I’m have an out of body experience, I think. Or I am having very good karma. I have three quilts accepted into the O’Hanlon Gallery Art Quilt Show. Of course, the alter ego is telling me that not many people entered the show and that is why I got in. Why do I want to negate the good things that happen. The quilts that will be in the show are Mallory Brook, Zen Forest (see below) and Dot Calm. The gallery is in Mill Valley, south of here in Marin County. It will be open from Oct 4 to 29. I even got a bunch of those nice little postcards to send to my friends!!

Yesterday, I picked up my quilts from the Marin show and was quite thrilled with the judges comments which I will share with you all:

Vintage Collage: Fabrics and textures add interest to the quilt. Colors and fabrics are well chosen for the quilt style. WELL EXECUTED QUILTING ENHANCES THIS PIECE. Piece should be flat – there seems to be some buckling. (Yeah, from all the underwunder!!)

Zen Forest: Excellent visual impact. Good use of innovative techniques. Piece gives a calming feeling. As presented on judging table, sleeve extends beyond top of piece and is distracting. ( OK, I have to fix that!!)

Crossing the Line: (I started this in a class with Mrs. Mel. I hope she reads this because I think the comments are funny) Colors and fabrics well chosen for quilt style. WELL EXECUTED QUILTING ENHANCES THIS DESIGN!! The piece has a lot of energy and dynamic appeal. The judges note that the piece does not have 90?Ǭ? angles and that might be distracting on the wall ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù but in an abstract category that could have been deliberate. (Well, yes!!)

So, in an otherwise ho hum week, I have these comments and the acceptance to be very happy about. One of my donations to Art Doing Good has sold and Gerry O’Neill e-mailed me to say she had bid on the leaf quilt so that is good news too.

I’m wishing I had more studio time and less time taking care of stuff for the organizations I am involved with. That is my goal for 2006 – to simplify my life and have more uninterrupted creative time. Tomorrow, I am going to the local Surface Design meeting. It is always fun to see what this creative bunch has been up to.

W’s Mother had this to say. after touring the Astrodome:

?¢‚Ǩ?ìAlmost everyone I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve talked to says ?¢‚ǨÀúwe?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re going to move to
Houston.’ What
I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas.
Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And
so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged
anyway, so this – this is working very well for them.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

I just have to say, "Now we know where W gets his diplomacy from!"

I just finished a small quilt for Laura’s Art Doing Good Project and I have one that I started in a class with Mrs. Mel, that I am donating. It is always scary to put your work out there for sale next to work by artists like Liz Berg.

This is Leaf Construction III. The leaves on the left section are printed on silk from a scan of real leaves I collected last fall, with an overlay of bronze organza. The center leaf is screen printed. The leaf on the bottom is stamped. The leaves on the top are very fragile leaves that I found at the art store that I have appliqued and I hope they survive, but the laciness of them is so pretty. Most of the fabric is hand-dyed silk. The other fabric is a piece of antique Japanese textile.

This is the little piece from my series that I did in Mrs. Mel’s class:

These are both about 8.5 X 11 inches. Go check out the site and buy some art and do some good.

For my blogging fans who have been following my Princess Bad Hair Day problems, I took the plunge and went to a new stylist. Liz Berg saw me last week at the Marin Quilt show and said your red, spiky air is gone. So I knew I had to do something. Andrea is very nice and not unlike Cynthia in personality. So here is a view of my new color and cut:

It is not too bad. I have to see how it looks once I have washed and styled it. So it is Princess Not So Bad Hair Day!!

I’m being less than enthusiastic about our anniversary week-end in Tahoe. It was fun, but fraught with some little problems. On the drive up, we encountered major traffic problems due to a construction detour. So we got in much later than we had planned. Steve made these reservations some time ago and we were looking forward to a luxurious week-end, basking by the pool and enjoying fabulous food – one of our hobbies (grin). The Hyatt was mobbed with yuppie families – a gazillion – I swear. Strollers, toddlers, highchairs, sippy cups, spilled food, crying kids, happy, screaming kids, kids jumping in the pool, kids in the jacuzzi – were everywhere. We paid a bundle for our great room with a view of the pool. We could only eat in a nice hotel restaurant on one night – at 8:30 pm. Now I have a daughter with two pre-school children, but there is no way they could afford a 3-day week-end at this hotel. I was blown away that so many young families could afford this. By Monday afternoon, things had quieted down, but we still did not have a single meal that we enjoyed. One problem is that I am finding it more and more difficult to adjust to the altitude.

