Brown Bag Challenge!

What do all of these things have in common?

1. A Man's tie (brown)

2.  a zipper (yellow)

3.  a white paper doily

4.  a metal scrubber (chore girl)

5.  a flat wooden bead

6.  a hair scrunchie (purple)

7.  rubber shelf liners

These are all part of the brown bag challenge we are doing in my guild.   We each received a brown bag with these 7 items (different colors and patterns) and were challenged to create something using all of them with any fabric we chose.   We could make a small quilt, purse, pillow......anything that we could show we used each of these items in some way.

I love things like this......I was one of the coordinators....but this was hard!   I'd have an idea and get stuck on using the last two items.   I'd have another idea and not like the way they all went together.   We have to use all 7 in some way, but they don't to appear in the quilt as they do in this picture.   Example:    Use one of the items to alter fabric in some way. 

 
Well, it is finally done and 2 weeks ahead of the due date (December 10).   YEA!!!!!   It's not a masterpiece, but I conquered the challenge.   No...of course you're not going to see the final product yet.   You know my blog is read my hundreds of people and I can't risk my idea being copied!!!!   Ha Ha...FYI - that is a big huge joke, designed to bring a smile (maybe even a loud guffaw) to your face!

Stay tuned!!!

Longwood Gardens

I have been doing a little quilting lately - very little because of post-surgery on my finger - but I can't show any of it here as it relates to Christmas - both for family and for guild.   Instead I will show pictures from my recent trip to Longwood Gardens, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.   It was their annual mum festival.   Mums were never my favorite flower, but they certainly do wonderful things with them.

This is the first mum "tree" you see when you enter the conservatory.   There are 1167 blooms on here and they are all carefully grafted and inserted thru wire holders to present this sort of display.   It is just spectacular to see.

Loved the colors on this one!

This one is called Spoonflower!

Truly an Asian looking Mum - just outstanding in size and color.

I'm also on the hunt for a new waterlily photo to make a new quilt.   Here are some possibilities from the Longwood Gardens!



SOLD!

We had a Fine Arts Festival at my church today.   It was a combination of an Art Show,  an International Bazaar and a Musical Concert tomorrow.   I was in charge of securing the art and we ended up with 42 pieces - a nice little display.   Large enough to be interesting and small enough not to overwhelm.   I showed 4 different art quilts, one of which is shown above - "Seagulls at Portland, Maine".   SOLD!    I was very surprised to see the sold sign on it when I went back to help close up the show this afternoon.   I know the home it is going to and it will be loved!    It is from a pictures I took on our cruise last year along the New England Coastline.   I manipulated one seagull to make 3 of different size.   I printed that onto printer fabric and then added other fabrics for the rocks and water.   Then I added tulle for shadowing, lots of threadwork for dimension and finally some colored pencils to enhance the color of the seagulls.   Metallic threads highlight the water.   Below is the original picture I took.

A Sunday Morning Stroll in October

Well, if you read my previous posts, you know I'm still not quilting because of surgery on my finger (more involved than I originally thought--Silly, naive Elaine!!)   Anyway, I took the camera out today since it was a nice sunny day for a change!

This would be my favorite row of trees in Centennial Park - quite possibly the only real color this year.   We seem to be seriously lacking in color in this part of the state.

A very interesting tree in the park.

Interesting texture from said tree.   I like the roots - they al look rather "halloween-like"!

My favorite tree on my street, that is NOT mine!   It looks rather "painterly" don't you think?

Closeup of said tree.   I like the way the leaves move about the tree.

Just some lone red leaves amongst all the dead burdocks.   I like the juxtaposition of the bright, living with the dull dead leaves.

Be Very Careful...........

This is a VERY dangerous object!

