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Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category

Good News All Around

Tuesday, May 10th, 2016

gerrie congdon cover copy

Several years ago, I was honored to be a featured artist on The Textile Blog by John Hopper. I was a fairly new fiber artist and it gave me a measure of confidence about my work. He profiled several artists over the years. Click Here to read the original post. John has recently started publishing online magazines featuring fiber and textile art, titled Inspirational. In the most recent issue, he asked those artists to send him photos of recent work and to write something about our current artistic life. I am happy to once again appear in a publication of his. Above is the cover of my section. Click Here for a link to the online magazine.

inspirational

The other good news is that I got a call this morning to reschedule my knee replacement surgery. It will two weeks from today onĀ  May 24th. Whew!! So, I continue to prepare for the surgery, the pain, the physical therapy and the recovery. Thank you to every one who reached out to me. I really appreciate your good wishes.

31 Day Blog Challenge

Tuesday, December 1st, 2015

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Cheryl Sleboda has issued a challenge to other bloggers to post to their blog every day this month. I know that I have been posting a lot less. I will blame a lot of that on Instagram and FaceBook. I feel as if I am duplicating my activity by then posting to this blog. So, I am going to give this a go and see what I can come up with to entertain you for a month. If you would like to know more about it, click here.

We had a great Thanksgiving with all our children and grandchildren in town. Mark, Jayme and the whirling dirvish 3 year old Paige stayed with us. It was fun to spend so much time with her. Jayme had to take very important medical boards yesterday and today so she spent a lot of the week-end studying and taking practice tests.

paigesesamest

Here is a rare quiet moment while she watched Sesame St.

paigeguitarwalking

We took her to OMSI, a science and technology center with lots of interactive stuff for kids. She got to walk on a giant guitar in the guitar exhibit.

scooteriPad

Paige and Scooter got along very well. Scooter wanted a turn on the iPad!

We had Thanksgiving at Lisa and Clay’s home. On Friday, we moved on to Steph’s home. She made us turkey and butternut squash enchiladas. On Saturday night, we took everyone out for pizza.

sorellinadinner

During the bedlam of the holiday, I tried to get me November assignment finished up for my Master Class. I love the color palette, but with the rush of finishing, I didn’t notice that my background columns had gotten askew before I quilted them down. I call this Christo’s Fence Redux.

GECNovfinal

As a reminder, here is the photo inspiration:

christofcropped

Quilt Knit Stitch- See the Quilts I Loved

Monday, August 17th, 2015

qksredapplequilt

I know I have been missing in action, but for a good cause. I helped to coordinate an information table at Quilt Knit Stitch 2015 for Surface Design Association. We set it up on Wednesday and the show ran Thursday – Saturday. We had a display of swatches of samples of surface design techniques by our members and lots of journals to peruse.

QKSSDAtable

 

The opening quilt up above was in the red quilt show that debuted in Houston. I liked the more modern versions of the red quilts. That one was made by Betty Hahn, an artist that I really admire.

qksredapplemaker

Here is another innovative red quilt.

qksredquilt

qksredquiltmaker

We were next to an exhibit of work by students in Jane Dunnewold’s master class. Some of these pieces were my favorites in the show. Here are some I especially liked.

qkspoppies

This piece was so gorgeous – hand dyed and discharged and some applique of poppy heads.

qkspoppymaker

qksstoryhasholes

The hand stitching on this is really lovely. It has sections of hand-dyed gauze laminated to the surface. It needs to be seen up close.

qksherstoryhasholessign

qksjanefeatherstudy

This is one of Jane’s pieces that is digitally manipulated and printed by Spoonflower and then quilted.

qksjaneduunewoldsign

qksuntitled3qksuntitled2qksuntitled1

These 3 pieces had such gorgeous surface design.

qksuntitledmaker

qksgraffiti

Another gorgeous piece with surface treatment.

qksgraffitimaker

Here are some other random pieces in the traveling special exhibits.

qksdennisleaf

Sue Dennis of Australia makes such lovely quilts using leaves. She does rubbings, printing and applique.

qksleafmaker

qkssafeharbor

Another fabulous quilt by Betty Hahn. It is painted!

qkssafeharbormaker

qksbigpink

This is a small modern quilt with Big Pink, our iconic building here in Portland.

qksbigpinkmaker

I always love a Betty Busby quilt. This one was in the SAQA Redirecting the Ordinary exhibit.

qksbusbycorrosionsigh

qksbusbycorrosion

My regular readers may recognize this as the big sister to a SAQA auction quilt that I purchased.

qksbeyondwords

qksbeyondwordsmaker

 

And here is the little sister.

 

 

Lombrozo

Hope you enjoyed this sampling of quilts from Quilt Knit Stitch.

The 100 Fundraiser to Fight Cancer

Tuesday, January 13th, 2015

OrangeFiesta

I have been remiss at posting my contribution to Virginia Spiegel’s 100 Fundraiser to Fight cancer. I am going to donate my obsessively stitched Fiesta piece. It just arrived back from Interweave where it was photographed for the current issue of Quilting Arts Magazine.

It is mounted on a gallery wrapped frame and is 12 x 12.

fiestamountedonorange

The fundraiser happens on February 14th. Artwork by 100 artists will be randomly distributed to those who make a $100 contribution to the American Cancer Society – we hope to have a total donation of $10,000 in one day. Here is a link to the website. These are all accomplished fiber artists and so the art will be awesome. You can see a pinterest board of donated work, here.

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Master Class with Elizabeth Barton

Saturday, January 10th, 2015

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Regular readers of my blog may remember that I started a year long master class with Elizabeth Barton last year. Then, I had to drop out because the selling, buying and moving house took over my life. She said I could pick it up again this year so, I am giving it a whirl. Our first assignment was to make value sketches of 3 photos. Here is the sketch for the wind turbines photo. I really like this and want to do a piece with turbines. So this sketch will come in handy.

JANGECsketch3

This is a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge that I took from Land’s End, near the Cliff House.

ggbridge

And here is the sketch. EB thinks this would be better as a painting because of the expansive sky and water. I have other bridge photos and I think I will try cropping in on just a portion of the bridge for a later work.

JANGECsketch2

This is a photo that I took this fall and I pushed the colors in photoshop and loved the composition.

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Here is my sketch. It is quite successful for a value study and I think it is the one I will work up in fabric.

JAN.GECsketch1

I have been working away on the kid quilts when I get a chance. I really like the green sashing on Lisa’s fabric.

greensashing

I am managing all my projects fairly well. I even got several rows of knitting done last night. My goal is to embrace my busy life and celebrate that at my age, I am healthy and able to do so many things.