Time to Update my Blog With Pictures

I'm taking a four day workshop at the end of the month on color with the expert, Maggie Maggie. She sent out an email for us to complete a pre-workshop survey. One of the questions was whether we had a website or somewhere online that she could see our work. Since this and facebook are my only online venues, I thought I would update this with lots of pictures of some of the many many things I've made in the past few years.

I also noticed on the pre-workshop survey a question about what medium we work in. As you will see, I haven't yet made up my mind... I'll try to upload the pictures in some sort of order, but you will notice that there is variety as my interest and enthusiasm ebbs and flows.

We'll do sewing and quilting things first because that is where alot of it began. This is the first real quilt I ever finished. It won prizes both at the Hildene Needlework Show and at the Vermont Quilt Festival. I have always had a fascination with optical illusions and3D designs on a 2 dimensional format- It's my love of math and puzzles.

The next two pictures are of two small art quilts that I did at a Melody Johnson quilt workshop. It also started my love of hand dying and painting fabric. The second one was my attempt at working with neutral colors - it was way hard!!

The final fabric pictures will be of two fabric postcards that I did in a 2007 postcard swap. These are two of my favorites.

More Postcards

One of my greatest joys in life is to watch children and adults when they come to the realization that, despite all their doubts and fears, they have actually created something beautiful. The children seem to be able to create easier than many of us adults. We have a hard time getting started, we're think everyone else's is better than ours, we think a mistake is the end of the world and we can't imagine that anyone will find joy in getting "our" postcard. Notice how I said "We". While I am getting better at taking risks and am getting more confidence, these still are tapes that play through my head.

So, whether we have quilted for a long time, whether we sewed or fused, whether we have any art/design training, these postcards are ALL magnificent and, I'm sured, will be treasured by the recipient.

So, on to the pictures--

The first postcard was made by Vicki, utilizing many of my 1" inch squares-yeah- and a inkjet printed image.

The second one was made by Tammy, mother of Charlotte(shown in previous post). She used inkjet images, some discharged fabric I had laying around, and fabric markers.

The postcard on the left was by Linda (mother of Vera and Maya (shown in previous post). She used buttons, foil and made a lace heart - which is on the upper right corner. Kathy rocked. She was new to all this and not quite sure what to do or how to do it. With some foil and fusing, she made a fabulous card.

The postcard on the left was made by my friend, Stacy - another non-sewer who did great by fusing.

Liz did her first attempt at paper-piecing. She's a really quick study and made this great heart postcard.

Kinsey joined us the second day and made this countried postcard. Then Lucinda joined us late in the day and made this great postcard. I wasn't quite sure where it was going when she was working on it, but I just love how it turned out - definitely one of my favorites.

After everyone left, I realized that I was busy being a busybody and hadn't made any cards myself. So, I spent Monday morning making these two cards.

Turn you head 90 degrees to the left. I forgot to rotate this first one. I pieced a whole bunch of red strips I had hanging around, fused on the stripes and heart images, and added some beads and sequins. The second postcard's base is part of a quilt block piece that I'd never use. Added the black and white heart patch that I found in my studio, some words, some organza ribbon, and star sequins. It doesn't really look like something I'd do, but I like it. So, that's the end of my show and tell. T

Click here to find a link for more info. about the heart-2-heart postcard project.

Heart 2 Heart Postcards

We had a total of 15 people come make postcards at my studio last weekend. Saturday was parent/child day and we had 7 kids (aged 11-16) make postcards. Here are some pictures of the cards they made:

Three girls from Jamie's 7th grade class at Long Trail School came. Vera made this pink card, Lara made the white card spelling LOVE and Claire made the red card.

Here we have valentines from Maya, age 11, Kinsey, age 15 and Marlene, age 16, and Charlotte, age 11

The kids did such an amazing job on the designs of their cards and also on the back with their personal notes/greetings to the soldiers. I think it really brought all of them closer to those serving in the war on a personal level.

Heart 2 Heart Project

There is an organized group project in the quilting community to make fabric postcards for the miliary wounded. These postcard will be delivered to patients at the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington DC on Valentines Day. You can find out more details about this at Karey Patterson Bresenhan' home page.

