Museum Quilt Guild Brown Bag Challenge

What do all of these items have in common?

For the second time this year, Kathi Everett and I hosted a brown bag challenge for our guild.  Anyone who wanted to participate received a brown bag full of these elements.   The brown, gold and black fabric was a "must use" as were 2 "prompts" on 2 small slips of paper - which said  1.  Use an unusual fabric and #2 add a straight line.  The rest of the items were a cork, set of washers, mini clothespins, 2 beads attached to a ribbon, candy wrapper, piece of suede fabric, a tassel, piece of gold cord, dryer sheet and coffee filter. We could omit any 2 of this last group.  As before, the creativity of our group never ceases to amaze us.

Mine was literally, a brown bag.  It is a purse with the parrot made from the suede, silk, and dryer sheet.  His eye is from the washer covered with floss and the beads are used for feed to hang on the perch which is the straight line made from the gold cord.  The tassel is the zipper pull and the coffee filter is the half circle on the back.   I also added a lot of beading on the back.

Lori Anderson's wash day on the left and her daughter, Bethany on the right.   Beth did a lot of painting with her elements.  For a young artist, she never ceases to amaze.  Lori works a lot with miniatures and that is reflected in her wonderful little quilt.

Cynda Watroba  - whimsical tree on left and Gloria Crittenden's peaceful home scene on the right.

Tracy's bouquet - loved that she used the background from a previous workshop - she is probably the one for whom this was the most a big stretch.   Love the butterfly.   Mary Ellen Casey did the owl - she is always so creative and works larger than I would dare most of the time.   So realistic!!

Another Mother daughter duo - Mary Ann Watson was inspired by wash day also and even joked that it is sad when laundry day is her main inspiration for a quilt.   Her daughter Melanie Watson did the piece on the left which is a journal cover for the book that houses information about our community service quilts.   Love that she was so practical - and yet it is such a lovely keepsake for us.



Kathi Everett did hers totally by hand.   She is the queen among us as to using unusual items in unusual ways and this is no different.   She calls it Harmony.   Love that she is so creative doing all by hand.

Alex Hammon did the sash for her bear, Cinnamon.  Such a lovely story about the first bear she ever purchased and the sash contains all the elements.

My final comment is that I don't understand why the blogger cooperates for all by the last 2 pictures.   I couldn't get them side by side no matter how hard I tried!

Ricky Tims Seminar in Rochester with Alex Anderson & Libby Lehman

What a fun weekend we had!   The Ricky Tims seminar came to Rochester.   Along with Ricky was Alex Anderson & Libby Lehman.   It was great fun, full of lots of quilting information, laughs, jokes and cammaraderie with friends.

Here are some of my "partners in crime"

L-R - me, Mary Ellen, Shirley, Mary Ellen, Charlotte, Eileen & Lori

And my partners in crime at lunch time.   This was the coolest spot we could find for our picnic.   Then we headed to Abbotts for ice cream.

Lori pictured with Ricky & Libby

Lori chatting it up with Alex.   They seem to have this "daughter thing" in common.

And of course there was shopping - everybody wanted a hand dyed fabric

Yes, yes, I do own this piece now.   Beth seems to be giving her approval, and with her knowledge of dyed fabrics, how could I go wrong?

Well, naturally I have to find thread to go with it.

One of my favorites - all raw edges give such great texture - each little color spot is a separate piece of raw edged fabric.   I love everything about this.   This is in Ricky's private collection of purchased quilts.

Libby's ribbon quilt - just love the way the ribbons weave in and out of the pattern.

Libby's circle quilt.   I have to try this technique.

Ricky is a classicaly trained pianist and musician.   That was his first love and his first vocation.   He treated us to a concert on Friday night, complete with slides and stories of his journey in music and quilting.   It was positively awesome and inspiring.  One of my best recent musical experiences.   Here he is playing the pan flute with images of his home state, Colorado in the background. 

Anniversary Vacation in Williamsburg and Jamestown Virginia

This year was our 42nd wedding anniversary!   Our very good friends David & Janet Fryling celebrate their anniversary on the same date, same year.   We have started a tradition of an anniversary trip each year.   The past 2 years we have gone on cruises, we decided to do something more simple this year.   I'm not sure 100 degree heat is simple, but we did love Virginia!   On our anniversary date, we went to Jamestown, to see the settlement.

 Mark with his new best friend!!!!

 Mark, ready to set sail.

 View from one of the 3 ships

 Nothing special, except the ferry leaving across the way.   I just liked the view with the rocks!

Our anniversary dinner at the end of the day -

David & Janet Fryling, Elaine & Mark Ross

Round Robin Art Quilts Revealed!

Last night was our ArtCGirlz Round Robin Reveal.   If you don't know what that is - a single piece of fabric or small quilt was handed off to a group to add their own take and embellishments on what you had started.    Once it left your hands, you did not see the piece again until it was finished.  That can be stressful for some, but I think most would agree that the reveal was well worth the wait.   (I feel like HGTV when they talk about the big reveal)!   We had 2 groups, 5 or 6 in each group.

It all began with a single piece of snow dyed fabric (from Mary Lee, also in our group) that I won at a guild workshop raffle!

It looked so floral to me - I could see a garden, but I gave the group no direction or expectation.   We all gave our favorites "loves" or desires.   Mine were anything nature, butterflies, purple, and beads.   But I explicitly said I had no expectations or directions.

This is what I received last night!!!!!!

A Victorian Tea Party - well that is what it appears to me!

 Lori started it out with my favorites - purple butterflies and a small purple doily which became the tablecloth.   She pictured a garden in Sicily - ala "Golden Girls".   That set the whole tone of the piece, as the first person quite often does in a round robin like this.

