4 Sister quilt 2008

What fun!! this quilt top went together in 3 days - and it has been so much fun working on it!! Is it perfect - bite your tongue!! It was fun to make - and with apologies to all you perfectionists - making perfect seams and fun are mutually exclusive in my house! My 3 sisters and I have been block swapping for 3 years now. Starting on Friday I finally used 8 of the blocks from 2008 in a quilt. I have been wanting to try the strip piecing method for a lone star - so I finally had the fabrics needed and just went for it! Then outside the 8 blocks I didn't want to just set in solid fabric to square it out - so I used the french braid pattern - and did it ever work well as it is already on a 45 degree angle - it fit right in.

Ah, but then I had to make some curves - after starting it, I kindof wished I hadn't - but I like the final effect alot.

After putting the quilt top on the clothesline I went for a walk with my dogs. Returned to the house behind the quilttop - with the sun shining on the front - I was amazed at one block in particular - made by sister Joyce - that was absolutely shining - no, make that radiating with light! My artist eye says - contrast, Johnni - strong contrast - use it to paint light!

Flannel Shirts & Christmas

Lately I have been working with flannel and woven cotten workshirts that belonged to my favorite Uncle Jasper - making items from them for the family. So far, two lap quilts and a small wallhanging. Many more to go.

I have had opportunity to paint again lately - YaY!! so with Christmas fast approaching - I should do some Christmas pieces. Here is one I painted last year for good friend Deb in a block swap.

Eaglets / Elvis / Chenille

Working up a design for a friend - I call it a first draft but I am actually approaching it as a 'study' for the final piece. I am 'painting' it with pigment inks, colored pencils and fused cloth on cloth.

Here it is ready to be quilted.

Still incomplete in this picture - more quilting to be done and it is only pinned to the stretched canvas - but complete enough to analyze. This picture was taken with the flash and doesn't look as dark overall as the piece actually seems. I overinked I think - I must take care on the final piece. Also, trying to make the eagle and eaglets 'pop', I used wool batting under them on top of the cotton batting. Mistake = as I am doing such heavy quilting, it is just more for my needle to stitch through and flatten. I would truly appreciate comments!!

We visited the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in Tuscumbia, AL last week - very interesting museum. Just had to take a picture of this picture of an impromptu 'jam session' with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Wouldn't you have loved to be the proverbial 'fly on the wall' for that 4-some!!

A chenille bedspread - very, very lightweight (I started calling it cheesecloth - it was so lightweight) but now layered with batting, a backing then quilted. It worked up beautifully I think AND the bedspread now has a wonderful soft thick weight to it.

Word #1 #26 #22 #20 #19

This is Word #1. It is a painted wholecloth with some piecing added to the right side. I shared a detail of it in an earlier post. It measures 14x16. I am displaying it pinned to a scrumptously beautiful scarf that my sister knit for me, thrown over my sewing room door. This door is never closed - so the scarf is safely on display also this way! as it is definitely NOT being used in our 100+ degree weather here in southwest Tennessee!

This is Word #26. Only 26 more to go for 2009. Actually, thats not quite true as I have missed a few weeks - so I am playing catchup. This one is made using cutoffs from a block I made for my sister in our May 4sister blockswap, inspired by Joen Wolfram work - I arranged my blues in order by value. For this piece, I had to add a beautiful dark purple and an almost orange batik to the turquoise blues. This piece measures 8-1/2x9.

This is Word #22. The pears are painted with inks - then I played some with the quilting. It measures 15x11 and has become my placemat.

This is Word # 20. It measures 7x10. The verse A merry heart does good like a medicine. Proverbs 17:22 had two weeks of pondering to it - so it was used on #19 below also.

This is Word #19 - size 7x13. The little yellow 'things' attached to the orange strip are the plastic centers from the white silk flowers used in Word #26 above.

Backyard Wildlife

Mama spiders with their brood on their back. And - these are two different spiders! Found one floating in the pool - took some pictures, then removed her from the pool. Thirty minutes later, there was another one in the water. We think they are wolf spiders - but not sure. Fascinating and gruesome at the same time. One more picture below with a floating cricket next to the spiders - to share with you how BIG these mama spiders are!! Ugh!

Now for some cute wildlife!!!

Two tiny frogs on our pool deck this week. From a distance, they looked like pea-gravel - til they hopped. Two more pictures below with my thumbnail in the shot - for scale.

Time Out for a Swim

The Rock, a Logcabin Plus a little more

This is a small artquilt The Rock. I used techniques in it inspired from 3 different quilt artists. It was my 3rd attempt to make the rock of Jesus' tomb in fabric. The hand is a miniquilt - with batting and quilted separate then appliqued onto the piece. I debated how to duplicate the drape of the fabric on the angel's arm in fabric - DUH!! = till I thought - just use a single piece of fabric and fold and drape it!!!

One more piece to mystory behind this piece: Growing up - school pictures would often get stuck into the corner of other photos already hanging on the wall. I always thought if it was important enough to hang on the wall - then it was important enough to have its own frame. So - adding God's word to this piece - I wanted to create a strong contrast between the ultimate importance of His word and the unimportant way it was added. Not having a frame I could stick it in - I added it with a piece of torn masking tape. BTW, the tape and the 'paper' with the bible verses on it are all fabric.

I have just finished taking a class at Quilt University with Carol Miller. I made enough blocks from the class to make this quilt top. There are 5 different logcabin blocks in it - so it is my logcabin sampler. I will add plain borders to finish it as a kingsized quilt. I learned some great tips in the class and highly recommend it!!

A painted slate from several years ago. I was so pleased to discover a technique to 'paint' the shadows of quilting.

Picture take from our front porch in West Virgina. I learned to LOOK UP while living there - watching the sky and storms moving across the valley. That low cloud was boiling up from or reaching down to the Potomac and Cacapon Rivers.

Just a funny picture of our 3 jack russells. Our 'unfaithful dog Muttli' (remember the cartoon Penelope Pittstop?) - is in the middle - My Dad has commented when seeing her lay like this - that her back end looks like a turkey needing to be trussed.