A Dusting of Snow for Rosie

We had a bit of snow yesterday and the temperature plummeted, so it was still here this morning.

Rosie was delighted.

 The sun is shining on the ice on the pond.  The low temp last night started the inevitable slide into winter.

Tulips & Rose

"Tulips & Rose"

37.5" by 45.5"

"since the thing perhaps is

to eat flowers and not to be afraid"

- e e cummings, Complete Poems, 1904 - 1962

Tulips & Rose will be in the fiber art exhibit at Olbrich Gardens this winter.

The show runs from November 3, 2013 through January 26, 2014 at Olbrich Botanical Gardens, 3330 Atwood Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin.

The opening reception will be held on Wednesday, October 30, 5 - 7 p.m.  Here is a link to the Olbrich Gardens website.

I used raw-edge appliqué.  The tulip colors and Rosie's freckles were added with Tsukineko inks.  The rest was done with Aurifil 50 wt thread.  

And for Beth and Lynne, the backside.

My Quilts in Waunakee Show

Two of my quilts will be in the St John's Piecemakers Guild show.

The show is Friday and Saturday, October 25 and 26, at St John's School Gymnasium, 114 East Third Street, Waunakee, Wisconsin.  

It's the only Waunakee in the world!



"Spectral Chroma" will be there.

And so will the pelican.  This is probably the last show for the pelican.  It will be semi-retired after this because I may be selling it.

I have a special affinity for St. John's Piecemakers.  Not only have I become good friends with many of its members, I was the featured speaker at the September guild meeting.  Topic: Thread-painting.

A Quilter's Dream at Quilt Expo

 I posed for several photos with my quilts at Quilt Expo this year, but this was the only one I could find on FaceBook.  That's me in the red shirt helping to hang the show.

I had to sit on my hands to resist typing "does my bum make this quilt look fat" in the comment section!

I had the pleasure of working with Stephanie Prescott in her booth "A Quilter's Dream" this year.  She has fabulous quilt and bag patterns and designs some lovely batiks.  I made this bag from her pattern "Metropolis" using her batiks for the buildings.  The sky fabric came from my stash.  

It was easy peasy to make -- the directions are very good.  Of course, I had to modify it a bit -- I added the extra pocket inside the large one -- for keys or a cell phone, and I added a magnetic snap for closure.

And this is me with Stephanie.

Three Quilts at Quilt Expo

I know I'm a bit late in posting this, but real life keeps getting in the way of my cyberlife (and my artwork too, but that's another story.)  I had a bunch of posts mostly written before I went to California, but I never got all the photos off my DD's camera and didn't finish them.  Soon...


"Spectral Chroma" debuted at Quilt Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, earlier this month and here is a photo of it hanging in the show.

It's 92" by 74" and was beautifully longarm quilted by Nell Coons.  I added some more machine quilting and will probably add a little more before I'm finished.

The pelican was also juried into Quilt Expo and will be in one more show next month before I unofficially retire it.

This dragon was part of a special exhibit of the Sun Prairie challenge quilts.  I haven't seen it in a while -- it seems like I made it and dropped it off immediately.  It's been traveling the country and I've missed it.

I'll have another post soon about Quilt Expo, then it's on to other stuff.

Alice's Flowers

I previously blogged about my friend Alice here when she asked for my help in creating a special hand-dye for her Wisconsin Wildflowers quilt.  I finally got to see the completed quilt and I think it's amazing. This is all hand-appliquéd and hand quilted.

If you look close (or click on the photo) you can see the purple and green stripe I dyed for the jack-in-the-pulpit block.

Hot Coffee Idea

I hate waste.  I hate using throwaway containers.  So these plastic portable coffee cups seemed like a fine idea.  But they get hot.  So I need a paper insulator.  Which gets (yep) thrown away.  DH is the worst offender (he drinks the most coffee).  So I made him one he could reuse. 

Using the paper insulator as a guide, I cut out fabric and Insul-Brite.

I left a quarter inch around the edges for shrinkage from quilting.  Fabric was right side out and Insul-Brite in the middle.  Just enough quilting to hold it together.  Then I trimmed off the excess. 

 Binding was two and a quarter inches folded in half, stitched around the edge and turned, then hand stitched down.  Although I suppose it could all be done by machine.  

I used iron-on velcro strips.  But I don't trust their glue, so I stitched around them with my machine.

And the finished project.  And, yes, I did throw away the paper one I used as a guide.  *sigh*

Ocean Cruise - the Beginning

I met with the Very Friendly Ladies in Monroe, Wisconsin and our project was this very traditional tessellating block quilt.


I took some of my Caribbean-colored hand-dyes and a couple of different whites for my blocks.







But it was still too traditional looking for my taste, so I got out my dye thickener and mixed up some dyes for painting.


I thought a couple of dolphins would be good.








And a sea turtle -- he's pretty yellow, I know.  But I think it will be ok after it's all put together and quilted. Although I might do a little painting over his shell with a green or brown.

And a toucan to watch over it all.  I used some really old thickener that I had out in the garage and didn't mix it quite thick enough, so there's some running  of the color.  The tree and the big red bump on the beak were the worst parts.  --Of course, I found the giant economy size bag of new thickener while I was putting away the supplies for this.

This is what it looks like on my design wall.


I think it will look good after I get some more of the tessellating blocks finished.  And maybe a little border around each of the dye-painted parts.


I'm linking up with Nina Marie at Off The Wall Friday.

Guess Where I Am

Two Quilts Juried Into Quilt Expo!

Two of my quilts have been selected for Quilt Expo in Madison, Wisconsin on September 5 through 7, 2013.





Both the pelican and a new one titled "Spectral Chroma" were chosen.

I am going to share just a detail shot of "Spectral Chroma" for now and will have more pictures -- yes, of the entire thing -- later.  

Opposites Attract?

Today is reveal day at Art Quilts Around the World.  The theme for this challenge was "opposites attract."

I admit, I had trouble with this one.  After discarding about a thousand ideas, I realized that I kept coming back to colors; I love that colors opposite each other on the color wheel are so pleasing together.  

So I finally just picked a couple and offset them with the black and white.  I used three or four different fabrics for each color -- the hand-dyes are all my own.  

I thought it looked a bit like an abstract feather, so I quilted it with somewhat traditional feathers, using bright, non-traditional thread.  

And here is the back -- I started out with orange thread in the bobbin and when that ran out, I switched to grey.

No Strings Attached Shibori - Part Deux

As I mentioned in my previous post, I planned to over-dye.  So I wasn't terribly concerned that three were kind of boring.

The patterning is so much more complex after a second trip through the wrapped-pole technique.

Much better, I'd say.

And this is the one from the previous post -- after a second trip through.