"I Descended From Women Who..."

UP DATE: This quilt is going into a show at the Lawler House Gallery in Suisun, CA on Sunday, January 30 called, "Text, Texture and the Tantalizing Egg."

In October our on-line quilt group: Quilts Around The World were to make a small quilt 8" X 11" of a Self Portrait. I had at first thought I'd do my face in a Picasso fashion, and then the more I thought about it I realized my thoughts kept going back to the ancestral women in my life from whom I descended and the realization that they were all artists of one sort or another. I decided I wanted to make a quilt that honored them and show how I became who I am today because of them.

I took some old photographs of my maternal grandmother, Ella, and my paternal grandmother (seated) Golda and my aunts (dad's sisters in this photo:Rae, Ester, Molly, Freda); my mother Estelle and her sisters, Jane and Miriam, all of whom are wearing clothing they made themselves;

and finallymy self and my grand daughter. And note that in this photo my grand daughter is drawing a picture. She at age six also takes an after school class called Textile and Fashion Design where she is learning to sew.

You can click on the photos to enlarge them if you like. I transferred the photos to white silk and sewed them to a piece of white linen. I added some bits of lace and white buttons and beads. And then in black thread I outlined the photos as a way of quilting them. I then wrote in free motion style around the border of the quilt these words:

"I am descended from women who sewed and knit, drew painted photographed.

I pass on the you in me to my grand children with love.

Thank you grandmothers, mother and aunts."

I showed it to my six year old grand daughter and explained it to her, introducing her to her great great great grandmothers, great great great aunts, great great aunts and great great grandmother. I explained the art they all did. Sharing how I felt we do what we do today because of them. And she got it!

That is my self portrait!

Happy New Years Eve

Gingersnap Creations GC81: Chestnut Theme Challenge - Snowpeople


Handmade card "let it snow"

Happy New Year Everyone!

Well, here it is the last day of 2010 and what I wish for everyone most of all is Good Health in 2011. 



I feel like I have been sick with one thing or another since October!  I had the remains of a head cold when I left for my vacation in Florida.  During the descent my ears really popped and I had an awful earache and ended up visiting a clinic for that and an eye infection.  Nevertheless I had a very restful vacation and had wonderful weather.  Since returning home I've have one cold after another and a never-ending hacking cough that needed antibiotics and I still have unpopped ears!  I want to wake up tomorrow and feel my old well self!  Good health is really the wish to make, and I wish it for all of us!



There have been no RR's to work on for a couple of weeks, so I've been busy with a quilt that I promised to do for my Seniors Club.  It's the star quilt that I helped with last year, at St. Margaret's in the Pines.  It's paper pieced, and I was able to print off the sheets from a web site. 

Printed paper pattern pinned to two pieces of fabric with their right sides together.  Sew along dotted lines, cut on solid lines.

After sewing and cutting you have triangles.  When the paper is removed and the fabric opened up you have a a neat square of two different fabrics.

These are the combinations I am using:  on the left two mediums, in the middle two lights, and on the right a dark with a light.

Here the squares a pinned to a scrap piece of fabric.  The four middle squares are medium tones, the corners are light tones, and the other eight are a dark with a light.  This gives the star pattern.

Here are nine blocks completed.  Each block has 32 different fabrics and finished are 8" x 8".  The background here is my carpet.  I'm not sure just what colour the ladies at our Seniors group will choose.

Happy New Year

I played around today with Zentangling and came up with this new year's message. I tried some background tangles in a light gray brush marker. Pretty much don't like tangling with brush markers...I figured out. Oh well!

This tangle also fits the second weekly challenge here. Do check out the other participants in this challenge if you get the time. I'm so in awe of the creativity that some of these Zentanglers have.

Wishing you all a happy new year. See you next year!

Oh and P.S. Are you interested in doing some journal quilting this new year? Well Vicki is and it looks like others are too. Check it out here.

PINK PINK PINK PDCC62

Happy New Years Eve. Be safe and have fun!!!

Here is my card I made for this PDCC challenge. Free Image from Dezinworld.

