Monday, January 31, 2011

Working on a New Framed Piece of Quilt Art



Well here I am working on a quilted art piece for the local art gallery. The gallery, Art Beat sent me an invitation to participate in "A Very Cool Blue (Shoe) Show. I've had the invitation for about 2 months and here I am towards the end of the deadline and finally starting it. I've layered and quilted the dark blue batik and now I'm auditioning the different possibilities for embellishing.




This past week I had the chance to take a class with a local bead artist Stephanie Jochims. We made dichroic glass. I was able to make 8 pieces and I think I may use the two larger pendants on the piece in the pods. My pictures are not reflecting the true colors of the quilted piece or the pendants. They very vibrant. Now I'll have to dig around my bead stash to see what





works best with what I've chosen so far.

I did quilt another piece that is lighter in color with a spring floral theme. I'll share that one later.

After I get the quilted piece embellished, and bound, it will then be mounted on a 16"x20" painted canvas. I need it to look more finished/professional.



Plus, the canvas will help stabilize the quilt with the added weight of the pendants.

I also wanted to share a bit of the mess I made working on these. I must confess that I won't be able to work on the next thing without doing a true cleaning for my work space. Angelina gets in everything.









Saturday, January 29, 2011

Winter Post Cards Exchange



Today in the mail was a beautiful winter postcard from Carol Jamieson in Scotland. I love your card Carol. The silver work makes the card! The floating star bead is a cool idea just as Sue's trapped clear beads in the snowglobe. Carol's silver leaf/tree makes a great focus for the card keeping it uncluttered. This has been such a great exchange.
I told a friend about this group and she joined this surface design yahoo group last month. Sonya Anderson also has been having a great time seeing the great pieces I've gotten and she had so much fun making atc's for the heart exchange.
And the best part of all this is meeting like minded artists from around the world.
Love you all.

So far I've gotten post cards from Scotland, Indiana USA, and Australia.







Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Stuff and Today's Booty!



Okay!!!! I'm going to confess...I took an orange off of a tree outside of the convention center in California and I ate it. It was ripe, juicy, fresh, and fabulous. I would do it again if given a chance. There, now I can get on to more important things.

I had a great trip to the Road 2 California Quilt Show in Ontario CA last week. I'm back and working on the 2nd customer



this week. It's a lovely little pineburr wallhanging with lots of color that was made by a friend in Colorado.

For the weekend I decided to try Tsukeniko inks on some cotton trims that I bought at the show. I saw a demo for this and loved it. Of course she tried to sell the inks to me to do this and I thought it would work with what I already have.



The booty picture is from today. My friend Sonya picked up some lovely textured organza/netting stuff that looks great for fiber layering and that we can't get locally. Neat stuff. The rest is from the local dollar store. There was textured handmade papers, and some faux leather books for covering with art cloth.

Lastly the picture is of the beautiful mountains outside of Ontario CA that we looked at everyday from the convention center.

The quilts at the show were premium!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Teaching at the Machine Quilters Exposition Show this Fall







I received notice last night that I've been chosen to teach at the Machine Quilters Exposition quilt show, October in Portland Oregon this year. I'm feeling really blessed being chosen to teach at two wonderful shows this year. I'm also teaching 5 classes for the local community education program in Minong WI this winter to spring.


Today is also packing day for my trip to Road 2 California. I've made several meals for my husband and I think I've covered all the animal and plant things that had to be done before leaving.

I'm also finishing up the making of atc business cards for myself to take to CA. The atc's are made like this:
I made quilted fabric, cut the quilted sandwhich in 2x3 inch pieces, used scrapbooking decorated card stock that I cut down to 8x12 then printed my info (blog,etsy, name and addy, email ...and phone) on the lighter side, cut the card stock down to 2.5 x 3.5 (atc size), stitched the little quilts with a zig zag on outer edge, then glued the little quilts to the card stock cards. Vallaaa! Atc business cards. I needed some new cards and forgot to order some, so thought this would work better for my trip. Make myself memorable!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Quilters Newsletter and Remembering Phyllis Schneck

http://www.quiltersnewsletter.com/blogs/insideqn/2011/01/11/remembering-phyllis-schneck-lost-in-tucson-shooting/

This is the Quilters Newsletter blog article on Phyllis Schneck, one of the shooting victims in Arizona that died. I find it to be a great tribute to a kind and gentle woman.

Non Glamorous Realities of Working from Home


Yep! This is what I look like when I work from home. I dress mostly like a slob, unless I know someone is coming over for a quilt drop off or pick up. Sweat pants and old shirt are number one for comfort, bifocals (which I hate!), cordless earphones (for listening to the tv, itunes or netflix on the computer), good lighting, my cats sleeping in their approved spots, and the dog on a blanket by the machine. My work space isn't great, but I have space. My husband Mike alluded to new studs


and sheet rock. I'll believe it when I see it. So in the meantime, I concentrate on the work. This little batik bolt of lightening quilt is one of mine. I'm almost finished and it will be one of 4 that I now need to bind. I've attached the binding with Anilee's binding tool which I really like to use. Anything to make bindings easier are good in my book. I also used The Quilted Goose vine tools for the feathers in the light areas. I allow myself to get distracted sometimes and that's okay. I do laundry while longarming, pet the dog or cats, brush them sometimes, answer emails on breaks, blog a bit, check out facebook, have a snack (which I really don't need), and answer the phone if it rings. I know I'm not always on task, but hey, I'm the boss and I can just work later.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Teaching at the Milwaukee Machine Quilting Show this Fall

I am very thrilled to say I was chosen to teach 3 classes at the MMQS in Milwaukee this August. I will be teaching 2 art quilt hands on longarm classes, and 1 art quilting demo and trunk show. The dates for the show are August 9-13, 2011. There is a link for the show on my blog header. Please check it out. Teachers and classes will be listed soon.

This is a great opportunity for those that have liked my fiber layered quilt art to take a class with me or watch the demo. I'll post more about the classes at a later blog date.

Winter Post Cards


Today I made 4 quilted post cards for a winter challenge exchange with a fiber art group I joined a couple of months ago. The cards are called "Winter Storm".

I made the cards with piece of batik that was marbled light gray to dark blue. I sectioned off my card spaces with a blue marker. I layered a poly trim, fun fur yarn, angelina, gold organza, silver lace material, crystals, white netting, and foiled stars.






After layering, I quilted it on the longarm with mctavishing, and pebbling. I fused white fabric on the back, and edge stitched it in white thread with a small zig-zag. I then wrote the address on the back, and listed the materials used.


I'm very happy with how these cards turned out.






I hope the 4 ladies that are receiving them like them as much as I do. They are going out in the mail to Indiana, Australia, Scotland, and the United Kingdom.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

The Sketchbook Challenge Begins with January

You will see on the left side of my blog page a big gray link for the Sketchbook Challenge. Click it and check out the challenge. The challenge begins this month, January and the 1st challenge for the month is "highly prized". I'll have to mull that one over for a bit and take my sketchbook with me to work on while ice fishing this week. Right now, time, is the most prized thing I seek.