A Little Shopping

Last night I finally did a little shopping. I went to a local market (no tourist trap) and bought some cotton fabrics. I ended up with 14 half meters so I really showed some restraint. These were priced at 95 Rupees per meter or around $2. I love all of them and of course have no idea how they will be used.

I also bought some shawls that were also very reasonably priced and a silver and amethyst pendant and earrings for my daughter. Picked up a few little things for my GD but want to get her something more. It started to rain when I was out so I took a motorized rickshaw back to the hotel. Here is a view of what it looks like from riding in the back.

The hotel had a Chinese buffet for dinner……. It basically tasted like Indian food with 5 spice power added.

Saturday I am invited to someone’s house for dinner and I am really looking forward to this. This colleague has been bringing enough lunch from home to share with me each day and this has been a real treat.

Love this picture of two little boys having what looks like a very serious conversation.

How about some ice cream?

New Collage

I finally have a new collage to post. I have been really tired at the end of the work days and have not accomplished much. This one is all about the people. I painted the background and then collaged over it with images torn from the newspaper and a city guide.

Just Pictures

Masala Dosa for breakfast... a whole 25 rupees or about 50 cents

Woman carrying rice.

I love this picture of a beautiful young woman drinking fresh coconut milk. See the vendor with his knife to her right ready for more business.

Motorized rickshaw.

First day in India

Well the worst part of the trip is over...the flights here. I got to the hotel at around 3am local time and then had a good sleep. You can see my room at the right. It is really very nice.

The next picture was taken from my window looking at a vacant lot next to the hotel. A cement truck was dumping wet cement onto the tin and then the women were passing it to men that were
sending it down a slide in the bottom of a large hole creating a foundation. Think I will keep my day job. This is my third trip to
India and I am still amazed at the difference between the classes.

I do love the food and had a great Indian lunch. Had a light dinner and had to laugh at the entertainment. A 'one man band' was playing in the restaurant and I heard everything from 'A Kind a Hush' by Hermens Hermits, to Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus.


This last picture is my first collage about the trip. This was a little difficult for me since when it comes to art I can do nothing in a hurry. I guess that is part of the challenge. I used my flight ticket stubs and a couple of pages from the airline magazine. The other materials came for a shopping guide I picked up here. Time for bed....tomorrow is a work day.

Here's what's packed

Here is what I finally decided to take to India for my altered b00k project. The thing I always find scary when I start to look for items for a new project is that I had all of this stuff in my stash.

I love to shop the clearance tables and can't resist any sort of paint product. This photo shows 3 Delta Dabbers that I got for $1 each at Big Lots. 4 Liquid Appliques that I got at Joannes for 50 cents each. The multicolor glitter pack was $1.99 at Tuesday Morning. All of the Golden products were free from a product demo. For the watercolor crayons and colored pencils, I used 40% off coupons at Joannes. Hmmm, would you call me thrifty, a great shopper or just cheap????

I will also take some brushes, scissors and a Styrofoam tray for a pallet. I totally decided to nix the magazines and fabric scrapes based on suggestions from the previous post and try to use local objects that I find there.

Here are a couple of pages I painted to test out what I am taking. These are just backgrounds and I will collage on top of them. I will try to post my progress over the next couple of weeks so stop back to see the results.

Truthfully I am not looking forward to this trip but in this economy it is
hard to turn down the work. It will take 22 hours or get there and I will be gone for 12 days. Hopefully this project will keep me busy all of those nights in the hotel.

Suggestions please - what should I take????

Tuesday I will be leaving for India and will be gone for 12 days. I will be teaching a couple of project management classes but I want to take something to work on from a creative standpoint. I thought I would try an altered book and take stuff to work on so I could collage the pages in my hotel room at night.

You can see my book drying in the picture. It is the first sewing book I bought about 35 years ago so I though it was time to give it a new life. I glued 4 pages together and then cut out 5 pages. That left 9 (or 18 if you count the backs) pages to work on.

I have never done this before so I really need some advice on what materials to take keeping in mind that space is at a premium.

Here are a few things I though I would pack:

• a couple of old magazines
• small bag of fabric scrapes
• watercolor crayons
• glue
• markers
• a few paints and brushes
• what else?

Please help me add to my list. Thanks.

Fiberactions - a new challenge

I am really excited to announce a new challenge that I have joined along with 12 other fiber artists. Every 2 months a theme will be selected by one of the members. We will each have 2 months to create a 16''x20'' art quilt with our interpretation of the theme.

The first theme will be announced on 11/15 and since we are going in alphabetical order I am the lucky one that gets to go first. The results will be revealed on 1/15. We will continue this cycle every 2 months until all artist have had an opportunity to choose the theme. You can signup to follow our progress on our new 'Fiberactions' blog. There you will also see a list of the participating artist.

This challenge was inspired by the Twelve by Twelve group project. If you are not familiar with this group you can read about it and see their results here.

