Wanna Play????

We have 5 months til entries are due for The Route 66 Traveling Exhibition honoring points along the "Mother Road" in all 8 states. Everything you need to know is on the link shown on the photo. Quilts need be only 24" x 30" portrait or landscape orientation. We'd love to have 66 quilts!!!!

Talk it up with your friends too... We hope you want to get in on the fun!!!!
Click here to go to route66quilts.blogspot.com

Smart Car Humor

It's always fun to come across a cleverly painted smart car. They are all pretty cute anyway, though this one is especially clever/cute.

My walking friends and I were studying the great paint job when we noted an unusual handle and text on the small smart cars small front bumper.

Ya gotta get a chuckle from that!!!

Venitian Managerie Outstanding Art Quilt Road To Ca

This full size quilt piece is nothing less than spectacular. Quilt Artist Melissa Sobotka of Texas took a trip to Italy and walking along one evening snapped a photo of a shop window in Venice. She interpreted masks etc in fused batiks. This is her representation of that window. DRAMATIC is the word!!!! Wow!!!!

Cruisin' the British Isles in August

This sounded fun to me so I had to say yes to this opportunity. I have 2 new and fun classes I will offer aboard ship on at sea days ( all classes are included in cruise).

Click Here to go to http:www.worldofquiltstravel.com

Some Road2Ca Faculty Quilts

I had so little time to really look at and enjoy the Road To California Show (www.road2ca.com) so I've left out some great quilts I know....
First up a faculty quilt belonging to Marilyn Badger (a longarm hero)...Marilyn has been been doing some quilted pieces that she thereafter paints.

Plenty of attendees spent time studying the exceptional thread work of Nancy Prince.

The closeup of a quilt block below is from Pam Clarke's faculty piece. Pam is a no nonsense creative longarm quilter. Her quilting motifs are all free motion, easily adaptable designs. She's terrific. What I most noteably loved in this piece was her subtle pieced background (not the more normal neutral 4 patch ).

In case it interests you, Road sells a CD with every quilt juried in ( almost 300 ). Click Here to go to their web site.

Best Use Of Raw Edge Ever

This rugged sign on a decaying old motel was perfectly expressed using very rough, sometimes almost tangled edge raw edge applique. I needn't say more than almost everyone that went to the show remarked at how spectacular this exhibition piece is. Poor english.... great quilt!!!!

Gotta Love "Jack"

Being a painter, I KNOW how challenging it is to get value spot on in a monochromatic piece. It certainly was achieved here.

Favs from Road

I am one tired puppy... working and teaching from last Monday thru Sunday night. I must be getting old (of course I actually know that is already true).

First, my friend Molly from Central California won Best of Show... well Molly and her collaborator Cyndy. Indeed, it is a beautiful quilt.

I'll have more to post later, but had to show the $3000. prize winner now.

Tired and Happy

Judging is complete at Road To California Quilt Show in Ontario Ca. The preview is tonight. My buddy Ben ( my mountain gorilla ) has won Best Painted Surface and "My Kind Of Dragon ( the australian sea dragon) took 2nd place. I am on my way to (can you believe it) get to take a class myself... I don't often get to do that but have 2 days before my series of teaching classes begin. Hope I see some of you there. There are some incredible quilts to be seen.

Click Here To go to Road2Ca.com site for more info about the show which runs through Sunday.

I am soooo amazed!

I spent today looking at about 175 quilts in judging competition at Road To California. I have no pictures to show (or I'd be killed) as the judging has another full day. Every quilt that has been juried in will be available on a show CD.. all beautifully photographed I might add. Other large shows might have the 'winners only' on CD... but I tell ya.... there are soooooo many visual winners here and the competition is mighty stiff. One thing I can say that I can comment on is that I'm thrilled to see sooooo many 1st time entrants into Road. That tells me that quilter confidence is building. There just aren't usually a bunch of 1st time entrants... and there are so many that have been juried in this year! YEAH! I give kudos to Carolyn Reese who owns Road. She is doing great things. Pics maybe later AFTER all judging is done. Click Here to go to the www.Road2ca.com sight.

Starting Down THE ROAD!!!

