Round Robin and 4 Sister Swap

During cleanup in my sewing room, these pieces that did not work when trying to make a fire quilt (see earlier post) got piled together. Very interesting - I think they need to become one! But now a question - where do I find yardage of the loopy material? What you see here is a $5 car wash mit. Notice some of the loops are turning orange? they take pigment ink too!


Here are 2 pictures of a long distance Round Robin. The first picture shows how the quilt top looked when I received it. Next how it looks after of day of playing. There are no rules. And I am the last one in the loop. Since anything goes, I think I may add more - get it to a nice twin sized quilt for charity.











The blocks for my 4 sister swap for August are finished! Our only rule for this swap was to use some of each fat quarter provided by each sister. I added a peach tshirt material and made four sisters.
Two of my sisters were early sending theirs - so have added a picture showing 3 of the 4 blocks.




After finishing my last 4 sister block, I had a pile of small scraps of green and black - just couldn't bring myself to throw them away....so I played! I added 3 pieces of a pale green fairy frost material - mainly to create a strong contrast of a very formal material with a very informal hodge-podge. It makes me think of the edge of a forest - so I may paint in details on the fairy frost. However it finishes, it is destined to be my new laundry room curtain.

In 1969 when I was in the 6th grade, the mill burned down. It was about 500 feet from my home. Inspired by the Journal Quilt competition with the theme of Elements, Earth, Air, Water, Fire, I tried making a submission about this fire. It became very tedious - it just would not work. I surprised myself that I worked on it so long, reworking it 4 times to this point. For me, the process has to be fun - and beyond painting, this one was definitely not fun! But I was pleased with my painted fire.....I used inks, colored pencils and pastels. Oh, the smear effect with the pastels works really well. And I discovered when used ontop of the still damp ink, the pastels are permanent! Where this piece will go from her I do not know. A good friend Deb often talks of tossing pieces into her burn barrel. This one may get closer to fire than just the pictures on it. Bur I certainly do not regret the time spent - I did learn!

This Cardinal on Dogwood is a work in progress, not yet quilted. It is handpainted with the Tsuniko inks. Working with them is very similiar to painting with watercolors. As a resist (a way to preserve the white areas) I used freezer paper. I cutout the dogwood blooms, ironed them to the fabric and inked away.



In the beginning of the year, I took an online quilt class thru Quilt University with teacher Patti Anderson - to make a feathered star, in my pursuit for precise piecing. Patti's techniques and tips work really well, they are quick and even more important to me, they are fun! I actually made two feathered stars! This one grew to a queen sized quilt using Patti's border designs from the class, with some modifications as I was running out of focus fabric. This quilt is a birthday gift for a very dear friend who loves the ocean.









In July '07, my family had a get-together in Colorado. One day we went to Lookout Mountain which overlooks Golden, Colorado. I painted this picture, Two Boys (acrylic) from pictures taken on Lookout Mountain.





My pallette are the secondary colors, orange, green and purple. I really enjoy working with this color scheme in paint and fabric.

Going to quilt shows, I find I am attracted to quilts with lots of grey in them. So I have been attempting to work with grey also. But it has been a chore. I can't seem to find that spark to make it work. Part of the problem may well be that during construction, I am working with and closeup to a micro shot of color combinations. Example, put a small piece of teal blue on top of a small piece of honeydew green, stitch a seam, iron them open and my heart sings. Put that same teal blue on top of a small piece of grey, stitch and iron and blah......so silly!



Here is a painted wholecloth in grey. It is the second in a series about wildlife in contact with man that started with the redfox in a previous post. It is painted with Tsuniko inks, colored pencils and acrylic paints, then heavily quilted. I added 2 feathers to the quilting, top and bottom. Why feathers? because I like doing feathers, they are a tradition for quilting and because they have nothing whatsoever to do with water, sea otters or tires!

Recent work

This small quilt started as just a quick excercise painting animal fur with the inks. I decided to tuck this fox behind a brick wall - and a series is started. It is now the 1st in a series of wildlife in contact with man.

My sisters and I are swapping blocks this year. The rules are we each make 4 identicle blocks, keep one and send one to each sister. For our 3rd swap we also exchanged fat quarters. So my block design is to make 4 sisters - and of course they needed feet and shoes. Legs and feet are made from rolled tshirt material and the shoes are a product called Vetrap - intended to be used on horse's legs and tails. It comes in the most beautiful colors - this jade green works perfect! What a HOOT!

This scene of a goldfinch landing on a purple iris I saw outside of my bedroom window - with no camera at hand. So I reproduced it in a quilt - painted with Tsuniko inks - then heavily quilted.

Scaling the 9Patch. This is a small quilt 11x14 made to portray the help experienced quilters give the beginner. There is a treacherous roller-coaster path one can follow - or just grab the rope and help offered by a quilter already near the top.

This twin sized quilt uses a fabric that fascinated me - solid color honeydew. I have truly begun to believe that it complements - goez with - all fabrics! This quilt started with just grey and the honeydew surrounding many colored squares. It was falling flat! So I added turquoise to it....and it came alive again.

Paintings - Portraits

I had the opportunity to do many commissioned paintings in 2006 and 2007. The boy with his dog is a watercolor - one of my first.








Many clients in West Virginia asked for paintings on river rocks - I used acrylics then would add a spray sealer. The 3d of the rocks added another design element to the painting - fascinating sometimes, disappointing at times, too. This painting of a very lovely older lady worked really well - with the contrast of how classy she is painted on a river rock.

These 2 are also acrylic on river rocks. My one limit was that I had to be able to lift the rock. The beach scene was almost too heavy to carry.

The 2 babies were combined from 2 photos, one baby picture of the father added to the baby picture of his son.

Webblog Created!

We moved from West Virginia to Tennessee in December 2007 - leaving a wonderful and supportive quilt guild. Haven't found a new quilt guild here yet - and have missed sharing work and receiving feedback. This blog is now my way to share.

This quilt is made using Ricky Tim's convergence technique - then adding reverse applique of the painted puppy - a schnoodle! I like painting on fabric with the Tsuniko inks - so easy to use, like painting watercolors and add no weight to the fabric at all - just wonderful. The grey I made by using 2 pigments. And that is their only fault - most of their inks are already blended pigments, so if you combine them further, you get mud! But the ultramarine is a single pigment ink.

The local newspaper in West Virginia ran several articles about how proud the govenor was to be supplying electrical power to the Washington/Baltimore area. To get power there, they were constructing several high voltage lines to cross the state. This quilt is called Cacapon Tears - it is the view from our house with the proposed high voltage lines added. So sad. I hope and pray they have kept them away from schools - the Department of Health even acknowledges a link between exposure to high voltage lines and childhood leukemia.

In 2007 I made this quilt to test a theory that value matters most. I used many fabrics from my stash, sorted them into only 2 values, stacked them, whacked them and sewed them. The name of this quilt...."Color Wins". I thought it had a very good chance of winning the Ugliest Quilt for 2007 award! To make it fun, I punched holes in it, added petals and Boyd's bears.