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Archive for September, 2012

A Red-head Maverick

Sunday, September 30th, 2012

This is my maverick 12 x 20 quilt. I am not that thrilled with it. I didn’t allow enough time to flesh it out.

Here is the story. I live in a part of the country where it is almost a badge of honor for women of my age to let their hair go naturally gray. Many women in the northwest do not even bother to have their hair styled— they just let it grow and grow and grow.

My hair, if I let it go natural, would be thin and stringy and an ugly shade of mousy gray. I was thrilled when my stylist gave me red hair about 10 years ago. It totally fit my personality and made me happy. I had always loved my grandmother’s red hair.

Recently, my husband made a comment about liking my hair when it is more brown, like when he first met me. The maverick in me came out. I went in to have my monthly hair color done and asked Kevin for something new and edgy, but still in the red zone. We settled on a darker, burgundy red — in the sunlight, it looked a little purple.

The next day, we stopped in at a local gallery event. There were 3 long haired gray women talking at the counter. I overheard one of them say, I could never dye my hair purple! I laughed and walked up to the group, as the owner was one of them, and started talking to her. They were all taken aback a bit. That night, I decided that my maverick quilt would be about my hair.

I don’t do faces, hair, or people in quilts so I settled on a maverick red/purple fish. I couldn’t find gray batiks that I liked so I settled for these neutral fabrics.

Bye-bye September

Sunday, September 30th, 2012

I didn’t sleep well last night and by the time I was home from church, did some grocery shopping, worked on some SDA e-blasts and harvested veggies from the garden, I was falling asleep on the sofa. I finally roused myself and got to the studio with barely enough time to finish quilting the maverick quilt.

I was inspired by a post on Brenda Smith’s blog where she showed a new quilt edging that she had done with a Janome Horizon foot. I didn’t bother to go look up the blog post. I pulled out my manual and found the overedge foot C which, when you use utility stitch 14, makes a really neat double zigzag edge. So I gave it a try. I really like the effect and it was so easy to do.

I will post the whole quilt tomorrow.

Here is the whole of the red-orange 3 x3’s for September.

Now, on to blue-purple. I wonder what I have in my stash?

Super Saturday

Saturday, September 29th, 2012

Late this morning Mr C and I headed down to Newburg and had lunch at our favorite Oregon fast food restaurant, Burgerville. Then, he dropped me off at the Chehalem Arts Center for Regina Benson’s exhibit and lecture. He headed off for the Erath Vineyards to pick up our wine club edition for the fall.

Regina’s work is really breathtaking in its size and the detail she puts in to each piece.

I love the pieces that are hung on molded aluminum bars.

Her lecture was a slide show of photos showing how she does the discharge  and rusting on such large pieces. It was really educational. She was very generous with her information and gave each of us two swatches of fabric that had been discharged and rusted.

Here she is explaining to us how whe creates these tubes wrapped with shibori discharged silk.

Two views of discharged pieces hanging from the ceiling.

Tonight, Mr C and I had dinner with some old and new friends who were all connected via the old GE days. It was lots of fun.

Terry had an extra copy of Quilting Arts and so I have gotten to see my Rituals quilt of Scooter and Mr C in the magazine. It looks really great!!

I even found some time in the studio this afternoon and got some quilting done on the maverick piece. And did today’s 3 x3.

There are 3 months left in the year and I have yellow-green, blue-purple and yellow orange left to do. I am thinking I will go to the cool side next.

Another Crazy Week

Friday, September 28th, 2012

Here it is Friday and I am so behind in my studio work. Tomorrow, I am heading down to Newberg to see Regina Benson’s exhibit and attend her lecture. Then tomorrow night we have a dinner date with Mr C’s boss and some other former GE employees.

Yesterday, I didn’t get much done except take part in back to back SDA conference calls and a Go To Meeting computer conference. Then I picked up M & M at school while Jack and Stephanie were off celebrating their 15th anniversary. We had such a good time with the kiddos. I love having them come to stay with us.

So, of course, it was a busy morning getting them off to school. I managed to select the background for my maverick twelve piece and got it quilted.

I will have to boogie to get this done on Sunday for a Monday reveal.

Here is my latest acquisition from the SAQA auction.

I have long been a fan of Yael David-Cohen’s work.

My daughter, Lisa, who is home from her 3-week trip to Scandinavia, is not letting any grass grow under her feet. She released her second font designed in collaboration with a font designer. I am excited to say that it is named after me – Geraldine.

Isn’t that cool. You can find out more about it, here.

And here is today’s 3 x 3.

Not in My Groove Yet

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

Tried my hand at fused bias strip weaving. I was in a hurry so this was not planned that well, but I like it.

I am having a problem, after a week here and there and not feeling well, getting back my studio practice. I made quite a bit of progress on my maverick quilt. The good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I think I can have it done by Monday.

Here is a peek a some of what I did today – a batik fish:

Tomorrow, I have back to back SDA conference calls and training. I am picking up M & M from school, and they will spend the night with us while Steph and Jack celebrate their anniversary in Astoria. So tomorrow will not find me in the studio for much time.

I don’t think I have shared the 12 x 12 SAQA auction quilt that I bought last week. It arrive this week and is really lovely. It has wonderful machine quilting on it and is by Elin Noble. The title is Snow Angels.

We started watching Wallander on PBS and decided we needed to see previous episodes. So we are starting with Season 1 tonight.