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Archive for the ‘Stuff I Buy’ Category

SAQA Auction

Sunday, September 22nd, 2013

saqaauctionquilt

The annual benefit auction for Studio Art Quilt Associates has been going on for a couple of weeks. I have been remiss for not blogging about it. I acquired this wonderful piece by Sherri McCauley during the first week. I  really love it. It has some wonderful surface design and the quilting is very creative. I also love the touch of color to enhance, but not overwhelm the design. Sherri lives in Texas and I was not familiar with her or her work, but I am so happy that I snagged this piece. Here is the back. You can see how creatively she quilted this. She has a very nice label, but I blurred her personal information.

saqaauctionquiltback

My piece is going on the auction block tomorrow in the final group. You can find it in group 3a. I am a bit nervous because this is a departure from the work I have donated in the past. I have been honored to have my work purchased early in the bidding cycle. Here is my piece, which is one of my discharged silk and shrunk pieces. All of the pieces are 12 inches square.

Montanas y Lunas copy

Four other members of the 12 x 12 group have quilts in this group, you can see them all in a lovely blog post by Deborah on the Twelve blog.

My whirlwind of activity over the past month is winding down. I need and want to get some studio work done. Yesterday, I picked up the 20×12 quilts and 4 of my quilts in the High Fiber Diet Show from Quilt Expo. I did a little shopping the day before. I bought some pre-wound bobbins and titanium needles from Superior threads and this lovely handdyed fabric from my friend Maureen Schmidt from Santa Rosa, where we used to live.

The first bundle is titled Truffle.

trufflehanddyes

This set is Eucalyptus – so gorgeous.

eucalyptushaanddyes

Fall arrived today and so did our fall weather. It rainy, cold and windy. I had to pull our warm clothes and wear socks – ugh! Lisa is flying into Portland tomorrow to spend a week with us. I am looking forward to spending some quality time with her.

That Was Fun!

Thursday, June 20th, 2013

cargocolor

 

I had a great time spending the day with Diane Hock, yesterday. We met downtown for lunch. Steph joined us and had to leave to take Mia to visit a friend. She is really busy this week with 3191Q project deadlines. It was a bit rainy and a bit sunny, but we enjoyed walking around the Pearl district and doing a bit of shopping. Our first stop was Blick Art where I bought a tube of Invisible Glove. Has anyone out there tried this. Supposedly, you can coat your hands with this before getting into paint, dyes and other stuff and it will wash right off.

invisibleglove

 

I also bought some Dyna-flow paint, some time easels for tiny art and some drawing pens.

Our next stop was Cargo Imports. This store is a visual treat for the eyes. The photo at the top is of some Chinese furniture in wonderful colors. I found some beads for my 3×3 project.

turquoiselimegreenbeads

 

They had just gotten in a shipment of wood printing blocks. I bought these two. They are really awesome, especially that large wavy one.

printblock1

 

printblock2

 

We also went to Mill Ends our near my house where I found a Vogue pattern that I have been looking for.

Our last stop was the Moreland Farmer’s Market where I bought salmon and fresh veggies for dinner, some wonderful bread for Diane and Mr C and some raspberries for the freezer.

It was really great to get caught up with Diane and the happenings in my old guild and the art quilt group that I started and now has 40+ members. She left this morning for Port Townsend and then is going on to Victoria and then back to Oregon for further adventures before heading back to California.

I got the quilting done on the background of the red organza collage.

redcollagebackgroundquilting

 

I added some of the red/black organza squares. I keep changing the layout.

organzasquaresadded

 

I am now hand stitching them in place.

redcollagehandstitching

 

I have to keep working to reach all my goals. Life is good, but the weather is lousy. Fortunately, we only have to wait a bit for it to get better.

On a side note, my daughter Lisa, has an interview in the latest O magazine about her love of collecting. Proud of both of my daughters.

Conference Loot

Thursday, June 13th, 2013

gerriefabric

Can you see my name in this fabric? Isn’t that cool? An SDA member from Houston made this for me in a workshop. She called me a while ago and was having a problem registering for the conference via her computer. I helped her and she wanted to thank me. I think this is so sweet. Her name is Peggy Sexton. She was one of our Texas volunteers, helping in hospitality and other ways. The Texas contingent of SDA members were fantastic and so welcoming.

At the conference, SDA holds a silent auction. There were some really awesome things available – big ticket items. I bid on some of the smaller items  and won a pack of beautiful hand-dyed and printed silk art cloth.

SDAauctionfabric

 

I particularly like this piece.

SDAauctionfabric2

 

I also had the winning bid for Elin Noble’s book.

