I was not happy with my black and white print composition so I did some changes in fabrics in the lower right corner. Here it is now:

I think this works a little better.

I wasn’t going to do it, but I did. Today was the deadline for sending in jpegs and prints of journal quilts for consideration for the journal quilt book that Karey Bresenhan is doing. For the non-quiltart readers, this is a project which is now in its fourth year, in which participants make a quilt the size of a page – one per month (through September). They were then shown at the International Quilt Festival in Houston at the end of October. I only participated in 2003 and 2004. I rephotographed each of them with the tripod. As I was working on them, I was trying to decide which was my favorite. In 2003, I think I liked the one I did from a photograph of a rainbow eucalyptus taken in Hawaii:

In 2004, I used the same image in all of my journals – a Sycamore leaf that I scanned and photocopied. In this one, I printed the leaf on silk and fussy cut it. I then layered it between silk organza with some tulle in the center to stabilize it. I then couched the decorative yarns.

I got some Art Quilt Tahoe pics from Sue Benner today with a note saying she would like some good digitals of my finished work. Guess I better get busy and get the machine quilting done. It will have to wait until we get back from Portland. Today we spent a lot of time looking at houses online that our Realtor, Cynthia sent us. I had my blog address on my e-mail to her and so she checked out my blog. Guess what, she majored in Clothing & Textiles and related Arts at Oregon State. What a small world. I just know that we are going to get along great!!

A BIG SHOUT OUT TO OUR LIST MOM, DIANE, WHO HAS A BIRTHDAY ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 31. HIPPO BIRDY, DIANE!!!!

Bit by bit and little by little, I am divesting myself from all the stuff that filled my days here in Sonoma County. Today was the annual meeting of my parish and the new Rector’s Warden was announced – and of course, it is not me. I am staying on the vestry until we move, but I am kind of a lame duck member. But, yeah! No more Tuesday morning meetings with the Rector.

I am feeling somewhat giddy with freedom. I know that there is a lot of work ahead, getting ready to move and the actual move, but I think it will be an exciting time. I am really focusing on finding a great space for a studio in our new house. Every time Mr. C shows me another listing, I ask, "But does it have a daylight basement?"

Today, I did my achromatic focal point composition. It was the same as the monochromatic, except I used black and white prints in a 7-step value run. I am not as happy with this – not sure why.

I changed the monochromatic into a gray scale composition just for the fun of it and this is quite cool:

Katie’s book talks about black and white quilts and the visual impact that they can make. Here is one that I did for Mr. C a couple of  years ago.

This is in a narrow entry into his office so I had to take the pic on an angle. I used a variety of black and white prints mixed with solid black. I layered four fabrics and cut curves and wavy curves and then reassembled the pieces into four new blocks. I have a huge stash of black and white fabrics because it took many to do this.

Tomorrow I think I will do some machine quilting on my ufo’s.

For this assignment, I had to go back to the contour drawing that I did in the first exercise:

Then, I had to cut a rectangle in a sheet of paper, 2 1/8 by 2 3/4 inches. Using the box, I had to find the focal point and find an arrangement that pleased me. I came up with this diagonal composition:

Next, I had to enlarge this 400 times to 8.5 X 11 inches:

Then, I needed to do a value run of one color, using the gray value run that I created yesterday:

This was a very useful exercise. I think I did a good job of getting the 7 different values.

Then, I had to trace the design components onto fusing and transfer to fabric and cut them out. The instructions were to use the lightest and darkest values in the focal point and not use them any place else in the design. Here, I am beginning to lay out the design on white fabric that has the design drawn on it:

And here is the final monochromatic composition:

The next exercise is  an achromatic composition so I will be using my stash of black and white graphic fabrics.

The house is sold. We are heading to Oregon next week to look for a new home there. We close escrow on the 27th of February and will rent back the house until April 15th. Steve gets to sing Mozart’s Requiem with the choir on Good Friday, and I get to take a workshop with Jane Dunnewold at Art Quilt Claremont, the first week of April. Every one is happy!! We will also have a Congdon brother’s reunion here early in March and celebrate Mark’s big 40 birthday.

This morning, I paid my speeding ticket fine on line and registered to take traffic school on line. I have to read a bunch of stuff and then answer the questions. I have to get them all right to pass and then they will certify my results to the court, and I won’t get a point on my license. You can keep taking the test until you get it right. If you never do pass, they refund your $27 bucks.

So, this afternoon, I could go back to my normal routine. I went to aerobics. I went back to the Color and Composition exercises. AND I have fabric scattered all over my studio.

Today, I did the gray-scale value run, the graphic gray-scale and the fabric color wheel.

I am also working on the prototype for the commission piece. I have a grid drawn on batting. I am waiting for some hand-dyed fabric that I will fuse and take to Oregon with me so that I can work on it at the hotel during off times. I am making a piece that is 1/4 the size of the final piece. Lisa is visiting Stephanie at the same time that we are there so we are staying in a hotel.

Steph, Lisa and I have been invited to be part of a collaborative bird book. It’s a pre-made book with blank pages that 46 different artists will be filling with their work. Each person gets their own 2 page spread to fill. Colleen in Austin, TX, stumbled on our blogs and asked us to do this. It will take a year for the book to travel around to the artists and then she hopes to have it exhibited some place, hopefully  Women and their Work Gallery, in Austin. The three of us will have our work on consecutive pages. Hi, Colleen – thanks, for including us!

Awww! Isn’t she adorable, asleep  on my studio sofa? It’s my Maggie!

And, LOOK!, my quilt in the Bag of Stuff article in American Quilter, written by Linda Cline, who received the quilt. Thanks, Linda!!

The couple who looked at the house today really like it. They have homes in Florida, Cape Cod, Connecticut and Massachusetts. They want to get out of Florida because of the hurricanes. They are coming back tomorrow for another looky loo. The other couple has so far not been heard from. So another morning of getting up early and sprucing up the place!!