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Archive for October, 2011

Enjoying My Birthday Week

Friday, October 14th, 2011

I have just about finished the Alternate Universe piece. I finished the quilting and burying of thread ends. I had done some dorky hand stitching in the two planet rings which I removed. This morning, I added tiny glass beads embedded in matte medium. If you click on the photo you can see them. I did not have the time or the patience to handstitch these beads to get the effect I wanted. I think this works.

I had a great time with the STASH group, minus Suzy who is at PIQF show in Santa Clara. Beth made a delicious lunch. The roasted butternut squash soup was divine. The squash was grown in her garden.

Today, Steph and Mia took me out to lunch at Silk, a Vietnamese restaurant. It was so good. Then we went to the Contemporary Craft Museum to see the Nikki McClure exhibit. I was blown away by the cut paper work that she does.

When my purse was stolen last spring, it had a gift card for $100 for the CCM gift shop. It was given to me as a thank you for hosting Sandra Sider when she was here to do SAQA critiques. It was paid for in cash. The purchaser, my friend Laura, had the receipt which she sent me. I took it in today and they found it on the computer, and I was able to buy myself a birthday present. These beautiful earrings.

Hope you have a great week-end. We are looking for some sunshine and warmer temps. On Monday, you can click on the link in my sidebar and listen to me on Pat Sloan’s radio show — 1 pm Pacific time.

More Book Crafting

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

I had the last of a three session book crafting class at Trinity tonight. I didn’t show last week’s book because it is a complicated 3-D book which requires some thought and execution of each layer before it is assembled. I will get back to it eventually.

Tonight, we did two  books. I used some of my art cloth for the cover of this square book.

The inside is a complicated fold and glue. Here is an idea of what the inside looks like. I think this will get some collaging done to the inside pages.

The other book is a cute little triangle.

You get 3 books in one as you can open up from each of the points and you have 4 pages for writing or doing something artsy.

This was lots of fun and a bit of a diversion for me.

I have been working very hard at getting the quilting and burying of threads done on the Alternate Universe piece.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I will take tomorrow morning off to hand out with my friends at STASH.

I asked Steph to come over and take some new head shots for me, without glasses. Here are two that I like and will be using.

The top one was taken in front of my Autumn Aspens. I received an e-mail with the judges comments from the La Conner show about that quilt. I don’t like to enter judged shows because I think they do not understand “art” quilts.

Here are the comments about this quilt.

Best features of this quilt are:

Good choice for background. Nice machine quilting stitch. Thread choice complements overall design.

Areas which most need improvement:

Placement of the leaves does not feel natural.

That last comment tickled me and irked me, a bit. As an artist, I do not try to replicate nature exactly. I looked at many aspen photos when I was working on this. My goal was to show the variation in colors and the way aspen leaves hang in clumps. Here is an example.

Am I overreacting?

And The Winner Is

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

Kristin Freeman!  I need your snail mail. Diane will mail you the DVD later this month when she receives them from Interweave.

Thank you to the 65 of you who left a comment! You still have a chance by hopping on over to one of the other participating blogs.

October 12 Vivika DeNegre
October 14 Debra Gabel
October 17 Candy Glendening
October 19 Deborah Boschert
October 21 Diane Doran

On another note, today is my birthday. It will be very low key. Mr C took me to Toast for breakfast. Now, I am going back to quilting and burying threads.

I am also getting ready for my radio gig on Pat Sloan’s American Patchwork & Quilting Radio Show next Monday. I will be representing the Twelve x Twelve group and hoping I don’t embarrass them. Here is a link to listen in.

Digital Collage for Quilt Design

Monday, October 10th, 2011

Please do not leave comments. The drawing took place on October 12th.

Diane Doran is an award winning quilter who uses digital images in her quilts. She recently made a DVD about her techniques for Quilting Arts TV. You can see her beautiful work here.

Learn how to:

  • Combine a variety of image types to create imaginative collages to print on fabric
  • Use Photoshop Elements 9 for basic digital enhancement and layering techniques
  • Consider color, value, and contrast while designing
  • And she explains printing, basting, and finishing options for your collage, and demonstrates ways to enhance your design with quilting, markers, and pencils.
  • And much more!

Diane has given some of her blogging friends the opportunity to give a DVD away to one of our readers. So leave me a comment if you would like a chance to win this DVD. I will do a drawing on Wednesday.

If you don’t win one, the workshop will be available from Interweave for download sometime in mid October and in late October the DVDs can be ordered from Interweave.

Here are the other bloggers who will be giving away one of the DVDs.

October 12 Vivika DeNegre
October 14 Debra Gabel
October 17 Candy Glendening
October 19 Deborah Boschert
October 21 Diane Doran

Woman Working

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

I finished the seed stitching on this piece and have been working on the machine quilting. It is very slow going since I have to stop at each circle and then start again on the other side. It means stopping periodically to bury threads. I don’t normally work this way. It is tedious and may take as long to do as the handstitching.

To refresh your memory, I discharged this piece about a year ago. I used a freezer paper template and the two sides are in reverse and upside down. You can see how I did it here. I called it waking up in an alternate universe. It has taken me a year to seed stitch each of the planets and moons.

I am using a blue and yellow variegated thread to machine quilt in diagonal straight lines. I am liking the effect, but it is tedious.

So, that is pretty much what I have been up to for the last few days! I am determined to finish this.

Please come back tomorrow because I am going to be giving away something to one of my readers.