Under the sea

In between other things I've been working on a block for my friend from Florida. This is the second Under the Sea block and I wanted to make it a bit different than the first one. I had a few requests from him such as a shark, a tiki hut and a treasure chest which I had fun doing. I had a great piece of tropical fabric which went in perfectly. So now it's finished and here it is!

You can see the first Under the Sea block by clicking on "under the sea" in the labels on the right.

Wall hanging

The last few 100 details have been added to the wall hanging. It's time to add some more fabric which will be in a lighter maroon/red. I was hoping that clicking this photo would enlarge it, but this time it didn't work.


This is a really pretty stitch. The thread is a pink varegated with pink pearly beads a little larger than seed beads.

Katrina

This is the quilt that I made a couple of days after Hurricane Katrina first slammed into New Orleans. I had so much confusion and emotion going through me as I helplessly watched the horrific images on the television. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and how our government wasn't responding.


The emotions swirled inside of me so strongly that I needed a safe way to express them. I created this quilt out of various fabrics and cut up feedsacks to reflect the chaos that I was seeing and feeling.


Emotion still raged through me once I was finished and so on the back of the quilt I took a pen to fabric and furiously wrote all of my thoughts, feelings, despair and prayers.


And now it is the 3rd year anniversary, and our government still has not adequately responded. I try very hard not to get political on this blog, but please, let us elect a new administration that will actually work for the people, not against them. This madness has got to end.

My heart goes out to the residents of New Orleans, I pray that Hurricane Gustav spares them, and I give heartfelt thanks to every private citizen who has gone and visited New Orleans to help try and rebuild it, (such as my friend Ann and her husband, who went this past May for their 2nd time with Habitat for Humanity to help build. You can read a bit about their experience here.) To those of you who have volunteered, donated money, said a prayer or lent a helping hand in any other way, thank you for keeping the faith alive, as you all represent the true spirit of America.

Judy's 1 hour a day Quilt

It's been a busy couple weeks and next week will be too! I am getting far behind on my dear baby Jane will I ever catch up with the group. I did a count of flimsies that I have it's 22 a big number. I am going to see how many weeks in a row I can finish quilting one. Not put on or finish the binding just get it quilted. So week one's Wednesday quilting finish is this quilt. It was one of Judy's I hour quilts.

Judy's 1 hour a day Quilt

It's been a busy couple weeks and next week will be too! I am getting far behind on my dear baby Jane will I ever catch up with the group. I did a count of flimsies that I have it's 22 a big number. I am going to see how many weeks in a row I can finish quilting one. Not put on or finish the binding just get it quilted. So week one's Wednesday quilting finish is this quilt. It was one of Judy's I hour quilts.

Round Robin Favourite Things

On CQEmbellishers I'm taking part in my first RR working on someone else's block! I found it a bit intimidating to start, because it wasn't my block, but I did finally get going! The block belongs to Cathy and it's quite a large block, so I had lots of scope. I loved the fabric, silks, velvet, brocade, and colours she chose, purples, royal blues, pink, deep green, some Asian brocade, black and silver grey. So I tried to keep to those tones. Here's the whole block and some closeups of what I did. It came from Cathy with the circle crochet applique already on.

Eames Lounge Chair Debut on NBC

Video of Charles and Ray Eames discussing their chair designs with Arleen Francis on NBC in 1956.
Towards the end of this clip their is a very cool filmstrip promoting the Eames' latest chair of the time.

Journal Spread

Here's the next spread in my art journal.

Chicken Condo

I thought I would share with you one of my favorite sites. A cool green trailer that sits in a large open field. It's a retro, luxury chicken coop condo for these free range hens!


It's so cool even the bulls want to hang out by it!

Puts a smile on my face every time I pass by!

Visitors

I have this little gadget on the right hand side of my blog that shows dots where visitors have come from. It's really interesting to enlarge this and see exactly the cities, towns and villages that surf here, have a look and are gone again. I wish some of these folks would leave a message! In England I used to live in Margate, Kent, (a town on the east coast, south of London), and last week I noticed I had a dot on Margate! If you visit again, Margate, please say hello!

Sunday Stuff

Here are a couple of things I worked on this weekend. First up is a piece of silk that I drew a design onto with a resist. Then I colored it in and now have a piece that I think I will make into a whole cloth quilt.....maybe....I dunno.....!


And here are a couple more skeins of yarn I spinned, spunned, spanned....oh you know what I mean. I bought the wool for these yarns from this etsy shop: Altered Visions.


I'm having a 20% off sale in my etsy shop starting today through September 6. If you've had your eye on anything there, now would be the perfect time to get it. Thanks for looking! You can get to my shop here.

Grand Daughter's Art Quilted by Grandma Lynn

My grand daughter, aged "3 & 3 quarters" she said, drew a stack of pictures for me. I selected two to turn into art quilts (so far). The castle and the two girls who are "me and mommy" she told me.


Click on photos to see them enlarged:
Here is my design board with lots of GD's art surrounding the two pictures made into art quilt wall hangings. Or they could be put together in a big cloth book as well.
Hanging sleeves will be added to the backs and stories on cloth if I can get GD to tell them to me first.