 Martha was next - adding a thread work arbor and flowers.   Absolutely stunning.

Mary Ellen Casey added the wrought iron chairs and the table skirt.   Chris Keuhl made the lovely embroidered 3-D pillow.

And finally, Chris added the clay pot with flowers.

I totally LOVE, LOVE, LOVE everything.   Now it is up to me to figure how to finish it!!!

Mary Diamond - Thread Painting Class -

This is the finished version of the quilt in the earlier post.   I added some more threadwork, some beads (yellow & pink) and crystals for raindrops.   It's done!   The class was to mount our finished work on canvas, I chose just to make a mini quilt.

First Clematis, Mary Diamond & Thread Painting

First of all, I must share my beautiful clematis.   It sits right by the front door, planted in the entry way concrete planter that is about 30 inches high.   I picked this because it said it would do well in shade....and it had purple flowers.   It does not disappoint!   So prolific!!!



Saturday at guild we had Mary Diamond, thread painter, for a program and workshop.   her quilts were lovely!    There was not one I didn't like.   I did take the class and we were to pick out flowers from her fused fabrics, attach them to a background and create a realistic looking bouquet or art quilt.   This is mine so far!!!

You can see that I did venture into the background to create some little green springs.   It's not done yet....perhaps some beads will find their way onto my little quilt.  Time will tell.

Autumn Sky

This is my latest quilt - I'm thinking the title is driven by the fabrics.  I fell in love with these marbled fabrics that I saw at a show in New Jersey.

The orange is a little darker than this picture denotes.   I attached fusible webbing to a piece of black fabric, folded it in half and drew half a tree.   Then I proceeded to cut through both layers, with an exacto knife and scissors, so as to have a symmetrical tree when finished.   It turned out to be no easy task.   It was even more cumbersome when I removed the fusible and all those black branches twisted and stuck to each other.   Carefully, I had to separate them and form them into what would appear to be a symmetrical tree.   I think that was the hardest part of the whole project.   I then did close stitching on each branch, to permanently attach the tree and to complete part of the quilting process.   I completed the quilting with free motion swirls in the background, mostly following the pattern of the fabric.   Simple, yet strong!

"Yes, the Water Really is This Color!"

Everyone knows I went to Bermuda last year and I'm STILL creating quilts from the sights, sounds and colors I saw there.   This quilt is from that experience!

One of the things that impressed me the most was the color of the water.   We always see pictures of the turquoise waters, but it REALLY IS that color, or in this case "this" color!   I've always wanted to do a beach scene and I knew this would be it.   I used many different fabrics - a definite sky print, some stonehenge fabrics (in the water and the beach, some batiks, silks, a lame (however you spell that) and some laces, cheesecloth, yarns, beads, crystals and buttons.   It was fun to do and went together quickly (relatively speaking).

This is the cheesecloth, about halfway in the water scene.......it covers another teal fabric with white dots, to which I added beads - denoting bubbles or whitecaps or whatever it is you see!

 Closeup of the buttons and beads to denote what you might find while walking on the beach.

Closeup of the lace and fuzzy yarn and beads to denote the foam you find at the waters edge!

This quilt was SO much fun to do!   As I said, it went together quickly and more times than not I find that those quilts are the ones I like the best and I think maybe show the best.   They practically make themselves!!!!

6x6 maybe...........

Every year our RAFA group in Rochester participates in the 6 x 6 challenge at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center.   The goal is to make any type of art as long as it is 6 inches by 6 inches.   I can't remember how many they collected last year - from all over the world, but it is well over 1,000 - probably WELL over.

This might be my piece this year.   It is a sun print that I did a couple of years ago.   It is cyanotype with special fabric that you place in the sun to tranfer a design.  This was a snowflake stencil that I laid on top of the fabric, set in the sun, under glass, for approximately 15 minutes and then rinsed.   The dye under the stencil washes away leaving the lighter design.   Beyond that I emphasized the snowflakes with metallic thread and then "beaded the heck out of it".  You can't see the thread and all the beads, but they are prolific.

March FMQ

OK, I'm participating (however loosely) in a FMQ Challenge done by SewCalGal. http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/p/free-motion-quilt-challenge.html   I'm usually always pretty happy with my machine quilting, but figured I could always learn something new.   This is my posting for March (the first I have actually posted)........part of a quilt entitled "Really, I Went to Bermuda".   I don't know if it meets the goal of the month......it seemed to be a rather "loose" challenge.   Anyway, these are my squiggles and swirls!

Cute little luncheon place

I had lunch at a cute little place in Rochester today - a converted gas station which now houses Great Harvest Bread Co.   Wonderful breads, desserts, coffees and soups.   As usual, I'm always snapping pictures of my interesting surroundings (sometimes much to the amusement or dismay of my family & friends).   Anyway, I couldn't resist these.   Being a quilter, you know what I'm seeing here!!   Patchwork and sheers...I can just see it now!!!   I'm already constructing these in my mind and that may be as far as they get!

Messy Worktable photo collaboration

Lynn Krawczyk of the Fibra Artysta Blog is hosting the "messy worktable project". ...today March 26 
http://fibraartysta.blogspot.com/2012/03/messy-work-table-photo-collaboration_26.html

OK, so probably not the messiest of all that will be seen here, but all these things represented several different "in process" projects - one of which was due in 5 hours after taking this.   I'm pretty much a "Type A" person, so this was really driving me nuts that day.   Everything, literally, was just thrown when I finished using it - because of the deadline.

You can see more about this project if you click on her link, above.