Suki at Work

Early summer weather allows the studio visitors to drive around to the back of the house and enter the work space without carrying machines and fabrics downstairs.

Inspector Suki goes right to the task at hand as she checks out Barb's car. There is a sunroof on top, and Suki hopes it might be open enough to allow entrance -- no such luck.





The Inspector heads down the windshield thinking maybe the driver side door is ajar -- foiled again! Barb has dogs at home and perhaps Detective Suki detects the smell of other four-legged critters.









The tray that holds the windshield wipers looks like another possible entrance point, and Inspector Suki checks the entire length of this path.










As Suki heads to check the passenger-side door, she pauses as the side mirror presents a striking portrait of herself. She is a bit vain and often ponders her reflected image in her travels!

Sewing Day

A few of us got together today for a sewing/work day.

Beth and Nancy were here to work on their current projects.






This is Beth's template for her lillies quilt. Creating the template on tissue, transferring it to freezer paper, and designating the potential colors are all very exacting and tedious tasks.








Priscilla and Barb were here too and shared the cutting table.
I worked on my motif project that's behind Barb.







Priscilla has more than one project under consideration in her corner. She was busy creating more blue and green blocks to go with her collection of orange blocks.

More Show & Tell....

Linda Bachman brought these pieces painted in a QBL class, and we discussed how she might work with them.







Jeanne Simpson made these collaged studies in her color class with David Hornung at Nancy Crow's Timberframe Barn.







And Bev showed us her new Mazda sports car with the rear doors that open from the center.










The best thing about the car, though, is the red leather interior that matches her red leather gloves!

More Show & Tell.....

Priscilla created this small beauty in a workshop at Hudson Valley that we both attended.












Priscilla found this beautiful woven fabric in India. She's headed back there for another visit later this summer, so we may see more of these pieces.




Priscilla created these fanciful bugs during a class with Jane Sassaman.














I captured Nancy Hicks twirling to show us the lovely shawl she made from a sari.

Priscilla has been busy...

Priscilla showed us lots of work she has been completing. This piece was started in a workshop for a mystery quilt.








The sashings and use of the black/white fabric in this small quilt are great.












And with the left-over fabrics, Priscilla made another quilt -- crazy-quilt style.







On the left you can see the pieces of the Koos jacket that she's been working on. And on the right is another quilt made from some of the same fabrics. Check out all the quilting she did on it.

I don't think there's much question now that Priscilla has left the wearable art arena and become an art quilter!

Five Squares

This quilt was completed recently after a slow start of working with some discharged and hand-dyed fabrics without a plan or format in mind. After adding some batik fabrics, I assembled some blocks.












I cut the blocks into triangles and reorganized them into the 5 center squares.















I wanted to see if the overall composition would be more interesting if I substituted more of the discharged fabric in the center.










But I decided to stay with the design of all 5 similar blocks. The finished piece is approximately 52" square.

It was quilted on the long-arm machine with a gold/green variegated thread in a random design of interlocking squares.

Two Juried Quilt Exhibitions

Jet Trails #4 was accepted by juror Charlotte Bird into Studio Channel Islands Art Center's "Focus on Fiber II -- Small Quilt Open" exhibition. The show is on the campus of Cal State University Channel Islands from May 16th through July 4th.


This piece is approximately 12" square.








Detail of Jet Trails #4



This recently completed quilt, Broken Squares, is 56" x 48". It features discharged and hand-dyed fabrics, along with some batik and commerical cotton fabrics.

Broken Squares was selected by juror Sandra Sider for SAQA's 2009 "Musings" exhibit to be at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, MI, this summer. The show runs from June 19th through August 30th, and some of the work will be featured on the Museum's website, www.ford.utexas.edu/museum/aboutmus.asp.






Detail of Broken Squares.

The quilting on the hand-dyed fabric was done with 12-wt variegated cotton thread.

Home from the Barn

Barb and I finished our two weeks at Nancy Crow's Barn and drove home Saturday.
These are the last of the pictures from our trip...


This is the motif Barb ended up using at the end of week 1. She used it in a wonderful small composition made with all small units.










This is our friend, Petra, captured as she was getting ready to make a presentation to the group. Petra curated the exhibition of over 50 quilts for the "Nancy Crow Works from 1988 - 2008" show at Carnegie Mellon University Center in Pittsburgh last summer.













The last composition I worked on was an assignment in going from "less" to "more". I like the colors and format in this piece and hope I can make it again with some variations.

















And this is my last attempt at getting a good picture of Harry the LabraDoodle. He watched Barb and I pack to leave for home, along with his owners pack to leave on a vacation. And I think he knew he wasn't going to get to go too --- I know it's hard to tell, but I think he looked a bit sad....

Week 2 at the Barn

This is the start of trying out sketches of my compound motif. I put the different sizes of the blocks together so I could see what type of patterns might be formed.







This is the first composition using the compound motif in process on my work space.


For the second composition, I used hand-dyed fabrics. This composition uses different sizes of the motif as well as parts of the motif.









The composition is changing and growing and hasn't been finalized yet. It'll live on my design wall at home while I decide what other changes to make to it.

More from Week 1 at the Barn

Many of the students in our class made presentations on their work. This is Anne Parker, who has been in a few other classes with me. She originates from Portland, OR, but is currently living in Vietnam. She's at the Barn for three weeks of classes this year. We loved all the different silk and linen outfits she wore each day.









Liz Anderson showed us some pieces she started last year that are now quilted and finished. The quilting was done on a long-arm machine with a multi-colored pastel thread.











This is part of our class, gathering to look at a student's work.







John created another wonderful bouquet for the start of our 2nd week of class.

Can you see the can at the bottom left of the picture? It's attached to a stick and has metal washers on strings tied to it. When twirled, it makes enough racket that both the upstairs and downstairs classes know that dinner is ready to be served!