Well, this will be quite a week. Today the judging begins at "Road To California" Quilt and Vendor Show. Two Days of judging, 1 day to hang quilts, and the show opens wednesday evening. Classes start today and run through Sunday. ( I'm teaching there this year. ) Gratefully, my classes are full, and I'm excited. If you're in So. Calif, near the city of Ontario, it's definitely a show worth seeing. Click Here to go to the Road2Ca.com site.

Overlapping Work With Pleasure

Anyone that has ever taught similar classes to mine knows how much prep time there is. I won't bore you, but will say getting ready for that interferes with my fun projects in progress. I have at least added some color to the central area around the sun and the moon faces.

You may also note I added some shadowing in the swirling sky. I think it adds some dimension.
Now I'm moving to the outer edges of the sun rays. I used a Fabrico fabric marker to draw in the dark areas between rays.

Now to add some further movement and dimension through simple shadowing. This transparent rusty shadowing adds a good bit of solar warmth.

Getting Close To A Finish!!!

Blocking Background Colors

'Am blocking in Sun Rays at the outer corners and a graphic swirling night sky surrounding faces.

This swirling sky was great fun.

Tomorrow, I'll be adding definition to the outer rays and some complimentary colors to current elements.

Here We Go Anew!!

I just made a list of all the teaching related things I MUST accomplish by this time next weekend. EEK! Too many things so I'll be brief here. I have always loved CBS Sunday Morning show complete with the varied/ interesting SUN images... so I'm starting one of my own but including the infamous moon face as well. I'm just working with my line drawing underneath and have no reference photos. I'm just planning to play with color. I begin by blocking in basic features/colors of the moon and sun face. I chose to make the sun female even though my hubby reminds me in spanish the sun is masculine (el sol) and the moon female (la luna). Artists get to do whatever they want I stated, besides Mack the Knife wasn't female and I "THINK" he was blue????!!!!! Mostly, I knew I wanted to give the sun lavender eyes (a la Liz Taylor) and seemed female to me.
I'll be refining detail as I go but now... it's just getting things blocked in.

(c)copyright

Note: I am a blogger who shares a lot of my work though I will copyright the finished piece making it not for copy.

A Simple Border and Almost Ready To Pass On

I felt a need to add a bit of border before I handed this off to my quilt group friends. I loved the red and white almost Baltic feel print. I have a bunch more of it that will surely go in the eventual border.

Now to pass this on for rotation amongst my quilter friends, I felt I needed to add some "Retayned" red/ red/white fabrics. One reason so many of us don't have a red and white quilt is our fear of the infamous red bleed. So, I have pre washed (in Retayne) several fabrics that will travel with my quilt top in progress. I have also included a bottle of Retayne and some dye grabber sheets if anyone decides (their option) to use any of their own fabrics. So off this goes next Friday as I learn also what everyone else is starting in rotation. It will be December this year before mine returns to me...BUT I will see its progress each month as it is passed on at our monthly meeting. SEW FUN!!!!

Ready To Wash Out

Okay... the stitching is complete and you are looking at the back side with Pellon's Wash-n-Gone still intact. This is a cold water soluble stabilizer but it dissolves even quicker (per their instructions) in a slightly warmer water..... 25-30 C or 77-86 F. I'm not kidding.. this dissolves away completely per the sample shown a couple posts back.

Th Wash-n-Gone is indeed gone, now flipped to the front side and ironed.

(c) copyright
I think Father Christmas is a pretty cool dude all in all. I'll be doing free motion redwork again sometime but would like to try it with a hearty red 12 wt. thread. The 30wt I used looks good but I did back track to get the strength of line I really wanted. I did experiment with 40 wt and was admittedly less appreciative though it looked 'okay.'

You Go Slow But IT Goes Pretty FAST

Even noting that everything stitched out is then back stitched.... one might think this takes forever. One only has to think of the time the handwork version would be and you become thrilled with the progress. The image below is one of 2 pine cone/ limb images... The reason I'm showing this is that it somewhat differs from the comparable un stitched image in the next photo. I reversed this top photo so it can more easily be compared to the next pic.

The original drawing was for handwork with many more starts and stops. Where I could, I modified the stitch pattern to be continuos line. Cleaner..Faster. Sounds good to me.

