Gosh, time has flown by

I don't know how the time has flown by since my last entry. I can't even blame traveling this time...... My local Quilt Guild had their triennial show this past weekend. Always fun to be surrounded by fellow quilters and visitors who are drawn to quilting. And I had an especially grand time basking in the sun - I won several awards for my art quilts. One special award stood out "Artistic Merit!" I'll include the pic of the piece "Florida Foliage." It's a mixed media piece: oil stick rubbings of the palmetto leaf, photo images of the palmettos, collage, extensive machine quilting. I felt tickling all weekend. Still do when I look at that piece in particular. Grand to be recognized by one's peers.

My two fiber groups met this past week. One we created a paper/cloth doll. Fun, fun, fun. I have Pamela Hasting's paperdoll book and am currently taking her "Transformation through doll making" with Joggles.com. So dolls are on my brain. I am not taking full advantage of Pamela's expertise though - seem to be too busy to actually produce art but am mulling over everything. I know I'll get down to business soon. Transformation is a really big undertaking. It's about time I did something.......

Oh, I did a needlefelted postcard for the theme "Green/Spring" for that fiber group as well. I will post an image once I take a picture.

I hung my work up at a local bank along with 3 other artists. The opening is in a couple of weeks. Some of my pieces, well 2 of them, don't seem to fit in at all amongst the floral paintings but the pieces themselves are neat, if I say so myself.

My other fiber group met and I demonstrated "water soluble stitching." Fun when I can get some folks to try something new and go away enthused!

Surrounding myself with like-minded folks is simulating!

I've included an image of a memory piece I made of my daughter's boyfriend's mother. My daughter will be giving it to her boyfriend's sister. I was honored to be asked to create a piece highlighting a wonderful mother, grandmother and fellow quilter.

Comission done, Challenge in progress

My commission pillow is now done. The image with the flowers is just a teaser. I will upload the whole image later. I used the frog stitch - rip it, rip it the first time around - didn't like the patchwork I first tried - the fabrics of the different clothing just didn't piece very well and the design was off. So, I started from scratch and I am pleased with the result. Hope my client is as well. I've added a surprise factor that I will disclose later after the pillow is delivered to my client.

I've been painting - monoprinting to be exact. I subscribe to www.workshopontheweb.com and used the workshop on monoprinting for the upcoming challenge of my local art association. The theme is "Two color combination." One of the images shows the multitude of small pieces I've printed using 2 colors plus white. I added some Shiva oil stick rubbings and black stamping to some. One image is my clean up cloth - I love it!!!! I've put up an image of my pin basted top that I'll be machine quilting later. I may add some of the painted cheesecloth and yarn afterwards. I have a some project in mind to use some of the rest of the prints and some beads but time is running out to make the show - jurying is Monday - this Monday!!!!

Been working

I've included some pics of the products of my fun playtime while out with Marlene, my sister, in California. There's distressed felt beads, friendly plastic, polymer clay: molds, faces, buttons, beads, etc. My sea turtle piece is in progress. Then I've included a pic of printed grape leaves on my very own dyed fabric. I'll be quilting that later and some extra leaves to make a 9 x 12" piece to hang in a local artwalk. Of course I didn't print just one but 3 altogether. How I love to print leaves. And lastly, another completed sunrise/beach wall hanging. That's the second of 3 completed. I love my beach scenes as well.

Back Home

Suffering from jet lag after a wonderful week with my sister, Marlene, in California. This wonderful person is the one who got me into quilting and into art quilting. We get together to play with all those new fun techniques we have read about in magazines: Quilting Arts and Cloth, and Paper, Scissors; and in all the books we seem to have to have. We do have fun! I'm still in a fog but I wish to list what we did: transfer painting, polymer clay, fabric paper, friendly plastic, felt beads, painted jeans jackets, paper collage, colormist leaves..... mind's a blank. Sounds like a funfilled week. It was. We laughed a lot as well. She's good for my soul.

Tomorrow I will get back to work in the studio - hopefully I'll clean that messy studio up some tonight!