RAFA March meeting

One of the highlights of this month's RAFA meeting was a chance to purchase some of the treasures that Priscilla brought back from her most recent trip to Bali, Thailand, and Laos.







This is the current raffle quilt from the Heart and Hand Quilt Club from Farmington. Members made houses and other buildings which were assembled into a "village" for this quilt.






This is Diane Enerson's quilt that started out small, but grew!












And this is Caris Burton and Liz Scott with a quilt that Liz made.

Sewing Day

Priscilla and Beth were at the studio for a sewing day.

Priscilla worked on her quilt for the Almighty Dollar challenge. She has incorporated a wonderful collection of images of US and foreign currency.









This is Beth's Fractured Flag that she's doing for the challenge.





Beth also showed us her Lillies quilt that she had finished quilting and was getting ready for the binding.













Beth brought some samples of the snow dyeing that she has been doing.

The Almighty Dollar

"Art Quilts Inspired by the Dollar Bill" is the current challenge organized by Pat Pauly and will be on display March 24 - April 30 at the Lower Link Gallery of the Rochester Central Library, 115 South Avenue, Rochester, NY.

The opening reception is April 15, 5 - 8 pm.

This quilt was made by Pat Pauly and is more than 5 feet high.







This is the start of my quilt, inspired by the triangle in one of the seals on the back of the dollar bill.










Pat Berardi has her quilt completed, and she also chose to work on the triangle.















Nancy Hicks, who likes to work on faces, did a portrait of George Washington.

Bendable Light and WHG

My longarm machine is an HQ16, which has lights in its head. I have it set up in the basement with extra lights in the ceiling overhead.

The overall light for sewing isn't too bad.










But now I have a Bendable Light attached to the head which makes it even easier to see the sewing area. It's also great for focusing light on the needle for threading.

I highly recommend it! I ordered an extra mounting bracket for it, which means I can move the light back and forth to my Janome sewing machine.










I recently finished getting this lap quilt ready to donate to the Women Helping Girls organization for their auction. This year's auction will be held March 28 from 1:00 to 3:15 at Carestream Health on Verona Street in downtown Rochester.

Best Use of Color!

First, thanks go to Carol Taylor for letting me know about my ribbon at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton, VA, this weekend.

The quilt on the left is my "Doormats 1" and the one on the right is my "Broken Squares," which won the Best Use of Color award in the Innovative Quilt category.




SAQA's "Fibrations" traveling exhibition is also on display at the show and includes my "Jet Trails" quilt on the right. Fibrations will go on to the Quilt Fest of New Jersey and then the Denver National Quilt Festival.

Winter Storm 2010

Marcia cleans the area in front of our postal delivery area. Despite the heavy snow, both our daily paper and mail were eventually delivered.


The horse pasture fence and adjacent pine tree
were covered. We were spared the high wind gusts which piled up the snow in nearby areas.












The front walk was well covered. We had about 18 inches on level ground after having been spared large storms earlier this winter which targeted coastal areas to the south of our location. It was our turn!








Our neighbor plows our driveway in exchange for storage space in one of our barns. He made several passes in the last 24 hours. The trees in the background are about 12 feet high.

Sewing Day

The middle of winter limits outdoor activity and encourages our artist friends to concentrate on work days at the studio.

Here, Nancy Hicks assembles more pieces for her work on the display wall. She won a basket of Kaffe Fasset fabrics at QBL last summer and is using it to create a bargello quilt for her bed.












Pat Pauly has two daughters away at college and has been very productive this winter. She is hand sewing the facing on one of the quilts she recently completed.












Pat has experience at museums where she has produced displays of exhibitions of various types. She has received a commission from a local collector to prepare a selection of his Navajo rugs for hanging. She is hand stitching reinforced strips on the backs of the rugs for the hanging system.







We think these rugs are from the American SouthWest from the early 1900's. They were made for the tourist trade by local artists and further research could probably identify location and perhaps even the weaver/artist. The natural (non-dyed) wool in this rug indicates that the rug is older, as it was probably made before dyed wool was widely available.

Shipping Quilts

Today was the day to pack up the quilts going out to two shows.

"Yellow Brick Road" was selected to be exhibited at the International Quilt Festival/Chicago in the IQA judged show, Celebrate Spring! This quilt was made from hand-dyed fabrics and is 54h X 50w.


The show is April 16 - 18, 2010.







"Sea Kelp" is also going to Chicago. It was inspired by the tall sea kelp in the Monterey Sea Acquarium.

This quilt was made from hand-dyed fabrics and is 32h X 53w.






These two quilts were selected to be exhibited at the Quilt Fest of New Jersey VI, "Tri-State Quilt Competition."

The Festival runs from March 4-7, 2010.

This quilt is "Storm Clouds at Sunrise." It was made from hand-dyed fabrics and is 34h X 66w.



"Five Squares" is also headed to New Jersey. This quilt is made from discharged, hand-dyed, and commercial cotton fabrics. It is 52h X 52w.

Quilts on the move

Two quilts are on their way to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival XXI.

This show will be at the Hampton Roads Convention Center in Hampton, VA, February 25-28, 2010.

This quilt is "Broken Squares" and is 56h X 52w. It is comprised of discharged, hand-dyed, and commercial cotton fabrics.








The 2nd quilt going to VA is this "Doormats" quilt. It was completed recently and is 49h X 67w.












This Jet Trails quilt will also be at the Mid-Atlantic show. It will be on display with the special exhibit of the SAQA Fibrations quilts.

Suki in the studio

Many of the readers of the blog indicate that they enjoy the quilting images, but really "tune in" to check on the exploits of Inspector Suki.

A recently acquired piece of hardware, a Drobo to provide automatic data backup, provides her latest warm perch.













Here she hides in her favorite basket, hoping that her partially hidden figure will allow her to spring into action on a new mission with a surprise pounce!

















Retreating to the bottom of the basket will provide even more cover. Maybe something interesting will drop into her lap.









A cardinal sits on a bush just outside of Nancy Hicks' kitchen window. Suki would love to visit the next time someone stops there and join Nancy's kitties in watching the birds from her window.

Another Jacket Day

Most of the gals from the last jacket class were back in the studio for another day of sewing and working towards finishing their jackets.
Even though Priscilla couldn't join us, everyone was working hard and kept their noses to the grindstone!







Caris has the back panel finished and embellished with hand stitching, and her front panels are ready for final stitching.











Donna finished one her front panels and has the fabrics laid out for the other.













Caren made some wonderful purple seminole strips that will be the focus for a new vest, and Caris has a strip she made but then decided not to use in her jacket. I think that means she'll have to design another jacket to make use of it.....

Sewing Day

Priscilla found this wonderful leaf print fabric that might become a focal point for a new jacket or quilt. Although she's hard to see, Suki is on Priscilla's chair and looks like she's checking out the fabrics.
















Beth brought in all the fabric strips she made from some of her old fabrics while she was away on vacation. They might end up in quilts, totes, or other projects.










Priscilla started auditioning fabrics to coordiate with the colorful cross stitched piece she's using as the focal point.



















These are the panels for a jacket Priscilla started a little while ago, that are on the agenda to be finished soon. We noted that the color palette looks a bit similar to the new pieces going up on the design wall... :-)