Anyway, we made the best of it. On Sunday we took a long walk on Lakeshore Drive (4 miles round trip) and gawked at the mega mansion second homes. We found one that was for sale for $11 million. Across the street, it was only $5 million. I guess being on the lake is worth $8 million!! Of course most of these homes were empty. I was thinking – lets open them up to the hurricane evacuees!! On Sunday afternoon we took a drive all around the lake, which was interesting – the California side has more modest homes and camp grounds. The Nevada side has the casinos and more glitz.

On Monday, we took a hike around Spooner Lake and I fell in love with Aspens. I have a quilt in my brain. It was good to get out in the wilderness and take in the beautiful scenery. Here are some pics:

Here is an Aspen Grove:

Aspens in the sunlight:

Spooner Lake through the Aspens.

Some tall Aspens:

Can you find Stevie in the Aspens?

More views of Spooner Lake which is teeming with aquatic birds. (There was a warning to say out of the lake because it has leeches!)

I love the meadows that surround lakes in the Sierras.

On our last night, we had dinner outside by the lake at the Lone Eagle Grill Lounge. I took this photo of the lake after the sun had done down:

The drive home was almost as bad as the drive up. Lots of construction and lots of traffic. The best part of the week-end was quality time with the most significant person in my life – Steve!! Fortunately we share the same wacky sense of humor.

a check for $250 make one a professional quilter?! I won in the challenge category at the Marin Quilt Show for my Five Fancy Fish Frolic Freely Quilt:

I have donated the full amount to the Red Cross through Whole Foods which is doing matching funds and also contacted Karey Bresenhan of Quilts Inc so that it will be matched there – so it has grown to $750!

The Marin Quilt show is an amazing show for a non-juried show. Anyone can enter up to 3 quilts. And they are accepted on a firs come basis. Here are some of the highlights:

Liz Berg’s Summer Fun got a second in it’s category. Love it!!

This lovely quilt was done by April Sproule. I am not sure my photo does it justice. It consists of two layers. The bottom layer is a real quilt with three quilted layers. In two areas it has painted red flowers. The top layer is sheer and has this amazing fused and appliqued

design and the painted flowers and there areas that are clear where the painted red flowers on the bottom layer show through. The bottom layer is quilted with a metallic thread the complements the design in the top layer. Just yummy and so original.

I couldn’t get a photo of the whole quilt. But this is the opportunity quilt for the guild in Chico and it is stunning. It is a Karen Stone Design. Each block is made by someone in the guild and each block has embellished stitching and BEADS!! Here is a closeup:

I loved the simplicity of the design for this. She did it in a class with Marilyn Felber who is going to do a design class with my art quilt group.

This is a closeup of a quilt that tickled my funny bone.  He took this masculine image and added a cartoon head. Each one was different.

This quilt was made from Lonni Rossi fabrics. I thought it used the fabrics very effectively and the quilting was great. The colors are not really true, but you get the idea.

Loved this quilt done by a guy with Lonni Rossi fabrics. It has wonderful beading on it. It is two panels, so that is not a white strip down the middle.

My guild fared quite well with several ribbons. I bought some great fair trade fabrics from Africa, some Australian fabric, some Japanese Kimono scraps, and some hand-dyed silk.

The six of us went out to dinner after the show and had such a good time. Quilty friends are the best. We are off to Tahoe tomorrow for some R & R. See you later!

The scenes that I am witnessing on the TV and the stories I am  hearing on NPR are breaking my heart. It is difficult to concentrate on anything. I am so furious that I live in a country that would allow citizens to go for days without food, water and medical attention. There is no emergency plan. I now hear that they can take no more people at the Astrodome and there are still thousands waiting and waiting and waiting. This is not right. We have a president who can not comprehend the desperation of people who are breaking into businesses just to survive.

I have many thank you post cards to make and send ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù to my family back east for their hospitality and to the wonderful people  who have donated to the Relay for Life. So tonight I finished two. I have several in the works, but they will have to stay that way for awhile. Tomorrow, my best quilting friends and I are going to the Marin Quilt show. Then on Saturday, Stevie and I are heading to the Hyatt Regency in North Lake Tahoe to celebrate 41 years of wedded bliss. I won’t be home until Tuesday.

Here are the post cards. The top one is for my niece who gave up her room. Her bathroom has frogs everywhere. The bottom one is for my sis Carole and her super fantastic gardening husband, Jim. I enjoyed the fruits of his labor! And thanks to  Cathy for the veggie fabric which I fussy cut and collaged.

I hope that when I post again that we will see some relief for the folks in NO.