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Piecing Progress

March 27th, 2015

pieceslinesections

Here is the result of several days of frustration. A few days ago, I finished piecing the skinny lines.

piecedsections

Then, I made the decision to piece it all together and then quilt rather than qulting each piece and then putting it together. You piecers out there probably know that when you take a piece of fabric and start slashing and inserting lines, you get a very wonky thing when you are done. Some of the pieces were way off in shape and size and I had to add some fabric and lines and do some fudging to get them to work. I am working on the bias in some of the pieces, too. So now, it is ready to be quilted into submission. I need to go get some thread, first.

I am also working on the next Printed Fabric Bee piece which is due in a couple of days. The theme is Mola. Here is what I used to make thermofax screens.

molaflowerouter

molaflowerinnerdesign

Reveal will be in a couple of days.

Wednesday, we were able to pick up our ceramic objects that had been glazed and fired. Love my zombie foot and hand!

zombieparts

I got a bit carried away with the metallic wash on the plate, but all in all, I am happy with my first attempt at something like this. Those are delicious black currant macarons on the plate, a gift from my friend who makes these in many flavors and colors.

ceramicflowerplatter

And this is the reason that I am moving and feeling like a slug right now. POLLEN!! I have a mean sinus headache and vertigo, my seasonal malady.

springpollen

Wordless Wednesday

March 25th, 2015

WW 03-25-15

Peacefully Piecing

March 23rd, 2015

skinnyline piecing

I am doing it. I am piecing these skinny lines. I went round and round with input from EB about what fabric to use for the background of this. I just couldn’t make myself comfortable with the commercial fabric. Just not me. EB felt the gray had-dye had too much texture which would fight with the lines. So, after STASH meeting on Thursday, I stopped at the studio and picked up some PFD cotton and ecru and a black procion dye. I carefully mixed dye and tried to get as even a coverage as I could in large plastic bags in my utility room.

The ecru was the winner. The gray which I tried with diluted black was too lavender. I have been able to complete 4 pieces of the puzzle. I sometimes have to unsew and try again, expecially where I have the crossed lines. EB has suggested that I quilt each piece separately and then put them together. I think that is a great idea. This will end up being 24 by 42 so that I can enter it in the High Fiber Diet neutral show, which has specific sizes.

Last Wednesday was our local SAQA meeting. We had a presentation by Paula Benjaminson, a SAQA member who spent many years in Africa. She showed some of her fabrics and quilts made from African fabrics. I loved this dress.

Africandressbrowns

Fabric detail:

Africanfabricbrownsdetail

Here is lovely piece of mudcloth.

mudcloth

And this printed fabric.

Africancloth

I have been busy with meetings and other things. My knee is getting better.

Oh, the best news is that Jayme got her first choice for her pediatric residency – Stanford Children’s hospital. This means they will stay in the Bay area. Mark can keep his job, but they will move out of San Francisco and closer to Palo Alto so that Jayme will not have as much of a commute.

Paige’s 3rd birthday party is coming up. She had a party this past week-end. We had to miss it, but her other Grandma sent me some photos. Here she is chomping on a cupcake!

2015-03-23 21.43.54

Wordless Wednesday

March 18th, 2015

WW03-18-15

A Great Workshop

March 16th, 2015

firstCCworkshopcollage

I spent 3 days last week in a workshop with Cynthia Corbin – best 3 day workshop I have taken in ever so long. I am overflowing with ideas and ways to get myself out of creative funks. She is such a great teacher and wonderful human being.

The title of the workshop was Structure and Variations: Black Fabric Sketch. We cut a rectangle of black fabric and using a rotary cutter, cut shapes. We could do curves or straight cuts. I chose straight cuts for my first piece.

FirstBlackSketch

We then chose fabrics for each piece and used the black fabric as a template. We could machine piece or fuse our pieces. Well, you know what I chose! The first photo is my first composition. This is such a cool way of using my hand-dyed and printed fabrics. Here is my second composition.

SecondCCworkshopcollage

On the second day, we did another black fabric sketch and it was suggested that we do curves if we had done straight lines the first day. I decided to see how this would work for doing a landscape.

landscapeblackclothsketch

And here is my landscape collage of the California golden hills.

landscapecollage

On Saturday, she showed us how to use fabric sketches to make text. I just love this. I chose the word tree as I want to do a piece about trees for the SAQA show that is not a literal piece. Here are my letters. I think I will add an s and line them up vertically with a collage of other fabrics.

treeword

I came home with 3 finished pieces ready to quilt and a great start on another piece. I am one happy artist.

Yesterday, after church, I ran over to Fabric Depot’s big sale to look for some fabric options for my EB Master Class March piece. We are doing lines. Here are my sketches.

GECMarsketch3 GECMarsketch2 GECMarsketch1

She encouraged me to do the top one and PIECE it. Yikes. I want to do it in neutrals so that I can use it for the High Fiber Diet neutral show. Here are my mock ups. Still not sure which one to use.

MarGECMockup