Some one with perfect eyesight might well finish this is a day's sitting. For me, when I have my face in it so close, my eyes tire so I did this bits and pieces across a couple days. This baby will be completely stitched out by tomorrow.

Go Red!!!

Now to start... I found for me, it was easier to get good drawing coverage if I used a 30 wt thread. Here I am using Sulky's 30 wt. One thing I was pretty certain of was that I would NOT start any stitch pattern at the END or BEGINNING of a line, but rather in the middle. This seams like it would minimize loosened thread end opportunities. So that's what I'm doing here. I will pop up the bobbin thread ( monofilament which you wouldn't see)

My intent is to stitch up one line and then back track for good solid lines. I normally would quickly eliminate the loose top and popped up thread but left it here for perspective on where we began.

Working so close up here... thread looks more loopy than in real life but even slight loops disappear when ironed.

When You Haven't Time For Handwork

I LOVE REDWORK.... and as importantly the relaxation that comes with it!..BUT It is the first of the year and in 8 days (in addition to all the other things on my plate) I need to have a piece of redwork finished and ready for the launch of a friendship group roundabout. Each year at this time each member of my "Wanabe Quilters" friendship group begins a new rotational project of their choosing. Our individual projects rotate month by month through the group returning to us the end of the year. This year, I choose to do a roundabout where each month, a member will 'add on' to whatever is already there. That said... I needed to start with something so I am taking the lead of friend Hilary Field who did something like this some years back. Every month, I drooled over the progress of her roundabout so I'm on a quest.

To start, I first enlarged/modified a pattern I bought some time back. I traced the enlargement on my white fabric.

But before I tackle this free motion, I know I need a stabilizer behind it and I wanted to try out a couple first. This one is called dissolve (not Dissolve by Superior... it's a great one but a different type though I know would work) This one is by Precision Custom Coatings out of Totowa, N.J....a 100% poly non-woven tear away that 'dissolves' over time' This is a thicker stabilizer making it fairly simple to stitch atop. It is near opaque. I stitched a sampled area and then put it in water where everything definitely went limp and shredded like paper pulp. Thats all good! You are seeing the fabric pressed dry here.

I also experimented with Pellons Wash-n-Gone a non woven water soluble stabilizer... This one is quite sheer, and once put in water, really did dissolve 100%...and quickly. If not rinsed well, it leaves a light starch-like finish which assuredly will wash out next time it gets wet. I've held the resulting Pellon sample up to the light so you can see. there is NO stabilizer shadow coming through because there is NOTHING left of it on the back side.

The previous sample with Precisions 'dissolve' also appears infront of the light so you can see some small areas where 'dissolve' is still there.... but otherwise both products resulted in a soft fabric.. no stiffies!!!

My take... as long as I use a pure white batting behind the finished redwork... either of these will work.

Hanging One On!!!!

Well... not really! Yesterday I spent in the mountains watching the Rose Parade (beautiful as always), and working on future contracts, etc. I only have 2 things left to do on my Fox...
add a sleeve, and a label so here goes with the sleeve.
My sleeve originates from a piece of fabric cut the width of the quilt and 9" wide.
1.I begin by ironing the piece flat then doubling the outer 'side' edges and machine stitching them down.
2. Next, I find the lengthwise horizontal center and wrong sides together iron the lengthwise folded edges where the raw edges have met at the center horizontal line.
3. Still wrong sides together, sew a 1/4" seam along the 2 lengthwise raw edges that met at the horizontal center.
4. Flip the tube over to where the raw edge seam faces the finished back of the quilt.
5. Noticing that the exposed side of the semi flat'tube' is larger than the back side is good. We want to retain the ironed folded edges from step 2 as our hand stitched lines. Pin the sleeve in place 1/2 inch from the top edge, and hand stitch top, bottom edge sides, and lower folded edge.

A 102 year old wish for 2012

So..yesterdays post had Father Time poised to usher in the new year. Today... the other postcard I loved. Postmarked January 1, 1909, a postcard sent to a family member visiting Denver, Colo. Things were indeed more simple then. Addressed to name, YWCA, Denver.... and she got it.
Happy New Year All.

I couldn't resist posting the correspondence part as it's beautifully nostalgic. One more penny to send!