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Archive for the ‘Quilting Friends’ Category

Making Progress

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Today, I got my office back in ship shape order — just need to dust and vacuum. I also rearranged my work space in the studio. I have had my ironing and print tables in the middle of the room and I constantly trip over the iron cord, knocking it to the floor. I have gone through quite a few irons. I moved the tables which require an outlet to the wall where there are a couple of outlets. The cutting table is now in the middle of the room. I think it will work once I get used to it.

Today’s 3 X 3 is up there, and I did some remedial work on yesterday’s.

Here is another lovely gift from one of the Twelves — Brenda Smith, from Australia. Many of her pieces are shibori with wonderful stitching. This piece is a replication of her Illumination piece in our first set of quilts.

I hope you can see the lovely hand quilting on this.

It has been a while since I posted a photo of Scooter. He loves the cold weather we are having because he has a wonderful winter coat.

Busy, Busy Week-end

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

I have been a busy woman this week-end. I spent a lot of time on Saturday working on homework for the class I am taking on Quilt University with Elizabeth Barton. I am way outside my comfort zone, but I think it is a good thing for me. Eventually, I will feel comfortable enough to blog about it, but for now, I am just working and sketching and thinking.

I got out some silk charmeuse for the 3 X 3s this week-end. The first piece that I did with the turquoise elements was free motion quilted and it was terrible. I have to figure out what I am doing wrong.

Last night, we went to the Oregon Symphony to hear Joshua Bell play Brahms. It was simply fantastic, and he is such a cutie patootie, to boot. This morning, I spent an hour decoupaging candles with grade school kids at church. That was a lot of fun. Then I worked the arts table during coffee hour. This afternoon, we went back to Trinity for a glorious organ concert by our church organist who is very accomplished. Our organ is considered one of the best in the country.

Here is another nice gift that I received recently. When the 9 twelves were in Houston, we exchanged gifts of things we had made. I gave every one a shibori scarf that I had dyed. Kristin gave us these beautifully embroidered and beaded house icons.

 

 

Ready, Set, Go

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

2012 is here, and I am ready for some fun in my studio and a personal daily art challenge.

I have been thinking about starting something that would challenge me creatively every day. I really enjoyed doing my fiber compositions for the sketchbook challenge last year and so I thought I would do something similar. I am going to make a small 3 inch by 3 inch composition every day with the thought that they will all be used in a larger installation at some point. In addition to my parameters of size, I am going to use the same color background each month.  As I was thinking about this, I realized that a simple color wheel has 12 colors.

I am starting with red. So, I will work my way around, doing orange next month. You can see what I whipped up tonight after a hectic day of undecorating and partying in the neighborhood. I have always wanted to do something like this, but never got it organized. I am excited about using the color wheel. I will sometimes use a print as long as it reads as the color I am currently using. I plan to do a variety of compositions, maybe even some felting. I will do machine and hand stitching.

On another note, I thought I would share this challenge with you.

These are Coral Tree fabrics from Africa which are sold by a friend of Helen Conway, one of the Twelves. The website is here.  In the past, Helen has collaborated with her by making quilts from her fabrics which are displayed in her shop and at quilt shows. Helen invited members of the Twelves to play along and Terry Grant, Diane Hock and I said yes. (Will work for fabric!!) We each got a packet fat quarters of four colors of a different pattern. We have to have some of each fabric visible in the piece and it has to be two dimensional. It needs to be in England at the end of March so it is on my radar. Terry and I are thinking of sharing fabrics to mix it up a bit.

Here is one of my Christmas presents, from Mr C. They are called Huntress boots and are wider to accommodate ample calves and they are also shorter than Wellies. He got me red!

I took this photo with my new lens by using the timer and setting the camera on the floor.

I hope you are embracing the new year and all the possibilities it has in store.

We Have a Winner

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

Sheila Mahanke Barnes was chosen by the random number generator. Send me your snail mail and I will send this on to you!!

It is a beautiful day in Portland, brisk and sunny with grand views of Mt. Hood. Reva and I took the bus downtown to meet up with some of our STASH group for lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant and then some art viewing. We went to the Contemporary Craft Museum where my guild has a small show in their showcase. The theme is fire and earth. I have my Scorched Earth piece there.

We had a small gift exchange. I made these bags for each one with their name stamped.

I also repurposed an old quilt that I made in 2007 and created 5 small pieces. This was made from hand-dyed silk, organza and cheese cloth. It was heavily hand stitched with perle cotton.

Here are the newpieces:


I added some beads to some of them and satin stitched the edges. I love making these little pieces.

Mr C and Scooter went out and cut down a tree while I was gone. He said it did not take as long because I was not with him. (Me: Oh, look at that one over there. Wait, I see one down there that looks perfect! Etc.)

So, guess what I will be doing this week-end!!

A Fused Glass Quilt

Friday, November 11th, 2011

When the nine Twelves met in Houston, we exchanged some lovely gifts. It was so wonderful to bring them home with me to fondle and enjoy. Karen‘s husband, Ted, made each of us a fused glass plate which was inspired by one of our Twelve by Twelve quilts. Since they are very heavy, they were delivered or shipped to each of us. Karen brought mine to me a while ago when she was visiting Portland.

It was inspired by my mathematics themed quilt — Not  So Simple Geometry.

I keep mine in my dining room and you can see how beautifully it goes with the wall color. It is a lovely memory of the Twelve community. Thank you Ted and Karen.