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.

John C. Campbell Folk School Fall Festival

Last weekend we went to the John C. Campbell Folk School Fall Festival just outside Murphy NC. You may have seen the school advertised in Quilting Arts Magazine.

The school was founded in 1925 and is set in a valley of rolling hills in the NC countryside. They are dedicated to teaching all kinds of arts and crafts from pottery, wood carving, folk dance, music, blacksmithing, cooking, painting, spinning, quilting and fiber arts just to name a few.


The 300 acre campus is made up of many studios that are located along winding trails through the woods. You can take a weekend or week long class with room and board on site. This really sounds like it would be a great experience. The class catalog has over 800 listings to choose from and has opportunities for all levels of experience.

The day was overcast so I didn't get the best pictures but I though you still might like a look. The first one is just entering the festival. If you are familiar with the school you may recognize the banner. The next is the main barn that had quilted banners displayed for each year of the festival. This barn is huge and you are only seeing about 25% of it. The barn and entrance both had continuous entrainment featuring blue grass and country music and dance.


Next is the fiber studio where all of the quilting and quilting related classes are taught. Charlotte Ware Anderson teaches a class here. This building was a good size and you could tell it also had areas for fabric dyeing and surface design.

I love this next picture of one of the outside kilns. And finally the entrance to the Market Place. Over 200 juried and non juried booths were located all along the winding trails. They had an unbelievable selection of almost any kind of hand made item you could think of. Lots of demo's and great food too.






If you are in the area stop by and check it out. Here is a link to their website if you would like more info JCC School. Have any of you ever taken a class there?

Is Anybody Going to Houston?

I was wondering if anyone is going to Houston in a couple of weeks. I will be there Thursday thru Saturday. I am going with my friends Suzanne and Vickie. We share a room and really have a great time. This will be our 3ard year.

I would love to meet some of you if you will be there so please let me know.

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.