ElinNoblebook

 

One of the vendors was Kristy Kun of Opulent Fibers here in Portland. I bought a large piece of red pre-felt as I want to do a shrinky dink red quilt.

redpre-felt

 

Another vendor was Stencil Girl. I have several friends who have done artwork for them. He told me that one of their most popular artists is Terri Stegmiller, one of the Twelves. I bought some small simple stencils for my friends in the STASH group. We had our monthly get-together today so I gave theme each one with some wash away pencil markers that another vendor was selling.

stencilgirlstencils

 

I also placed an order with Thai/Exotic silks that arrived in the mail today. I have the supplies I need to get to work. I am feeling quite exhausted, but still very happy. I need to get to work in my studio — I know that once I get busy, the creativity will come. In the morning, we are going to Miles’ 5th grade graduation ceremony, then I can come home and get to work.

Want to see something really cute? Click this link to see a video of adorable Paige enjoying her first beach vacation.

Restrained Frenzy

Sunday, May 26th, 2013

weddingnecklace

 

Yes, I am really trying to stay calm in the face of all I have to get done by Tuesday afternoon. I just realized that I had neglected to gather my supplies for Kerr Grabowski’s design workshop. I think I have most of the stuff I need, but she said to bring as many paint chips as we could so I need to make a little trip to take care of that.

I had looked in vain for the right jewelry to wear with my dress to the wedding. Today, we took a trip to downtown Portland as I wanted to look in the Everything Silver shop in Pioneer Square. They didn’t have just what I wanted and we wandered into a funky little shop called, Katmandu, run by a young hippy couple – so adorable were they. I got this necklace, which was made in Afghanistan. Love it. I also got these earrings which were made in Nepal.

weddingearrings

 

The colors in the photos are not quite true, but they look great with my dress.

On Saturday, we went to the AT&T store and upgraded our phones. I now have and iPhone 5, which I love. Mr C had a 4s. We have been having fun with Siri. I got a wild Otter case for mine.

newiPhone

 

I spent yesterday and this afternoon, designing and printing name badges for the conference. I will get them shipped to San Antonio on Tuesday morning before we leave Portland. I had to have pre and post conference workshop badges, conference badges, vendor badges and day passes. I still have to finish stuffing them into the plastic cases.

SDANameBadges

 

 

This morning, I had my last Sunday School participation. We had an end of the year party and celebrated Trinity Sunday. The kids got to decorate Trinity cookies.

trinitycookieday

I probably won’t post much over the next week. I am getting so excited to see the family from near and far, my little Paige, all of Lisa’s friends, Clay’s family and then I get to head to San Antonio for a fantastic fiber week. I am so blessed.

I have to end with this bit. The young Moms I work with in Sunday School could not believe my age and wondered my secret. I told them it is sun screen, hair dye and good attitude.

Checking Things Off My List

Thursday, May 23rd, 2013

Montanas y Lunas copy

 

If I am going to leave for California next Tuesday (and I am), I have to keep moving and shaking and getting things done. Yesterday, I sewed the sleeve and made a label for my XOXO quilt as I had to ship it off before I leave town. I also finished the hand stitching on my SAQA quilt, Montanas y Lunas. I submitted the online auction entry form for SAQA. Tomorrow, I will get it in the mail and cross that off my list. Here is a detail:

Montanas y Lunasdetail

 

I love the organic quality of this and the texture. I don’t know if it will sell, but it is the type of work that I like to purchase.

At the end of June, after I get back from San Antonio, I have to have a submission done for the next High Fiber Diet exhibit, Simply Red. I pulled out my red fabrics to see what I have and to encourage some creative juices to flow.

I have some nice organza. The piece on the left is silk as is the black and red in the middle. I am pretty sure the other piece is synthetic.

redorganza

 

I also have a funky piece of cheesecloth that might be interesting with something else.

redcheesecloth

 

These are various shades of hand-dyed red cotton.

shadesofredcotton

 

I was thinking that I would try to do a larger piece of shrinky dink red with a discharged design. So I did a couple of discharge samples. The one of the left is with Soft Scrub with bleach. I left it on for quite awhile with hardly any change. The one on the right is deColourant discharge paste. I like what has happened so I think I will go with that. I just have to come up with a design that will work with the shrinking process. I probably will do a sample as I have not done this with cotton.

red dischargesamples

 

I have been working on the name tags for the conference. I have several different types to do and I need to get them printed and shipped on ahead to San Antonio so that I don’t have to take them in my luggage.

This afternoon, I headed out to the mall to get a few new things to fit my shrinking body – I especially needed new summer pants. I also got some new black sandals that I really like. Tomorrow, I am going to try on my dress and see if I think it needs to be shortened. I also need to go through my clothes and decide what to take for the upcoming events. Making lists and getting things done – that is my life, right now. Since we have the return of winter weather, I might as well be hunkered down, getting things done.