First I copied her pictures on my printer and then sewed over GDs lines onto off-white muslin fabric. I then layered around this in other fabric: The castle has a sky in an eyelet blue with lots of silver sequins sewn into it that sparkle in the light like stars in the sky. The water or moat, surrounding the castle, is a water-like green/blue batik. Fabric I picked up in MN on a recent trip and used in my Night Owl quilt was perfect wood-like colors for the planks leading to the castle door and for a border around it. Then a border in red followed by the backing fabric in a tiny floral design comes forward forming the outer border or frame. It is then top stitched free motion style by machine.





The two girls picture was done similarly, and framed in yellow with gold glittery threads swirling around and around in that background color as well as in the blond girls hair adding sparkle. A turquoise fairy printed fabric follows that includes a grandma at her sewing machine quilting, then a border in red that has hearts top sewn onto it, followed by the backing fabric again brought forward to frame it. I used Paint Stiks to color both pictures, letting this paint dry for five days before ironing it into place.

Hearts and Flowers

Crazy Quilting for Newbies is a lovely friendly site which encourages new crazy quilters without being too regimented about fabrics or embellishments. The ladies there are full of encouragement and kindness. Just recently they began a "Hearts and Flowers Shower" for members who celebrated a momentous occasion, either happy or sad. Any member who wishes can send a partially done 8" CQ square on the hearts and flowers theme.

So far I have done two, and I could hardly stop myself from finishing each of them!

More hospital time

Well, all I can say is I ended up again in the hospital, with an infection this time, but I sat in my bed with a good assortment of threads and beads happily sewing away as the IV pumped antibiotics!

But now I'm home again and working on the 100 details and my RR of favourite things for CQ4N. I have Cathy's block to work on. It's big, so I have a few seams to do.

Here are Details 42a, 42b, both look much nicer in reality.

Detail 42a

Detail 42b

I think I can say that I have finally mastered bullions. As a fill in on the wall hanging I am doing, I made a bullion flower. I used #5 perle thread:

Art Quilts

I showed you a couple of posts ago all the wonderful goodies that Vicki sent me. Here is one part of what I sent her. The other part I blogged about here.

The next quilt is one I made for the 2008 Grab Bag Challenge. I received a bag full of fabrics and fibers from an unknown person and then proceeded to make a quilt. The size we were supposed to make the quilt was 20" x 20". We had to use 1/3 or more of the bag contents and could add anything from our own stash. Elizabeth was the recipient of the quilt I made.


I also received a quilt in this challenge. It was made by Janet Gaewsky, who I believe does not have a blog. Janet, if you are reading, correct me if I'm wrong, please.

Pssst.....Hey You!

Guess what is going to be available for your viewing/crafting pleasure soon?

THIS!!

Issue 5 of Fibre&Stitch
Coming out on August 27
See what's in this issue here

Mid Century Utilitarian

Introducing the 2nd piece in my newest line of functional art quilts. (Wow, 2 new pieces in 10 days... the devil must be ice skating!) Just like the one previously posted here, this too was inspired by mid-century design and also by those beautiful, faded utilitarian quilts, often made in the past by farm woman, from used pieces of wool and dyed indigo cloth. (Although mine is 100% cotton).


I tried to emulate the look and feel by choice of color, and simple construction. I also washed this piece as a final step in its construction to give it that puckered, aged and worn look. And just like my first quilt in this series, this one also functions both as a decorative piece of art which can be hung on the wall, and as a functional object that can be used. Available now in my Silly BooDilly Shop.

And one more "Thank You" to everyone who left comments on my last two posts, and/or sent me emails. I treasure each and every one of your responses. It is nice to know that there is so much thoughtfulness, kindness, support, love and understanding out there!

Beware - Long Post

This morning I broke in a new art journal. Well actually it's not a new book, I found an old, hard-covered music book at the thrift store and thought it would be perfect. Here's the view of my desk upon finishing up the first page spread.

And here's the finished journal spread. I have found that I really enjoy looking at art journals that other artists create so I thought I'd share mine today. I'm not really good about doing this on a regular basis....but I'd like to get better. I'm thinking I should try to do one page spread a week, and if I feel like it, then do more than one. After all, it is good for my artistic soul....right? The words I used on the right-hand page were from a song that I had playing in the background. They just happened to stick in my head.

Remember my assistant, Abby? Well she sure has got a love affair going on with my wool. Yesterday, I had all my wool rovings out because I was playing with my needle-felting foot on my sewing machine. I glanced over and found this:

Here are some more yarns I've spun in the last couple of days.

And all of the following photos are items I received in a big yellow package from Vicki. Vicki and I did an art swap and here are the goodies I got. The first two photos are some fabric squares with kitties. I love, love, love, them. I'm thinking of wallhangings, or pillows, or tote bag, or a laptop bag (which I've been wanting to make for a while).

Vicki also dyes fabrics. And she sent this assortment of lovely colors and textures. I have a feeling I may hoard these for a while before cutting into them.

And the last three photos are three tie dye shirts she created for me. Vicki is the tie dye queen/guru/freak! She has gotten so creative with her designs. I am totally thrilled with these shirts and I can't wait to wear them.

Also, in the package from Vicki (that I forgot to photograph), was some bars of her handmade soaps. I'm looking forward to using those. Thank you so very much Vicki for all these wonderful pieces of art.