As I mentioned yesterday, I have been on a whirlwind of activity since January — working on the Twelve X Twelve book and challenge, creating my Bird’s Eye View quilts, and most recently, finishing up Mother Lode. There have been lots of other things taking up my days, and  you know, it is all good. For me, at my age, to be on this path is just plain fabulous. Now,  I am contemplating starting the next pieces that I need to have done by April; and more for May.

Today, I sent Sunset Composition off to NC for the PAQA South Illuminations show and I burned a CD of Mother Lode and sent it off. It was nice to tick off some things.

The photo up there is the Tote Tuesday goodies from Jane Davila that I won in the auction fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. It arrived today, and I am looking forward to checking out Jane’s book, Surface Design Essentials. I have never used Liquitex products and that will be fun to try.

Here is an assortment of green paint chips. That is a lot of green variety. Earlier this year, we painted my office and now  it is time to finish the hallway and my studio. I am thinking I would like a green paint. The Marmoleum tile has alternating green tiles. The  color on the left on the bottom is closest to the tile. It is a nice soothing green and plays nicely with the turquoise in my office. I wish I could have one of those citrusy greens, but, I have to be sensible.

Tomorrow is a big day out and about. I have to preside at the Columbia Fiberarts Guild and luncheon tomorrow, and then, we are having our first ever Portland area SAQA meeting in the afternoon. The Oregon group is going to have a show: it has been a long time coming.

It seems as if I have been on a tear to finish things since the beginning of the year. Tomorrow, I can check off two more things from my list. I have finished Mother Lode and photographed it tonight. I will burn the CD tomorrow and pop it in the mail. I will also ship Sunset Composition to North Carolina for the PAQA South Illuminations show.

I was quite perturbed when I finished quilting Mother Lode because It was just a tad longer than the required 48 inches and I really wanted to face it which would require a half inch more for seam allowance.

I decided that it was important enough to come up with a solution. I had a strip of the bottom fabric that was already fused. I cut a 1 inch wide strip of batting the width of the quilt. I cut the fabric 1 and 1/4 inches wide and fused it to the batting. I butted the batting strip up against the end of the quilt and fused the overlap of the fabric to the bottom of the quilt top. I then quilted it to blend in. Voila! I had the length I needed to sew facings. Whew!

This is for a juried invitational show so I hope that after I have gone through this that it will make it into the show. Either way, I will eventually be able to post a photo.

After several days of glorious weather, we are having a cold spell. There was some talk of snow or freezing rain, but it looks as if we will be spared.

Yesterday, I removed all of the submissions for the Bird’s Eye View show from their travel bags and arranged them alphabetically in preparation for jurying our show.

Mary and Bonnie arrived around 11:30 and we agreed on our plan of action. We would look at each quilt in alphabetical order by quilt title. Our number one criteria was overall visual  impact — was it aesthetically pleasing with good design elements? Next, we looked at the workmanship and then did it meet the criteria for the show in size and content.

We had 32 quilts to view. As we looked at each quilt, if it got 3 yeses, it went into the show pile. Then we had a maybe, take a second look pile and a no pile.

Sometimes, the backs are quite lovely!!

After going through the 32 quilts, we took a second look at the maybe quilts. One of our concerns was to have a cohesive look to the show. We did not want a piece that just jumped out and said “I don’t know why I am here!” One quilt was too small and that knocked out another which sort of worked in the show if both were in. Some were discounted for being just too literal.

Once we thought we had it done, we spread out all of the in quilts, and my husband walked in and said -”that one and that one look out of place with the others.” Ta da! We had been mulling it over, and when he said that, we knew we had to take them out.

I wish I could show you photos of the quilts that made it in. Our first viewing will be at the Camas Library in S. Washington State – near Vancouver. I will get photos then.

We selected 22 of the quilts for the show. It will be smaller than last year’s show, but more cohesive, I think. These are the quilts that are packed and going home. I hope that the members who made these quilts realize that there is nothing personal in making these decisions. We are trying to grow High Fiber Diet into a professional quilting group that produces high quality, artistic work.

I think it would be good to have a session for the group on designing a quilt with visual impact. Black borders and wonky embellishments do not an art quilt make.

For myself, I understand the jurying process a little better now. I am not going to be so miffed when I don’t get into a show. It is not always about the lack of design or workmanship of your quilt, it is about the whole show.

For a great article on jurying, read Lyric Kinard’s excellent blog post.

Have you ever sent a quilt off to a show, only to have it return home without the bag you sent it in. Or have you ever hung a show and tried to keep track of the packing materials for each quilt.

My art quilt group is getting ready to send out our 2010 show, Bird’s Eye View. Each quilt will be in a special cloth bag with a label attached to the bag that has a photo of the quilt and contact information. Each quilt will have a hanging rod and again, we are asking that those be labeled for easy identification.

Today, I made bags for mine. I sewed a Ziploc bag to the outside of the bag. I printed the label with the photo and my address and put it in the Ziploc bag. Using the ziploc bag allows the bag to be reused for another quilt. I roll each quilt around a foam swim tube cut to the size of the quilt and stash it in the bag with the hanging rod.

I finished the quilting on Mother Lode. I am quite happy with the result. I have to trim it to size and attaching facings to finish. I have to do some major housecleaning tomorrow as I have the jurying committee for the show coming on Sunday.

M & M are spending the night. It is their Dad’s birthday tomorrow and Steph is treating him to a nice dinner sans children. We will all celebrate tomorrow.

We took them out for fusion Asian food tonight.

I finished fusing Mother lode to the batting and found a great batik for the backing.

I had to run to Fabric Depot to find some thread for the unusual color palette of this quilt. Several dollars later, I was back home and started the quilting.

Tonight, I had a wonderful time at a Literary Round Table at Trinity. We listened to some Leonard Cohen music and discussed the meaning, poetry and spirituality of his lyrics. So now I have Leonard’s music running around in my brain. One of my favorite lines is from Anthem: There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in. This has so much meaning for me, an imperfect and “cracked” being.

Finally, the pink season and pink snow has come early to Portland.