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Archive for the ‘Quilting Friends’ Category

Secret Project Revealed

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

At the end of June, my good fiber friend, Judy, who lives in Georgia, posted this photo of her mother and her grandson that was taken on father’s day, just a couple of weeks before her mom passed away. I just love this photo. Her mother was failing, but rallied on that day when Charlie came to visit. It just speaks volumes about our lives and moms, grandmom and great grandmoms. I knew I just had to create something for Judy with the photo as a remembrance of her mom.

Using Photoshop Elements, I created a line drawing/sketch of the photo.

 

I experimented with different colors of organza and background fabric and finally found the right combination. I fused the photo to the background chiffon and took it New York with me where I worked on the background stitching, a combination of French knots and seed stitch.

Here is a detail:

I decided that it needed a frame to set it off instead of having a hanging rod. I am very happy with the result.

I sent it off, priority mail, last Friday and Judy called me today, in tears, as she had received it.

I had a really nice long week-end. I managed to stitch the rod pockets for several  black felt panels for the Twelve by Twelve exhibit at IQF in Houston in November. Terry has been cutting the panels. When they are all finished, we will attach the quilts and send them off to Houston.

On Sunday, Mr C and I went to the lighting store to find new pendent lights for the kitchen. We have four, two over two separate counters. They have always been a problem. The lights keep needing to be changed and finally, this week, one of the globes broke and fell in shatters on the counter and floor. Here is one of the old ones.

Here is the new one. Makes more of a statement and provides better task lighting.

Day Two in Tacoma

Monday, August 29th, 2011


I forgot to show this quilt yesterday. Perhaps it is the farm girl in me, but I was very taken with this quilt which uses an antique quilt from Iowa as the base. It is then embellished with corn stalks, oak leaves and other flora. The damage to the old quilt has been incorporated into the design. Be sure to click on to get a better look.

On Saturday, we decided that we had seen enough of the quilt show and set out for other venues. Terry, Beth, Jeri and I took the free trolley to the end and then enjoyed a nice walk to the American Art Company where they have the 11th Annual Art Quilt Invitational.

Tacoma is trying to reinvent itself into an arts community. I liked this outdoor sculpture.

The show at the American Art Company was very nice and hung very well, giving the pieces lots of space to breath. I have several friends who have work in the show. Here are the pieces that I was particularly drawn to.

This is Nest by Erica Carter. Click on the image to see a larger version.

I love the way Janet Kurjan arranged the blocks of color  for this piece titled, Light Ray.

This incredible piece by Toot Reid is titled, “September 28, 2010 – March 8, 2011”. Here is a detail:

After leaving this venue, we went down to the Tacoma Art Museum. Three of us perused the book store while Jeri went in to see Chihuly’s Pendleton Blanket collection. We had lunch at the museum cafe where I enjoyed looking up at the ceiling.

I had fun at the quilt show doing a little shopping.

I got thread, pre-wound bobbins, titanium needles and soluble stabilizer from Superior Threads.

My friend, Judy Bianchi from Sonoma County, creates gorgeous fabrics. I had to purchase some. This is a cotton/linen blend with a lovely color block print.

This is a gorgeous silk/cotton bend.

Judy has been doing a lot of soy wax batik. This is done with brush strokes. I see tree trunks!!

It was a fun trip. I want to give a shout out to my blog readers who recognized me and stopped to say hi at the show.  I am so happy to just be home, now. I only left the house to take Scooter for a walk. Tomorrow, I have my pre-op appointment for my cataract surgery. The right eye gets done on September 8th.

Be sure to check in here on Wednesday as I am giving away a copy of Masters of Art Quilts, Vol 2. It is a gorgeous book.

Technical Difficulties

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

My best laid plans went awry while in Tacoma for the APWQ quilt show. My brand new USB camera cord stopped working so I could not upload photos so I did no blogging. Truth be told, I was so sleep deprived and jet lagged, I am not sure I could have done it anyway.

It was a lot to ask of my aging body to get off a plane from the east coast, get reorganized and get on a train to another venue and not have some rebellion. I keep waking up on New York time even though I go to bed on West Coast time.

Anyway, we had a lovely train ride to Tacoma, all eight of us. Our first activity was to explore Tacoma a bit and so we walked around the Tacoma Glass Museum where you can see a beautiful icy looking installation,

We had drinks and dinner at a restaurant on the water — lots of fun.

We hit the quilt show the next morning. I have mixed feeling about it. I think the quality of the work that was entered and juried in to the show was not up to the quality of previous years. I had mixed feelings about pieces that were given ribbons — made me wonder what the jurors were looking at, especially in the art quilt categories.

This is a piece by my friend, Pippa, from Canada, who is a faithful blog reader. We were roommates at Art Quilt Tahoe one year. The title is  — there is an elephant in my garden. I love it.

I also liked thi quilt by Cynthia St. Charles which was drawn with gel glue resist and then painted.

Theere were many other quilts that I loved, but I was to blotto to remember to take photos.

In the downtown area, we found this word game in a plaza.

There were some pretty funny sentences put together. Here is one that Terry, Beth and I did.

Tacoma is a place of architectural delights — a place where old meets new and manmade meets natural as in this photo of the modern bridge with Mt. Rainier in the background.

I am happily tired tonight. I had fun putting together a grilled salmon dinner for two of the twelves and their spouses — Terry Grant and Karen Rips. And, of course, I forgot to take photos, just as I forgot to take photos of our meet up with Nikki at the quilt show.

Anyway, I am off to bed. I will post more tomorrow.

Monday Meet-up

Monday, July 11th, 2011

Today was a great day! In the photo above, looking at Terry’s 12 X 12 quilts are Tomme Fent, Jane Davila and June Underwood. We had a great time talking and eating lunch at Terry’s home. Jane was on her way home after teaching in Sisters this past week. Tomme recently moved here from Iowa and the other of us are of course the home town trio. I was thrilled to see Jane in person as we have been internet friends for a long time.

This morning, I saw Lisa and Clay off for their drive back to San Francisco. Wilfredo was in the car, ready to roll.

Work on the deck is moving along. Mark finished most of the framing today, and Mr C started oiling the decking hard wood which is called Ipe. I love the color.

They will start installing it tomorrow.

Last night, the whole family went out for pizza. We had left overs to bring home for lunch for the guys today. Mr C went to bed before I did. When I came into the room, he groggily announced that the pizza was still in his car. I had already taken my clothes off so he went to get the pizza into the fridge. I reminded him that I had set the alarm. All of a sudden, this horrible screeching sound had all of us running from our rooms to the hallway. Clay had the good sense to run down to the kitchen counter and hit the stop button on the alarm remote. Mr C thought he had turned it off. We now realize that the sound of the alarm is so distressing that no one could stand to do anything like rob a house while it is going on. It is really awful. At least I know what it sounds like now. And Clay stopped it soon enough that the call did not go to the police.

Gotta stop and do my post for the Twelve X  Twelve reveal tomorrow.

Pondering Gray on a Sunny Day

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

The next Twelve by Twelve color challenge, chosen by Kirsty, is gray. All winter, I see gray. Now, we are having sunny and beautiful weather and I am looking for gray fabrics!! Above are a couple of silk organza possibilities. That dark gray has been used in a few art quilts I have made, I really like it.

These are the only hand-dyed cottons in my stash with gray tones. Rather wrinkled and uninspiring.

Today, we had our monthly STASH meeting at Suzy’s. She prepared a very delicious lunch, and we had our usual good time sharing our work and stories.

Tonight, after dinner, I took my camera down to the Rhodie Garden and got these shots in the waning light.