Trip Round the World - version 4

One of my favorite quilt patterns is the "Trip Round the World" pattern. I am making one for my Mom as a raffle quilt for her church. Just for fun, I put together the top and bottom. All I need to do now is pin and quilt the 3 layers together. To pin the layers of the quilt together I need to iron the clean washing - or I can just move it. The washing is on the table that I use to pin quilts together........

The first photo is of the quilt top and the 2nd photo is of the backing.

A Gypsy Angel Giveaway

In celebration of being selected for the Design Team of
Do You Stack Up Challenge Blog.
-- I am offering a giveaway.
The giveaway includes a stamp art frame box, 4 x 6 scrapbook, butterfly wooden rubber stamp and a digital stamp from Stretch N Bubbles.
To enter the giveaway, comment here and sign up to follow my blog and to follow the Do You Stack Up Challenge Blog.

Dont forget to come by and see and/or enter the FIRST Challenge at
Do You Stack Up Challenge Blog on January 6th, 2011.

The drawing for my giveaway will be January 7th, 2011.


*For an extra entry, please put my blog candy aka giveaway button on your blog :)
(free US shipping)

Stop Bullying Now!

UPDATE: I picked this quilt up from the Lawler House Art Gallery show on Jan. 30, 2011. I was told that many, many people stood and read the quilt. This was a very good feeling to hear.

Second Update: Early May 4-8 2011 Stop Bullying Now hung at the Dixon May Fair and received 15 viewer votes!

Third Update: May 21-July 2 2011, "Stop Bullying Now" was accepted into the 34th Juried art show at the Vacaville Art League art gallery. It hangs there under a spot light very proudly for all to see!

****

I made this art quilt with a message in October of this year. I dedicated it to Tyler Clement and other teens who took their own lives as a result of being bullied. It is currently hanging in a show in Suisun, CA at the Lawler House. The show is called "Quilts of a Different Matter".
I made a rather traditional easy quilt with one piece of fabric and a border and edged it for the background. I free motion sewed across the background with a spiral design of my own invention.
And then I wrote on pieces of white muslin free motion style again the words/messages and sewed them to the background.

I added some photos found on line from news stories about the kids who had succumbed to bullying and the candle light vigil held in their honor.

I added some beads for further embellishment.

I hoped my message would be clear.


It will hang at the Lawler House until the end of Janurary and then I may send it on to another show in Gualala, CA called Confrontational Art in Febuary.

As it turned out the timing was off so it does not go to Gualala after all.

28 More followers

Please take a look at
Do You Stack Up Challenge Blog

Only 28 more followers needed and more blog candy will be up for grabs.

Take a look !

Color Therapy Thursday--Keeping it real

I have been enjoying everyone's end-of-the-year review, seeing the quilts and other sewn items that people have made.

Here's the thing for me. 2010 was a completely low-output year for me. My friend, Sue, was sick most of 2009 and then passed away at the end of March 2010, and this year, to put it mildly but honestly, was pretty sucky for me.

I started a lot of projects:

I thought about starting many more.

In reality, I completed...um...hardly any.

There was this quilt, which was donated to a charity auction:

These two, wedding gifts:

This one for a modern quilt exchange:

And a few bee swap blocks:

But the rest of the year, I really only had the creative energy to complete some of these:

And sometimes even that really taxed my creative energy.

Have you ever had one of those years? Or even a month? It didn't come as a complete surprise to me that Mark and I seemingly sleep-walked through much of 2010. We did the same thing in 2005. I know that quilting can be a wonderful antidote to hard times. And it has been the same way for me at times. Just not in 2010. At first I kind of beat myself up for it. You know. "Snap yourself out of it. Get busy and do something. You'll feel better." This year it just didn't work.

So instead, I read countless blogs, looked at, and was inspired by, what everyone else was doing. Did I feel, dare I say it, jealous of what everyone else seems able to accomplish. I did.

I also did a lot of what I called "grief therapy" fabric purchasing. A lot.
To combat that, I gave away/donated to church quilting group/sold a lot of fabric. And tried to simplify my life in other ways. Cleared out closets. Cleaned out drawers.

By December, I literally felt myself coming out of the year's fog. Our Christmas was more focused on spending time together and making memories, something you can't begin to put a price tag on.

