I hate it when I fall of the face of the earth

Ha ha! So yes, again, I have fallen off the planet and only have recently returned to post pictures of my quilts. Due to my acceptance into the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza XVI, I was whisked away on Cloud 9 and can't seem to come back down!I booked a flight to Philadelphia to visit my quilt on display. That should be fun as friends from the Baltimore Heritage Quilters Guild may also attend and visit with me! Yay!
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So... onto the quilts for August. This book is delicious. Did I mention that before? The sample photos just give you a small taste of what wonderful things you can do. Also, Project Runway started this week, and I'll get to that in a moment, and how it ties in with this book.

I tagged my book with those little flags on things I want to try, and there's more that I want to try than weeks in August, so I am thinking that I may want to explore this book next year in a monthly format. I'm going to suggest it at Divas tonight, to see if anyone wants to come along to try it with me.

Again, this book is great if you have previous experience with fabric and you like to experiment. If you don't... well, I'm sure there are other books for you.

These 3 inch squares took HOURS to do EACH. Especially if you want them to look "just perfect", which I had in my head for them to be. I liked some applications better than others, such as the quilted tabs vs. the filled cording, and the losenge pattern on the smocking was too far apart, but lots of lessons were learned.

Back to Project Runway... It started back up this week and one of the contestants has no previous fashion school training, and asks what "smocking" and "godets" are. Now, I knew from costuming what these were, but a lot of people may not. And to tie this all together there are 2 chapters in this book about smocking and godets! Which when mentioned on screen, I smiled a little smile...

August - The Art of Manipulating Fabric samples

I know I haven't posted June or July's mini quilts yet, but here is the start of August's. (I'm away on business again, so sorry for the sparse updating).

This is my first attempt at two projects from the book. I have to preface these with a couple of notes:
First, the one side that looks like woven strips is not woven, it's a series of manipulated tucks. It was pretty easy to sew, but very hard to get the tucks to do what they are supposed to do. It has a lot to do with the fabric you choose.

Secondly, this is not a book for beginners. I liken myself to be pretty good with fabric. I can hold fabric in my hands and know what it will do when sewn. You need to have this instinct when working witht his book. Also, it is not written with the novice in mind. You must have a good idea of the basics of sewing in order to accomplish the directions, which can feel sparse at times.

These things said, I am really enjoying the exercises. Hope you like it as much as I do.

This n That #5

Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated, I happened to be in San Diego for the Comic Con International show, also known as the "Nerd Prom". I saw a great many things, and did a lot of fun things, and worked a lot too. It was a good show.
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I just finished reading Johnny Got His Gun, which was a movie and also the subject of Metallica's One video. It's the story of a WWI soldier who loses his face, sight, hearing, legs and arms, and is a prisoner in his own body as his mind works perfectly. It was a quick read, and I actually said "wow" out loud a few times. It's a classic book, if you haven't read it.
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I know, I know, I am way behind on posting the photos of the weekly quilts. Since I had a weekend at home this weekend, I planned to get the site and this blog updated with them...see how that went? :)
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My first month as Riverwalk Quilter's Guild president has had a few moments of drama, but I'm expecting the rest of the year to go smoothly.
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I love to write letters almost as much as I love getting them. I do have to say getting them eeks out ahead in the "love" dept. but I still love to sit down and pen a few letters, which I did last night.
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I bought "The Art of Manipulating Fabric" which is so insanely good, and I CANNOT wait to try some of the tricks out on my quilts. I LOVE the look of some of these "multiple technique" works, though the originals were all done in muslin. I wonder how some of this would look in colors. I have a few ideas, and would like to try some out as weekly quilts, maybe even in August, as I haven't picked a theme yet.

Unusual Animals

Can you believe it's June already? I can hardly believe it. I'm almost halfway through another year of weekly quilts. I had a tough time deciding on a theme, so I went with an odd one.
I've been researching unusual animals for possible theme inclusion, and when I happened upon the narwhal, I knew this was it for June. The hard part is that I will be away 2 weekends of June, so I had to thin of something simple.
This weekend really disappeared fast... I spent most of Saturday drawing and painting ATCs for my weekend retreat in 2 weeks. Sunday was supposed to be a Mustang only car show with my dad and brother (both own Mustang Cobra cars... one day...) but it was "rained out" and I spent the time washing and hand waxing my car (a Saturn) instead. It never really rained, and I have a nasty "cloudy day sunburn" to show for it. So.... back to my narwhal.
I drew exactly 3 of these before it was right, a drawing in my bedside drawing pad at night, then the ATC, and the mockup for the fusible for this piece. I do love him, he's just so cute.
Narwhal's tusks were hunted by Vikings and often sold a fake unicorn horns, worth about as much as a castle in Medieval times.

