Pillowcases & surprises

I have been making pillowcases for the Genesee Valley Quilt Club Show in June.   Pillowcases are part of their show community service and they set a goal each year and people can make pillowcases to donate or you can sit and sew at the show for as long as you wish using fabric that members have donated and cut for pillowcases.   As part of the show, the club sponsors a "Strive For Five" card - different ways to earn 5 points by volunteering for the show.   If you get 5 points you get into the show free.   Making 5 pillowcases earns you 2 points.   (If you donate fabric for 5 pillowcases to be sewn at the show you get 1 point).   When I turn these in tomorrow I will have earned my 5 points.

Most of these were made with fabrics from my stash - I only had to supplement a few.

Yesterday I decided it was time to take the winter/Christmas wreath off my front door.   (In my defense, it has been winter here up until last week.)  I had quite a surprise that I had not even noticed coming in and out of the house previously.

This is the original wreath - look closely.

A closer view.........

And.........an even closer view.









Unfortunately, I just took the wreath off the door, brought it in and prepared to put it away without noticing this until I had touched the nest etc.   It took me so by surprise because it looked so perfect that I wondered at first if I had not originally noticed it when I bought the wreath!!!!!   Don't laugh, you know that can happen!

6 x 6 for ROCO

I have been busy working on my 6" x 6" contributions for ROCO (Rochester Contemporary Art Center).   Every year they collect the 6 x 6 from all over the world - photos, paintings, textiles, mixed media - everything qualifies.   They are on display at ROCO and they are also available online in the month of June.   More information can be found at:  http://www.rochestercontemporary.org/

These are my 2 pieces for this year.

The piece on the right is called Purple Wildflowers I.

The piece on the right is Painted Butterfly.

Both of these are from techniques in "Quilting Arts" Magazine.

3 different fabrics are pieced for the background.   3 different size circles are layered for the big flowers, single layered circles for the smaller ones with some gold lame behind them.  The free form flower design is stitched next, with beads added for the center.

The background is stitched first on this - you can see the alternating directions of stitching.  Then the whole piece is covered with acrylic paint to give a smooth, level basis for painting the butterfly which is done with stenciling the design, adding crystals and stitching for antennae

All in all, I'm pretty happy with both of these this year.   Now we'll see if anyone else likes them!!!!!

Towpath Part II

Here are some of the more traditional or other quilts I found intereting at the show yesterday.....

OK, so everyone knows that I am a purple lover and a butterfly/dragonfly lover.   This quilt satisfies all of those!!! 

This quilt just glows!   I love the interplay of different designs.

It appears I didn't take a picture of this full quilt  - but all of these pattern designs were outlined in metallic gold thread.   Beautiful!

Nancy Crow design - took this for my friend Kathi who is a Nancy Crow design lover.

I would probably never do this pattern, but it is beautiful and perfect for a graden lover.

I'm not an applique person either, but you have to love this - especially the border design.

 Simple - yet beautiful - mostly because of its simplicity.

This was on a table, though not sure it would be a tablerunner because of the dimensional flowers.  See closeup below.

I always like this folk tree design and all the elements around it were so pretty - the leaves, apples, butterflies, flowers etc.

Towpath Quilt Guild Quilt Show

Today was a fun trip with some of my quilting buddies to the Towpath Quilt Guild Show.   We enjoyed the show and did the requisite amount of damage at the vendors!!!

Some of my favorites in the challenge area:

 This is the requisite Challenge Fabric.   There were also 12 other steps they had to follow including adding at least 12 other fabrics, using yellow, but not white; using the star pattern somewhere in the quilt; using a textured fabric such as minkee, wool etc.; using embellishments such as beading and some hand quilting.   I would absolutely LOVE a challenge of this magnitude.

Can you find the challenge fabric - hidden in the center of the twisted log cabin.   The star pattern was also a requisite for this challenge.

All of the ladies skirts are part of the fabric.

I love dragonflies and butterflies.   You had to really search to find all the challenge requirements.   This was a 3rd prize winner, but my favorite.

Another 3rd place winnter.

The first place winner.

Part of the Art Quilt Group section - this next grouping.   This group calls themselves the QIG's.   Quilt Inspired Group!   The circles looked something like the foil on peanut butter cups.

Lots of fabric beads on this one.

This didn't photograph well, the brighter colored sections are beaded.

More butterflies from the CIQ.

And yet more butterflies and dragonflies.

 Ditto to the above - I think butterflies or dragonflies was part of the QIG challenge.

