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Archive for the ‘Quilting Friends’ Category

Friday Fun

Friday, October 16th, 2009

matthewmarklukejohn

These are quilted images of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, created by Mary Catherine Lamb. She was an incredible fiber artist and recently passed away from a recurrence of ovarian cancer. Some of her work is on view at the Nine Gallery in Portland.

I met Terry Grant there for a long overdue art date. We started at the Contemporary Craft Museum. Saw some interesting stuff. I was very enamored with the pojagi pieces done by Jiseon Lee Isbara, associate professor and head of fibers department, Oregon College of Art and Craft. She will be speaking to my guild at our June quarterly meeting.

Our main purpose was to see Mary Lamb’s work. She used all manner of fabrics from old table cloths and curtains to more contemporary quilting fabrics to create her complex pieces. Each one is made up of squares. Each square is like a completed little quilt. If you click on this, you can see the squares.

lambcloseup

These pieces were my favorites:

archangelmichael

Above is the Archangel, Michael and below is the Angel at the Tomb – my absolute favorite.

angelatthetomb

Anyone who has been in my home, knows that I love religious art. Mary collected it, also. Here is the Virgin Mary with cooties. I want this collection!!

marycooties

Terry took me to Park Kitchen for a belated birthday lunch. We shared two incredible desserts after eating healthy soup and salad. One was a lovely lime concoction with lime curd and topped with house made crackerjacks. The other was a plum/tomato crisp with basil ice cream. They were both delectable and not sugary sweet.

OK, now let’s talk about my work ethic. I only post when I have done something. You all don’t know about those days when I am languishing on the sofa playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook.

Over on 12 X 12, we are taking turns handing out awards to each other. Today, Diane did Most Likely to be Pulled Over by the Quilt Police. It is so funny. You have to go read it.

I did manage to read the first chapter in Expressive Drawing. I think it will be a fun book. I love this quote from the first chapter.

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college—that my job was to teach people how to draw, she stared back at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?”

I am Verklempt

Friday, October 9th, 2009

deborahmini

This lovely arrived in the mail today from my fellow Twelve (and one of my adopted art quilting girls), Deborah. I broke into tears to find this Hillside Celebration made just for me. Here is the back story. This is a smaller version of the quilt that Deborah made for our most recent theme: Twelve. You can see it here. If you read the comments you will find a little who loves it more going on between Kirsty and I. So, I was really touched to have a version made for me for my birthday. Deborah, you really made my day. I do have wonderful quilty, virtual friends, don’t I?

I mentioned to my friend, Karen Miller, that I was planning to do a scarf dyeing class at my church. She recommended Colorhue Dyes. My shipment of 9 colors came today.

colorhuedyes

These dyes are instant set and can be diluted with water for lighter shades and mixed with each other to get more complex colors. I will be playing with them tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Yesterday, I forgot to show you the cool little stamps that Terry gave us yesterday. She bought them at the African Art Museum in Washington DC. Love these. (Photo taken in the kitchen tonight with bad lighting.)

africanstamps

Want to rent a good movie? Mr C and I just watched the French flick, Tell No One. It is a thriller to the end. Did you know that Kristin Scott Thomas speaks perfect French?

Artistic Food

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

tomatozucchinitarts

Aren’t these gorgeous? Reva made them for our Stash meeting lunch. They are puff pastry with a savory cheese base and tomatoes and zucchini. They tasted great, too. For dessert, she made a beautiful plum tart with plums from her backyard tree.

revaplumtart

Before lunch we sat around and caught up on our comings and goings and carved rubber stamps with some instruction from Terry.

terrydemonstrates

I carved a small prototype of Aspen trunks that I want to carve on a larger piece.

aspentrunkstamp

aspenstamped

I obviously was having some inking problems, but overall, I am happy with the image. That was all I managed to make. It was a very relaxing time. I love spending time, laughing and chatting, with this group of friends.

You Gotta Have Friends

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

virtualfriends

Today is the Twelfth reveal for the 12 X 12 group. Terry Grant selected the number 12 as our theme. I knew right away that I wanted to interpret the 12 of us in some way. My first idea was very grandiose. I was going to make little fiber portraits of each one of us, perhaps in a Picasso manner. Well, you know what my last two months have been like and that idea was soon discarded.

I didn’t want to give up. I collected photos of every one from their online postings. I hope I don’t get in trouble for not getting permission to use them, but how could I do that without letting the cat out of the bag! At first, I started using my light box to make drawings from each photo. I was going to try to do some simple machine quilted portraits, highlighting our hair. I didn’t have time for that either!!

Then, the thermofax screen idea hit me. I knew I could accomplish that in time. I played with each photo in Photoshop. I used up a lot of paper and ink getting them just right.

papertrail

After I made the first set of screens, I did some test prints on muslin.

muslintestprints

I had to redo some of the screens. Each one is so small, it did not require a lot of materials to redo.

I then selected a rainbow of colors for the quilt. My rainbow is not perfect, but as close as I could come with my stash. I did not think too hard about which color to use, except that I got lime green, Deborah got purple and Francoise got blue!! I did not make bindings for the screens since they are so small and won’t be used again. I just taped them to the fabric for screening.

screentaped

Here they are drying. I did two prints for each person, just to be safe.

dryingprints

Here are all of my little screens, drying, after I washed them.

littlescreens

I cut each into a 3 1/2 inch b4 41/2 inch square and did some pretty good piecing.

prettygoodpiecing

I decided to do some hand stitching instead of machine quilting. Took me longer, but I like the effect. I did seed stitching around each image and then tacked each image with very tiny stitches. I wanted to add some bling with a few beads on each one, but as you can see, reality set in and I stopped and added the back binding. Here is a detail showing the stitching.

friendsdetail

I love this group of women. I have met Kristin, Diane, Terry and Nikki in person. I want to meet the others and dream of a week-end retreat spent with this group of women. I admire them in so many ways, not just for their art, but for the inspiring ways that they live their individual lives.

Good friends are like shooting stars….You don’t always see them, but you know they are always there. Anon.

This and That

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

micachips

Just a quick check in. I think the activities of the past two weeks have caught up with me. I hope I do not have the flu because Mr C has surgery on Thursday and he needs me. So, I am off to bed soon.

The photo above is my experiment with tinting mica chips for the green flash piece. The photo is not that great because every thing is reflective, but you get the idea.

Today, I had fun helping one of Jane Dunnewold’s Mastery students make thermofax screens for her next project. Barbara recently moved back  here to Portland. She used to have her own clothing design business, but now designs fabric for other designers. The Mastery program is a 3 year program with twice a year week long classes in San Antonio with Jane.

On Sunday night, Mr C and I took Scooter to his first puppy training class. He is doing so well. We have homework every day, and he is a very smart boy. He can come, stay, sit and go down on command. (As long as a treat is involved!!) Here he is n class, touching Mr C’s hand to get a treat.

scooterschool

I am done for the night. Ta!!