My downer year of 2010 has not ended on a downer note. I feel light, and light-hearted. I have looked at relationships. One in particular had suffered as a result of this year. But that too has been repaired and restored.

Yesterday I read these two posts back to back. Oh, the conflict. The joys of simplifying one's life? Yes, please. The price of fabric going up? Seriously? And I may or may not have hit the "purchase" button once or twice. But with a little more control this time. I looked around my sewing room (and office...and spare bedroom). I have stacks of really gorgeous fabric that have been waiting for me to emerge.

I hear it calling me.

And finally....finally...I am ready to answer the call.

Thank you to all my blogging friends who have sustained, inspired and encouraged me throughout 2010.

Happy Creative New Year to you all.

Growin' Flowers Pattern is Finished

It's officially done. I'm very happy about that. It seems like it took forever.

There are two ways to purchase the pattern if you are interested. It is listed in the shop, here, on the 3 Creative Studios web site and in my Etsy shop.

Vicki Welsh will also be selling the pattern in her etsy shop, but she is going to sell it in kit form, along with some of her luscious gradient fabric, which is featured in each of the four quilts I made. See Vicki's Etsy shop here.

My local quilt shop, Sewing Machines Plus, Mandan, ND; will also be carrying the pattern. I just need to get there to deliver the patterns. So hopefully I can do that soon...like within the next day or three. We are in the midst of another snow storm here, so I'm not sure when exactly I'll be able to venture out.

So.....on to some new things! Charge!

Bless Your Nest

Linking to Gingersnaps Creations Challenge #82

More Fabric Landscapes - A trade

A very good friend of mine lives in Germany, and I would love Ann Johnston's book " Color by Accident: Low-Water Immersion Dyeing" so..... As Amazon won't post books to South Africa, I have to make another plan.....I'll leave you to guess the trade......meanwhile a photo of my latest Shweshwe landscape

Wordless Wednesday--Sunkissed edition

My Ring arrived on Christmas Eve

I was excited when CSN asked me to do a review.
I thought about a new tv stand however I didn't even realize CSN has jewelry, Well, CSN does have jewelry!!! I ordered a ring from CSN
I love it. The ring is Skyline Silver Sterling Silver Oval Blue Opal with CZ Accents.

It might resemble this ring, does anyone recognize this ring?
Hope everyone has a very Happy New Year!!!!

Crocheted Doll Blanket

Just a little crocheted doll blanket/afghan.
Happy Tuesday!!!!

New Books

I got some new books for Christmas. These are all really fun books, but I have to say that my favorite of them all is Totally Tangled.  The inspiration and design ideas in these books is phenomenal. Do you suppose Santa saw my recent craze with Zentangles?

And of course, I just had to show you my latest tangle.

In quilty news, I've been working on my eggplant-themed 12x12 quilt in recent days. I'm almost done with it. I have to say though that it didn't turn out quite how I envisioned it and I'm thinking about trying another one. We'll see. Anyway, I can't show photos of it until the big reveal on the Twelve by Twelve blog on January 12.

I've also been working on my Growin' Flowers pattern and I'm almost done. YAY! I had hoped to have it ready to add to my shop by the first of the year and it looks like I will meet that goal.

The Forest and the Trees

You know that saying, "you can't see the forest for the trees"? At Fresno-Yosemite International Airport (yes, FYI, but our baggage tags still say FAT from its former name, Fresno Air Terminal, which has to be one of the worst airport codes ever...), we have both the forest and the trees. Awhile ago, they decided to install a Disney-quality forest of Giant Redwoods in the lobby area. Not really sure why. I think to disguise some really big support pillars. The real trees are just about an hour away and are spectacular. These trees are pretty awesome as well. And during the holidays this year, there are also twelve decorated Christmas trees.

 (No, I didn't forget to rotate the picture. This is the South Pole tree and it really is attached to the ceiling.)

And EEEEK!! Look what showed up in my mailbox yesterday! Two charm packs would have been ideal, but a design decision has been made and one charm pack will be just fine!

Hope you're all still enjoying the holiday season.