A beautiful kimono dance inspired quilt.   The quilt shape is the swirly shape - pinned to a black fabric.

The Irony of Flowers at my house right now!!

I have an orchid that has been in bloom for many many weeks now.   It is pretty much right on target.   Yesterday I discovered 4 new buds on my Christmas Cactus.   Now, I usually call my Christmas Cactus my Than-Chri-Easter Cactus because once it starts budding and blooming around Thanksgiving time, it goes clear thru until Easter.   This year we moved and it was full of buds when we got here.   It immediately opened up, and I had a lovely showing for a few weeks.   All the flowers died off and no new ones came.until yesterday.   I'm happy about this because I think it means it has acclimated to its new home.......I hope!!!

Looking For The sun in WNY

This has been the working title for a quilt I started recently.   It may just end up being it's official name.  Today (sadly) seemed like the perfect day to work on it some more.

This is the quilt top as it is now.

The background is constructed ala Ricky Tims Convergence pattern.  There are 2 different (believe it or not) blue fabrics put together in the convergence technique and then I added the yellow on the diagonal.

The sun in the corner....we all know it just HAS to be out there somewhere.   Still not sure about the circle piece.   It is not permanently fused yet.   I have a nice yellow circular styled bead that will go either on the circle or in place of the circle.

We all know what this is...........the snow!   It is a patterned tulle which I think does exactly what I wanted.  It is very subtle and I plan to add white/blue/crystal beads.

Stained Glass Window to the World!

Final version of my mosaic for Kathi's class.    To me it looks like I'm looking through a stained glass window onto a landscape.   The borders suggest a landscape of waters, grasses, sky etc.   Maybe not as inventive as some, but I like it.....and it IS - my colors!!!

Cream Cheese Pumpkin bars

I love these.   I've made these for many occasions now and the other night for Kathi's birthday celebration.   They are really easy and so good!!!

1 pkg. Pumpkin Quick Bread Mix
3/4 cup water
3 tablespoons oil
2 eggs

1 8-oz pkg cream cheese (softened)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup chopped nuts


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 in. square baking pan.
In a large bowl, combine pumpkin bread mix, 3/4 cup water, oil and eggs. Mix well
Pour batter into baking pan
In a small bowl, combine cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar and vanilla, mixing until smooth.
Pour cream cheese mixture over top of batter and swirl through batter with a knife to create a marble effect.
Sprinkle nuts over top and bake for 35-40 minutes.

RAFA Show

The RAFA Arts Council Show is up and it is gorgeous (in my humble opinion).   My piece is my interpretation of a photo from Stony Brook State Park gorge last summer.  I used thread embroidery for the leaves, some painted/dyed cheesecloth and beading to represent the orange lichen.   This photo was taken by a fellow RAFA member, but it may well be the best photo I've seen of it yet!!!

Landscape Quilt

This is my latest landscape quilt - finally I think I'm"mostly" happy with it.   I had some issues with not enough shading and trying to get the water just right.   It is from a photo, the photo is manipulated to have 3 birds instead of just one, then printed on to printer fabric and worked into a larger quilt with commercial fabrics, tulle, metallic threads etc.   I just couldn't get the water around the birds to blend in with the commercial fabric I had chosen.   I finally fused small strips over parts of the printer fabric to blend in.     The first photo is the one I took in Maine, the second one is the manipulated photo to show the 3 birds that was printed onto printer fabric and the last photo is the finished (at the moment finished) landscape quilt.

This is the finished quilt!

Fabric Key Rings

It's not that I have been doing much - just nothing really noteworthy of posting.

Our guild is hosting the New York State Consortium of Quilters in June and we are making favors for each visitor.   We decided on these key rings - thanks to Kathi for the unique idea.   This is something totally different than what we usually get and each person who makes one will add their own twist, so they will all be different.   I love it!!!!   Here is my first one.....I don't have it totally embellished yet - and maybe I won't.   The colors are quite bright enough!!!!

Mosaic

Art C Girlz had a Mosaic project night, led by Kathi.   I was home sick, so I didn't get to do it with everyone else.   So, I tried it on my own tonight.   OK, I'm a bit too "Type A" because I grew increasingly frustrated with trying to get my shapes to exactly line up - they wouldn't and didn't seem to be all the same size - supposedly 1" square.   Anyway - my attempts are shown below.

 This is my orignal fabric - a batik.

This is the new arrangement of all the fabric squares.   I left black showing between all the tiles for 2 reasons - to even out the squares and to make it look like stained glass.    I don't know if this is the intent of the project, but it is what I came up with.