The Ends of the Earth

Sometimes I feel like I have to drag myself back into reality, and the past few weeks have been no exception. Since the funeral for DH's grandmother and the passing of my friend Rita, I've been waylaid by the head cold from hell. I'm still not 100%; I have shortness of breath and a cough that has been lingering.

This past weekend was our quilt show for the Fiber Art Divas group I am a part of. Our first show, and the first debut of my "large" quilt Road to Home. I worked through sickness, and a shortened time frame from being away, to get this done in time. I'm glad it's done, and I'm thinking ahead to other quilts to make, and the hopes that this will get photographed and entered into the Mancuso Show in Harrisburg PA.


There's so much to do around the house, the lawn and garden are sorely disregarded right now, and need some attention. My sister got a house and got engaged on the same day, so I have spent some time over at her place helping strip wallpaper and paint, but my own place is crying out for some TLC. The laundry, the dishes, all kinds of chores need doing. It can get overwhelming.

Sometimes, just keeping up with a weekly project or on some other task can make sure you see things through to the end, and be able to come back to reality. That's how it was with this month's weekly quilts. They started off with the best of intentions, the idea that they would be a form of perspective and the Principles of Art, and also use a unique shape. They look a little strage, the further along the project went, and I have one more week to try to pull the idea together...

Recycled Weekly Quilts

Here are the last two week's "recycled" themed quilts. Sorry they are late being posted online, but I was having SOOO much fun at IQA, I didn't have time.
This quilt is made from Ramen noodle wrappers. I don't really think about packaging much, but when you are trying to reduce your carbon and plastic footprints, things like these mundane wrappers do contribute. I don't think to ever recycle the plastic on wrappers like these. These slippery devils are applied to a kunin felt batting. They bubbled up a bit, but I kinda like that.
This week's quilt is made from my program from IQA. I had such an amazing time, and I have lots of memories, but one more program is one less thing I need to keep around. So I made this quilt out of the things I liked from the program. I intentionally did not use any quilt imagery from the program as that artwork is copyrighted by the artists whose quilts are shown. The one non-program thing is the little hippo drawind I sketched on a piece of mail after talking with Melanie Testa. The hippo represents the friends I made at the show and whom I shared the show with while I was there.

I have an idea in mind for next week's hope it comes together as I expect.

Ephemera- Another Recycling Theme!

I love the concept of recycling in art projects, things that would be trash becoming something beautiful. Even moreso, I love "ephemera". Ephemera is material not intended to be retained or preserved. Vintage ephemera could be advertisments, candy wrappers, empty soda or beer cans, and so forth. More recently it's greeting cards, comic books, trading cards, and the like. Some ephemera is valuable, like comic books or other collectibles.
I'm of the "keep everything to remind me of things later" types. I keep cards and letters well past any meaning they may have held. If I have a memorable moment, I keep something from it; a ticket stub, a flier, a receipt, or shopping bag.
This month's theme is a recycling effort to use up some of the goofy ephemera I have been keeping for a project like this. I hope you like them.
This week's is scraps of Japanese newspaper that I got as packing material from one of my Japan purchases. Newspaper is not meant to be saved, per se. Especially newspaper that is used as packing material. But I love this stuff, and carefully fold the sheets I get from their crumpled up state in my boxes from Japan.
My painting, well, I'm happy and not happy with it. First of all, this is about as close to my true art style as you will see without me posting sketches. I'm not that great an artist, figure drawing or painting-wise. But these little eco-characters were in my sketchbook, and I thought I could use them effectively for this theme. My husband likes the "happy little dirt" in the lower left.

What a Difference a Weekend Can Make

I tempted fate with my back still not feeling 100% and decided that I had not sewn in my studio for far too long. I got to spend the whole weekend, or the majority of it, in studio at the sewing machine. It was really great.

These are the weekly quilts for March. The theme is "Historic Lady Collage". I had envisioned these being more "crusty" for collage, but I lose courage to continue to alter them, so the paint and stamping ideas went by the wayside. Part of the reason to leave that be was that I used some hand-dyed damask napkins I thrifted. There were only 3 napkins, and they were stained, so dyeing them last year was a fun project.
The quotes are what the ladies actually said, usually attributed through letters. I had envisioned Marie Antoinette saying "Let them eat cake", but that has been since not been attributed to her. So the even more fun "Don't Worry, I'll be fine" is somehow better. Prophetic.

I also made these cute Vintage Romance ATCs for a swap I'm in at Atcsforall.com. I made one extra for me, and one extra to swap later. I used some hand made vintage French lace on these that I almost couldn't cut into. They turned out so sweet.

I'm excited to get more sewing done this week, and next weekend should make progress on "The Road to Home". I hope to show it in May.