I am really excited about this and can't wait to get started!

Early Halloween Fun

Last night we went to an amazing Halloween party. The theme was 'Hollywood' and there really was a lot of interesting people there. First is Willie Nelson with a 'Marilyn Monroe' you may recognize. My husband made such a good Willie Nelson it was almost scary.

Next the host and hostess, Jimmy Hendrix and Wonder Woman. They really put on quite the party. Here is Cruella Daville with an unknown starlet from the dreaded 'D' list.

The band made up of Jimmy Hendrix, Stevy Ray Vaughn, Gene Simmons and a priest that you can't see in the photo. Robin of Batman fame was there with her partner who was off getting a liquid refreshment when this photo was taken. A couple of Indiana Jones' showed up. Too many others to mention. Hope you have a fun Halloween.

Lucy and Molly Came Home Today

Earlier this year I entered 2 -8 1/2" x 11" quilts in the Quilting Arts Rock on Challenge. Neither were published but I had a great time creating them. They just got home and I have no idea where they have been for the last 8 or 9 months.....if only they could talk.

For this first quilt the background is mono printed on black fabric with Lumiere paints trying to create a psychedelic look. I used Angelina Fibers for the blue light effects. Miss Molly was drawn on paper then traced onto tan fabric and fused to the background. Her face was done with colored pencils. The hair was made with Oliver Twist silk tops covered with tulle. I tried several fabrics for the blue dress and finally found a large tropical bird print panel in my stash that I had bought on the clearance table for $1. I don’t know what possessed me to buy it but I cut up a large blue bird and it was perfect. The devil horns are made of puff paint painted red and of course it would not be complete without the reference to Chanel No.5. All was free motion quilted.

To create this next quilt I used bright hand dyed fabrics for the fused landscape. I tried to include as many literal references to the song as possible. ‘Lucy’ was stamped on light pink fabric and fused to the sky. The features were then enhanced with colored pencils. The kaleidoscope eyes are two layers of small plastic flowers. I cut the petals to give them more of a kaleidoscope look. The ‘diamonds’ are hot fixed crystals. The ‘cellophane flowers’ are made of yellow and green painted cellophane. The taxi is made of newspaper and the water in the fountain is puff paint and beads painted with Lumiere paints. The most amazing thing is that all of the items used were actually in my stash. All was free motion quilted.

Surely you can name these tunes.....

Houston Surprise

I am sure you have read about The Houston Quilt Festival and how great it was. If you have never been, this is the one show that you really must see. The quality of the work will just blow you away. I have had a piece in the judged show for the last two years and I was really disappointed in myself for not entering this year.

My big surprise was when I was walking through the 'Eye of the Quilter' photo exhibit I found my photo. I was never notified one way or the other if my photo had been selected so I really was ecstatic when I saw it. Guess I just fell through the cracks. It wasn't a quilt but at least I had a small presence. You can see the pictures of the exhibit here. Mine is in photo 23 of 25 and in the lower left corner.

Could I be More of a Procrastinator??????

My fabric painting class on Joggles starts on Wednesday and of course I am still working on lessons 3 and 4. Not to worry if you happened to sign up since these won't be posted until 10/28 and 11/05 but if I could only pick one thing about myself that I really dislike is my ability to do everything at the last minute. Right up there with this is that I can really appear to be disorganized. I hate to think of how much time I look for things in my studio. After I complete a project it really looks like a tornado has passed through!

The issue I am having in writing the class is that every time I think I'm done I come up with just one more thing I want to add. My midwest values (I am originally from northern Indiana) tell me I must make sure everyone gets their monies worth. So here are a couple of pieces I painted this weekend.

The first one is 'Monet's Garden'. I did a very small version of this on Warm and Natural and wanted to try in on fabric. This next one is a golden sunset.

This is not new to me. Even when I worked as a full time project manager I still managed to do this. Now I only work part time and teach project management and leadership to PM's around the world. I am going to India next month to do a couple of classes. Sometimes I find it amazing that I manage to get to where I am going. Any other procrastinators out there?

Park City Girl Online Quilt Festival

If you want to find some new and interesting quilting blogs check this out Park City Girl. I participated in this in the spring and just saw this fall posting. I thought for fun I would feature this little quilt I made a couple of years ago. It is called 'One Too Many'. I must admit that I do enjoy an occasional martini and I can manage to drink 2 but 3 is just one too many!

This piece is mounted on a painted 12 x 12 inch canvas. The quilt measures about 10 x 10. The background fabric was made from scraps ironed onto fusible web. I then stamped on the copper colored martini glasses. The 'silver swirls' were cut from Halloween fabric I found on the clearance table. Next I covered the whole piece with a shear organza and stamped on the gold martini glasses and painted on the words. I then quilted the piece and added the olives which are made of hand couched thread and then beaded. I also added more embellishments just for fun.