 It is not just the lid of a soup can as you might imagine, it is as dangerous to your fingers
as a rotary cutter (if you are a quilter).  In late June I was opening a can of soup with this type of ring top lid and it just "snapped".   I had to go to the ER immediately and returned home with 4 stitches.   After about 6 weeks it all seemed to be healing just fine - on the outside.   But the color was off, parts of my finger were still numb and parts hurt to touch.   I was referred to a hand surgeon and am now awaiting surgery to repair a severed nerve.   Apparently the nerve endings are attaching to scar tissue and if I touch it at all, or try to use it, it is like sticking my finger in a light socket.   So, next week I will have surgery to insert a conduit like object into my fingers into which the nerve endings will be threaded....to get them away from everything else they are looking for and/or attaching to.

So, I have no new quilts to show right now - but, stay tuned!!!

I made this Bead

Yesterday was RAFA (Rochester Area Fibre Artists) Day.   As part of the afternoon workshop, Sarah Terry showed us how to make this bead - called "Sparkly Wheels".

It is hard to get a good picture, but here it is.   It is about 1 inch in diameter, made of 30 turquoise 4mm bicone swaroski crystals and over 100 little tiny purple sparkly size 11 seed beads.   Even with my "gimpy" finger, I was able to complete this.   I love it.   It will probably go on a quilt, but who knows.   I have enough to make one more this size, or two smaller.   I might try the smaller - on a day with good light and lots of patience.

I'm loving my hibiscus this year.   I moved it from the other house last fall and it has taken off this year.   Everyday there are at least 4 new blooms and this has been going on for weeks.

I mean, seriously, look at this color!!!   I have several pictures and a few closeups.   There is a quilt in there somewhere.

The bush - larger than it looks here - is relatively small yet.   It is still waiting to "grow up".   I can't wait.

This could be done in a quilt with sheers!!!!   I can just see the layering potential.

j frag hibiscus

j frag hibiscus

My good friend, Janet, has a very special birthday this next week.   We have been friends since our college years, both of us were music majors, we both married our respective spouses on the same day 41 years ago, they lived in Batavia for awhile, our kids are about the same age and now they are our vacation/cruising buddies.  We have maintained a good friendship for lo these many years, despite many lengthy periods of not being able to get together because of family obligations etc.

My good friend Janet also loves hibiscus flowers.   This is a quilt made from the photo of her hibiscus plant taken in early August.    I saw an article on fractured flowers and thought this would make a perfect gift for her.    It was a pretty easy technique, using a photo printed to fabric, in this case, I printed on silk to give it the sheen that is characteristic to a hibiscus bloom.  It went together pretty easily and the stitching didn't hurt the silk fabric.   I added simple quilting lines in the flower, just to show the general shape of the folds etc. of the petals and then a leaf design in the outer part.

I call it "j frag Hibsicus" for "Janet's Fragmented Hibiscus".   It's sort of a play on a "genus" or "species" name in the plant kingdom.   It now resides in her home in Dublin, PA.   Happy Birthday, Janet!!!

I went to Bermuda!!!!

Yes, I, Elaine Ross, went to Bermuda!!!  It's not many years ago that for a myriad of reasons that I won't go into here, this would have been unthinkable or unbelievable.   Yet, "Sailing, Sailing Over the Bounding Main" I went.   And it was "bounding"!!!   The first day out we rode the end of Tropical Storm Emily.   The crew, who had their sea legs, assured us this was nothing.   Maybe to them that was so - not so much to us.   Anyway, once there, it was perfect weather, hot and sunny everyday.   I have lots of pictures and it is truly impossible to pick a favorite.   But, I will share a few now and then.   Probably what impressed me the most was the "color".   I am a "color" person in my gardening and in my quilting and everything from the buildings (beautiful pastel shades), to the water ( a turquoise as blue as the pictures you see) to the pink sands and the beautiful flowers was color intense and inspiring.

Yes, the water is this blue and the sands are this pink!!!

Water Lily from our garden tour in St. George

Sunset on Harborfront Evening.   A perfectly gorgeous evening.

Standing under a tree, waiting for the bus to pick us up at the beach (I won't go into that experience with the buses)........this leaf was just inspiring for its color.   There IS a quilt in here somewhere.

One of the gorgeous churches

Looking at the moon from the back of the ship as we journeyed over the Atlantic and back to NYC.

