Look At Me....I'm Piecing!!!!!

Last week I took a picture piecing class with Ruth Powers. If you are unfamiliar with her work you need to have a look at her website. She really does some great quilts and has won many awards.

This was a 2 day class to learn her technique. I usually don't do patterns but for this class we all were working on Ruth's Coneflowers pattern. This is a major accomplishment for me since I have only pieced one small quilt for my granddaughter. I can hardly believe that I have managed to get all of these small pieces to fit together! The other thing that amazed me is that I actually am enjoying it. Since I have never done a traditional quilt, this is a major breakthrough for me.

For this technique you create a pattern from an original photo on freezer paper. The trick is to keep all lines straight so you can do straight line piecing from the freezer paper templates. I can't wait to try my hand at creating my own pattern and see if I can really do this picture piecing thing. I will keep you posted.

Home From Vacation

Hi everyone. We just got home last night from a 9 day vacation with our daughter and 6 year old GD. Can you imagine 6 days at Disney World, 2 days at water parks and 1 day Seaworld? It was really fun but I must have walked 3-5 miles a day and it was HOT. 6 is a great age to take a child to DW. They are big enough to ride most of the rides and more importantly big enough to walk around on their own.

I missed the semiannual Georgia Celebrates Quilts Show that was this last weekend but I did manage to win an honorable mention for my quilt 'Flight Into Fantasy' which is pictured on the right on my blog. I also won a second place for my quilt 'The Face of Envy' pictured here. Can you see the face? This quilt has really surprised me since it won a Judges Choice award in another show. I created it last December with the only goal of practicing my free motion quilting. Just goes to show you can never predict what the judges will like.

My Journal Quilt is Home Again

My journal quilt 'Flight Over Greenland' is home again. It has been in the Journal Quilts Elements exhibit that has been traveling to all of the IQA shows this year. You may have seen my second Flight Over Greenland quilt that I posted a couple of months ago...it still is not quilted.

This quilt is based on a picture that I took when I was returning from a business trip to Denmark. I was sitting in business class and

everyone was watching movies so all the window shades

were closed. The pilot announced that we were flying over

Greenland and that in was a really beautiful sight. I opened my window shade and was stunned by the simple beauty of this scene. The sky was an incredible blue and the snow covered mountains surrounded by icy water glistened in the bright sun. I always have my camera and immediately started taking pictures. This was not a popular thing since I was letting in light and I did get some dirty looks from the people around me. I knew that this had to be my journal quilt so I could share this incredible sight and hopefully help people appreciate our beautiful earth.

This piece is painted whole cloth with Angelina fibers added to give sparkle to the water. The 'window' is painted shirt interfacing.

Have any of you had this happen on your blog?

If you noticed, I deleted a comment from my 'Eye of the Quilter' post a couple of days ago. This comment was something about wallpapers for your pc and also said I could post my blog link on their website. It included a link and when I went to check it out it was a pornographic site. I was really shocked.

I hope someone hasn't figured out how to send random comments to blogs like spam emails. Has this happened to any of your on your blogs?

How I did the salt painting

I was too tired last night to give the details on how I did the salt painting in the previous post, so here they are. I use setacolor transparent paints in most of my fabric painting and that is what I used on this. I painted lemon yellow, oriental red and a mix of lemon yellow with just a drop of the red, on water misted fabric. Then I misted the fabric one more time and sprinkled Morton's Rock salt over the piece. One more shot with the mister and then I took it outside to dry.

I was thinking about the results since this is not what salted pieces usually look like. Usually the salt effect is much more predominate and it creates some dark spots around the larger pieces of salt. My box of salt is about 3 years old and has been open the whole time. As you can imagine, it can get pretty humid in the Atlanta area. I was wondering if maybe the salt has absorbed some of the humidity and has lost some of its effectiveness. I will have to get some new salt and see.

More Paint and Today Salt

Today I did a little quick fabric painting and sprinkled it with coarse salt. See the full piece above. Below is a close up and some really cool results. Click on the photos for close ups.

But look at the back! I have no idea how I got this result. Not sure what it reminds of but I just love it.