My regular readers will remember my eighth deadly sin quilt done for the Quilt Art List challenge. You can see The Essence of Inhumanity here.

The exhibit made it’s debut at the Mancuso show in Fort Washington, PA, this past week. Apparently, it was the most popular exhibit at the show. The Mancuso Brothers sent this e-mail to our Curator, Sharon:

Hi Sharon – we received this in the office and  are forwarding it as per the sender’s instructions. Nice comments, yes? We loved the Deadly Sin quilts – everyone on the staff picked a favorite!

Mary Claire

Dear Ms. Bowman,

I had the terrific good fortune of attending the PA National Quilt Extravaganza XII this last Friday. What a phenomenal collection of diversity in quilt making; a pure joy for the quilting enthusiast!

I am writing to you to commend you on your verve and courage (in what I am sure must have been a controversial decision) in presenting the, "What is the 8th Deadly Sin" Exhibition.

I have attended past quilt shows at the Fort Washington Expo Center, and while I truly appreciate the more traditional quilts that are always on display, I have to say it is  SO refreshing to see quilting that not only is "outside the box" (or block as the case may be!) but is also of a socio-political nature.

What a true treat to discover quilts that made me think; made me realize that there is so much more to explore with the use of personal expression through quilting!

I found especially poignant the quilt created by the woman (no names are listed for your exhibition in the catalog — an unfortunate oversight  from my perspective!)  who stated on her information card (next to each quilt) that she "assumed her quilt would not be shown because of it’s controversial nature having to do with religion."

Kudos to you Sharon for having the courage to mount this show, and more power to you in the future to continue to take innovative strides in "pushing the boundaries of quilt making"!

Most sincerely,

Deborah Hodies

We have heard from other attendees that there is always a crowd around the exhibit. Can’t wait to see it at PIQF.

Yesterday, Janet and I drove to San Jose for the opening of the new San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. It is always fun to go to these events with Janet because she has been involved in quilting for quite awhile and every body knows her!! The exhibit space is three times larger than the old space. The current exhibit included some ethnic clothing, much of it was donated by Yvonne Porcella. She did a gallery talk and told how she acquired the different pieces and how they had inspired her wearable art. We got to have a tour behind the scenes – upstairs where they will eventually have offices and also the storage area. All of this is unfinished and they will continue the capital campaign to get funding for this.

Last night I took part in the Relay for Life. I didn’t quite get to my goal of $500, but close – $425.

Over the past few days, I have printed out photos of the kids from church on some of my hand-dyed fabric. I have also framed them with some of my favorite Jennifer Sampin (sp?) fabric – Color Rhythms. Here they are:

Now, I have to figure out what to do next. This is for an art show at our church for an All Saints Day celebration in November, but I have to have it ready to photograph in a few days. (I just love to work with a gun to my head!!) The theme is A Festival of Saints: Lights in Their Generation – art that is inspired by individuals who have shed light in the world or your own life. This can be traditional or non-traditional saints. There is a song that Episcopalian kids grow up singing: I Sing a Song of the Saints of God. It ends with And I mean to be one, too. So my quilt will have the photos of the kids with some of the words from the song and perhaps some music notes.

OK, magazines I subscribe to:

• Quilting Arts
• American Quilter
• Surface Design Journal
• Art & Antiques
• Metropolitan Home (My most favorite!!!!)
• Martha Stewart Living
• Sunset
• Food & Wine
• The New Yorker (However, Steve gets this first & I have to go find it in his office.)
• San Francisco (KQED membership – our PBS station)
• Martha Stewart Living (No, I don’t get two subscriptions!!)

I can’t wait to spend some time drooling over this!! I think I will take it to Portland with me next week-end.

Today, my friend Janet and I are going to the opening of the new San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. I probably can’t take pictures, but I will try!!

I am feeling better. I have a ton of deadlines to finish. I am looking at a very busy  October. Yikes, where does the time go?

I have had a virus for a day or two that has affected my intestinal quality of life and left me feeling achy and out of sorts. I had a lot of "obligations" yesterday so I muddled through and then crashed last night. I slept until 8:30 and am trying to get it together because Lisa is coming to spend the night and I need to prepare the guest room and make a nice dinner, but at this point it may be nice take out!!

In the words of Robbi Eklow, I am having brain cramps so I can’t even think about responding to Gabrielle’s question – "What drives you to create?"

Deborah saw a presentation by Velda Newman last week-end and I mentioned that I have taken two classes from the great Velda! She asked to see what I had made. In the first class we actually had a pattern and made a quilt. It was very early in my quilting career so I didn’t do much quilting, but I think my apples are quite stunning!! In the second, two-day class, we just made samples of her various techniques. Here is the apple quilt:

I thought maybe Steve could help me today, but he is having a really bad day, too. He got a new Dell computer last week. His first problem was that the Microsoft Office he has would not load on the new computer because the CD was damaged. Microsoft said he had to buy new software because they would not support the old version. He relented and did that and now the new computer has crashed, before the new software even arrived. So lets just say, he is not a happy camper. This is why I call Microsoft the evil empire. Apples rule!!

I forgot to mention that my Five Fancy Fish was juried into PIQF as part of the New Quilts of Northern California exhibit. It was too small to enter in the PIQF part. But, it gets to go anyway!!

Yesterday I was taking photos at the Fall Festival at church and my former neighbor came up to give me a big hug. The camera was on and hanging over my shoulder, not around my neck, (YIKES) and it fell on the concrete right on the lens. It was bent beyond repairing. I can’t live without my digital camera!! I went to Circuit City to get another Olympus. I was about to get a 5.1 mega pixel camera for around $269 when the clerk pointed out to me that it takes double a batteries. I said now way. I love my lithium rechargeable batteries. He then remembered that there was a store display of my exact 5.0 megapixel camera in the case. And since it was an older model and had no box, it was on sale for $160. Woohoo!! I didn’t have to learn anything new and I could use my discs and batteries from the previous model. We were very happy about this.

Look at these beautiful photos of kids that I took yesterday:

I have photoshopped each of them so that they look like this now:

I will be using them in a quilt to be unveiled later. I am going to print the images on fabric. So stay tuned for what happens next!!