Someone's masterpiece

Of all of the items in the bag of "cutter" quilts scraps I got, none were as sad as this one.
This is one half of two hand pieced applique bows and flowers bouquets that remained. I imagine this quilt was a bed sized piece with lots of this motif repeated throughout.
What's even more shocking is the tiny tiny crosshatch quilting around the bow.
This was someone's masterpiece. Hand appliqued and quilted. Now it's all cut up.
This turned out to be a good theme for this month, as the trip to NYC and a horrible horrible head cold sidelined a lot of quilting for me this month.
March also looks full, with another work trip, my guild's quilt show, and much more. Exciting!

Busy bee

I have been sidetracked with an unexpected office redesign, in that we found a great deal on office furniture that could not be refused. So we have been removing old office furniture and putting in new stuff. It's important stuff, since I work in that one room all day.

I'm slowly getting through making the email list of folks who are getting the yo yo flower tutorial as part of my giveaway, so please don't fret.

This week's quilt is especially sad. It's a hand pieced, hand quilted Grandmother's Flower Garden that was cut up when I got it, and only a few rounds actually survive. The quilt is quite tattered. But, I found this one decent section that I could use without cutting into another round. I though long and hard about what this one was going to say. Next week's is downright heartbreaking.

Next week, I'm moving the blog to a different directory on my website. I'll post the location when I move it, and leave a marker to go find the blog in it's new spot. Basically, I only have one site now, which is solely about my quilts. I cleaned up all of my directories and don't have to have sub directories for "quilts" if the whole site is about them. More later!

Broken Hearts

February's weeklies are going to be a bit different. At one of the last quilt guild meetings, we held a garage sale, and I bought a bag of scraps of very old quilts that have been cut into.
These are usually called "cutter quilts", but the scraps really were pretty and I cannot imaging cutting these full sixed quilts up. Hand pieced and quilted, they are so very thin. My thoughts about this bag were that "someone loved this quilt so much, took so much time to make it, and someone else cut it into parts". Sad, isn't it?

So I'm calling this month's theme "broken hearts". You can either interpret the sayings as a sad lonely person, or from the quilt's perspective, your choice.

End of January

I'm sorry I didn't get to posting this after they were made, but it's been super crazy after going to NYC for the New York Comic Con. (Which was fun, if exhausting...It's a sign I'm getting too old for this crap.)

January's final weekly quilt is of "kadomatsu" or traditional New Year's decorations which represent Heaven, Humanity, and Earth. They are placed at entryways and at gates in Japan, and are literally translated as "gate pines". I have seen some "plush" versions of kadomatsu, but my little graphic one is cute too. They make fake plastic ones that you can put up year after year, like the holiday decorations of your choice. I wanted to make this closer to the beginning of January, but couldn't figure out what to decorate the bamboo with.

I really enjoyed learning more about Japan for this month's theme.

Good Fortune and Long Life

Both of these designs were made in my sketchbook next to one another...

The "Maneki Neko" or "beckoning cat" is very popular in Japanese culture. I could not resist making my own very cute, wide-eyed cat.


The owl, or fukurou, is a good luck symbol in Japan as well. The sounds of the Japanese word for owl also mean "no trouble" which means the owl is lucky. It also symbolizes old age, and owl themed gifts are often given when someone turns 60. I wish my owl was on a lighter background now, because you cannot see just how adorable he is.

Only one more week of Japanese culture weeklies to go.

Weekly Quilt Series- A rabbit jumps over the moon

Where we westerners see a "man in the moon", the Japanese see a rabbit in the moon. The rabbit and moon together is a popular theme. My usagi (rabbit) is jumping into the moon for the night.

I absolutely love this background fabric by Lakehouse Designs. I wish I had more than the little fat quarter I have of it (or what is left of it). When I put the moon on the background, there was a design problem. You could see the flowers "through" the moon, and they were very distracting. I quilted over them quite a bit, and it still didn't "knock them back" (as Pokey Bolton says). So, even though the piece was quilted and bound, newly confident via Judy Coates Perez and my recent class with her, I dragged out the Setacolor black paint, and painted over the flowers. The "cool" thing was that Lakehouse outlined the flower with a thin shimmery rim and metallic gold, which the paint didn't really cover. In the end it was so much better for having "shadow flowers" inside the moon. I really like the new piece. This month's theme has been fun so far.

Weekly Quilt Series- January 2009

It's time to show my first piece in my 2009 Weekly quilt series. This year, I changed the size, and I'm still going to do Monthly Themes. This month's is "Cute Japanese Culture".

This is a "nengajo", or a new years wish postcard, celebrating 2009 as the year of the cow (or ox). My cute cow was drawn on New Years Day in my sketch book, and then I blew it up to be the size needed for the quilt, which is 8 inches by 5 inches (the new series size). In Japan, nengajo are sent to the post office before New Years' Day specially marked as nengajo, and all delivered on New Year's exactly.

I picked the size because I could put two week's worth stacked into a plastic sleeve holder that holds regular sheets of paper.