Anyway, I decided it was high time that I get involved in one of these charitable quilting projects. ...;and what a wonder gesture to send something handmade for those who have suffered and sacrificed for us all. I quickly sent our a mass email and am having two groups of people come to my studio this weekend to make postcards-yeah! Satuday is for adults and children and Sunday is for just adults. I am so excited. I love doing this kind of thing. I love seeing people play with all my supplies. I love seeing people try something and realize that they really are creative. I love the banter, the enthusiasm and the idea exchange of getting together. I love the fact that it's forcing me to clean up my studio. I guess you can tell I'm excited.
Last year, I did a similar Valentines Day fabric postcard workshop, but it was for personal use. Here are pics of some that were made then.

These were the ones I made up as class samples. I played with photos on fabric, beading, embroidery, foiling, fusing, hand quilting, free motion quilting, painting among other techniques..





Here are what the workshop participants created...


This was made my Marion who has done quite a bit of quilting and is always receptive for trying new things.






This postcard was done by Liz. She really had fun making this (and is coming again this weekend). She used all the decorative stitches on my machine, she foiled, she attached a heart rock, a wire formed heart, two heart charms, and and even found some of my heart fabric. Liz is an avid knitter, teaches rug hooking and even gets to dye wool yarn for a living.


This was made by Teresa - a total sewing novice. She is my role model and shining example of what you can do when you are willing to try new things. I love it!





Finally, this postcard was made by Kinsey, my 14 (then) year old daughter. Kinsey loves making things and is incredibly creative, but she doesn't really enjoy sewing. So, here is a marvelous example of what you can do with different glues and adhesives. I also personally love the fact that my thoroughly fashion forward up to date daughter created this 1930s retro feeling card. Lace, tulle, and cute little vintage images just don't seem to fit with her hip/hop style. That girl does keep my guessing.

I can't wait to see what we come up with this weekend!

Beaded Quilt Blocks

I've also been making up some beaded quilt blocks in the past month or so. The beaded portion is a 3" square. My current plan is to make a wall hanging with all the squares, but I also think they might be cute individually framed with a wide white mat and a square thin black frame (maybe 9" x 9" total?) . So far, I have absolutely no plan for coordinating either the center fabrics or bead colors.
--but I don't think that will be a problem...

The first one is my favorite so far. But, it's also my favorite fabric!

Lowell Quilt Festival

I just deleted my entire blog of this, so this second version will be much shorter.
I had an amazing time at the Quilt Festival and the town of Lowell, MA is definitely worth seeing. The New England Quilt Museum is housed there and they have an incredible library of quilting and surface design books and magazines. I could spend days in there.

The journal quilts (and several of the Hurrican Katrina inspired quilts) were the highlights of the show for me. There were hundreds of journal quilts hanging around the perimeter of the convention room. I loved the techniques, the humor, the inspiration and the designs. Many of my pictures were blurry, but here are some pictures of some of my favorites:




















I liked the design and shapes used in this one.











The woman who thread painted these faces was standing in front of them with a group of friends. They were so cute, taking pictures of the artist, hugging each other and very animated. It was infectious and I'm amazed at the detail and realistic features of these portraits.




















The green and purple rectangles on the above quilt are made of sponges. She had used unusual things in all her journal quilts - very imaginative (I don't think I would have thought of doing this)




















These are definitely my colors and I love the leaves. She even used a row of leaf beads below the pieced leaves. Many journal quilts used beads as embellishments. There were a couple that were completely covered in beads, charms, buttoms, etc.

More Journal Quilts

These two journal quilt sets show some of the more humorous ones at the show. There were quite a few self (or not so self) portraits.







I think I need to make some self portraits. It would certainly help me cut loose from the straight, geometric based style.













The next group of quilts are by Cynthia Hanson who uses a lot of computer images. I love the many layers of photos and images - I need more time so that I can play more with Photoshop.









I love these brown organic quilts. They are actually segments of a map. I'm going to look on Google Earth and see if I can find some good computer images of our world. It would make a nice series.