder set for a friend on another online community. Names were drawn for a Creativity Swap and while I won't now divulge who gets my gift, I know who it is and I know she'll love it.

It is done with Lemoyne Stars, created with Marti Michel templates (set E) and a variety of cottons. The green leaves are fused and appliqued, the rest is pieced. The potholder has two layers of Insul-Bright (made by the Warm Company) and machine quilted. The star actually became almost a trapunto look!

Now back to quilting...