I'm keepin him!

What a splendid Valentines Day... It doesn't get much better than this. Spent the day with the Coachella Valley Quilt Guild (FUN people) in WARM and beautiful Palm Desert near Palm Springs. Then home to a cozy evening with hubby Ray. Gorgeous white roses ( I love white roses) and my favorite movie of all time..."Out of Africa" I blubbered!

Sooooooo much snowwwwwww!

EEK! You are looking at my mountain home... Can you see my house? Me neither! I haven't been up the mountain for a couple days and the snow yesterday was down to 3000'. Doesn't look much like Southern California, huh? So I took a deep breath and went up but had to park at the bottom of the canyon entrance, and HIKE in! Not cool! 'Saw the chilled tree man face on the hike back down carrying my laptop and projector needed for my upcoming visit to the Coachella Valley Guild. I carried no extra clothes down.... only stuff needed to visit a quilt guild. :-)

What a class act!

'Taught a great group of people yesterday. Pouring rain did not dampen the spirits of all who joined me at Material Possessions in Lake Forest, Ca. Several traveled significant distances in bad weather and through business day traffic. I routinely teach here (www.quiltessentials.com) Who wouldn't want to?... Look at this great classroom.

Drawing For Those That Don't Draw

I just finished posting a detailed instruction on http://www.pattsretreats.blogspot.com ( there's a link button on the top left of this page) on how to create drawings from your own photographs. If you go to that link, the drawing instruction post follows the detail post on my May 09 Retreat.. Just scroll down.

Okay.. ready for another closeup!

Burkinabe Mother is in my view one of the most beautiful portraits ever done. It evokes the exquisite feeling of a protective mother balancing work and family... and my gosh... it is all thread. These are my photos of the piece but you can see/purchase a professional print of this piece. Go to hollisart.com It is obvious Hollis really knows her stuff.

Quilting Human Beings

Where is that training booklet on how to quilt faces? Oh yeah.... I don't think there is one....(lemme know if you know otherwise). I've seen students get downright angry at famous quilters that weren't able to give an exact formula for doing this. I admit I even (some time back when I had a corporate job with good pay) bought one of Hollis Chatelains all thread portraits to study. Bottom line, it requires thought! The best guidance I've ever received came from Hollis herself. In considering the quilt line atop a face, consider how an ant might crawl up and over / around curves on the body. Sounds simplistic... but it's a good guideline for sure. As a great example of it done right, look at these pics I took at Road To Ca. of Pam Hollands Gothic portrait. A click on the face images will give you a great closeup. Incredible!

Victorian Ladies

This is my take on how to handle a redwork pattern. This lady is one of twelve drawings from Nansneedlework.com. Being a painter at heart makes it hard to follow a pattern verbatim, so in this case, it didn't seem necessary. This project block employs ink painting, thread embroidery, needleturn applique and a bit of surface embellishment. This is just one of the 12 "Victorian Ladies" being completed by my Wanabe Quilters friendship group. They are fun so I have done 2, and am on my third. The gray threads in the face are part of the project owners plan. Kinda wish I had chosen this shared work project as I really like these ladies. One of the things the pattern didn't call for was a white pupil highlite. Without that, all the ladies appeared saddened. Click on images for closeup view.