View of buildings from our deck on the ship.   Something about the graphic, geometric shapes and colors - this was a view I loved.

Sunset on the water.

We took a catamaran ride one evening - a "champagne sunset catamaran" shore excursion!!

Mark and I with our friends, Janet & David Fryling, who we vacationed with both last year and this year.   We all went to college together, 3 of us were music majors (Mark should have been also), we were married on the same day 41 years ago, and have remained good friends since. Special times!!!

Ice Dying

I don't really dye fabric much, or have much interest in it.   But after trying snow dyeing a year ago, I was intrigued to try "Ice Dyeing" as described in the latest Quilting Arts magazine.   In a nutshell, you cover your prepared fabric with ice, sprinkle procion dye powder on it and let it sit for 24 hours.   I liked it wet, but the colors fade out so much when dry.   Still, this is an interesting effect I got by folding the fabric in half, diagonally, and then doing accordian pleats and securing with rubber bands.

I used 2 different colors of teal, yellow and brown rose.   There is a smidgeon of purple and a little green.   I only wish it were more intense colors.

QA Fun Day at Val's

Today was the QA Study Group Day.   Since some of our members were at Quilting By the Lake - the rest of us went to Val's house (BEAUTIFUL house on Honeoye Lake) and played in the air conditioned comfort of her studio.   (I LUST after a studio like that).   Anyway, we did encaustic work with beeswax.   I wasn't going to go, (but Margaret invited me to ride) - or play,( but Julie coerced me) and I'm so glad they did.   Most of us spread melted beeswax on collages we made with pictures, fibers, papers etc.   Donna did beeswax on everything from an old sewing pattern to cheesecloth.   She got fantastic results.   Julie had large playing cards and so she and I made collages on these.

This is my first attempt!   I just went for bright colors - the beeswax puts sort of a plastic coating over everything.   Around the edges is melted yellow crayon for a semi-border effect.    The gold blobs here and there are fibrous papers. The beeswax is a little heavy in spots, so maybe it could be scraped off if I wanted to play more.   It's a very tropical picture.

My second attempt - looking forward to our next cruise.  The upper 1/3 is more fibrous papers.  The purple on the starfish and the blobs of green along the side are more melted crayon.    We drew on the bottom of a small iron with crayon, it melted immediately and then we ironed it onto the picture.   Sometimes it melted some beeswax already there - sometimes not.



What will I do with these?    No clue - they were "playtime".   But for now, I'm hanging them in my studio because I like the colors and the thoughts they project of island time!!!!

RAFA Display at Cazenovia Show

Our RAFA group has a small display at the International show "The Art Quilt Experience" in Cazenovia this month.   The juried quilts are spectacular (and I will show some more of them at a later time), but our little RAFA group also has a spectacular display.   I didn't get pictures of all - but here are some.........   (Sorry I can't seem to get the hang of putting 2 pics in a row.   Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.   Blogger is so frustrating that way.)

 

 Pat Berardi's piece.   I just love Pat's work, lots of gentle curves.

Janet Root - "Trill"

Janet Root - "Soft Black"

Diane Miller - a real coppery effect
that I just love.

 Diane Miller

 Val Schultz - another person whose
work I really admire. 

 Val uses a lot of cheesecloth from time to time - a really nice effect.

 Julia Deal - so simply stunning

Julie Brandon - "Saxology"

This is mine - called  "Summers Reward for a Winter Endured II".   It is to portray the wildflowers - lots of beads and crystals on this one.

 Liz Scott - "The Eleventh Song"

Patty Pizzicato did both of these - love it!

I wish I had gotten the name of the person who did this one - so wonderful.

Anne Fischer - lots of thread work - the piece speaks for itself in its beauty.

Detail of Ann's piece.

Donna Patrick - does a lot of dying & felting of scarves and shawls

The knotted piece is by Brenda DiAngelo.

This was not a quilt in our display............yet!   This was a window shade in an adjoining room - my husband thinks this should be my next quilt.   He is often my inspiration for new pieces.