Accepted!

I'm pretty happy because two of my quilts have been juried into Local Color: A Celebration of Fiber Art in Connecticut, which is a regional SAQA Connecticut exhibit. It was open to all SAQA members who live in Connecticut.

The quilts are pretty different in style. The first is based on two photographs I took of a forsythia bush in my backyard in the fall of 2011.  I don't think I had ever before noticed the beautiful colors of forsythia in the fall, always being distracted by the red-orange of the sugar maples.

The quilt background is a commercial batik that I over-painted with diluted transparent fabric paints I had purchased from Pro Chemical & Dye. I went over with the paint numerous times--many days--until I had all the shading and color changes done to my satisfaction.

 

I used my walking foot to quilt the entire background because I'm not very good at free-motion quilting.

 

Next, I selected certain leaves from the two photos, whited out the backgrounds, and printed on silk fabric sheets, 8 1/2 x 11,  purchased from Dharma Trading. I used a variety of silks that would reflect the light in different ways, as they did in real life. Each leaf was made into an individual little quilt that was attached to the quilt along a stem I had crocheted. Probably the biggest challenge was placing the leaves into a pleasing, artistic arrangement. I wanted them to be most like the top photo.

Here's the finished quilt:

Forsythia in the Fall

The other quilt is also reminiscent of one of my fall photographs, but much looser in interpretation.

I used pieces I had made in a class with Karen Eckmeier, pieces that I didn't like, although I liked the process. It was just that I had picked colors I didn't like. I cut these up into squares, put them together with other squares, and came up with the stream in the woods. I was inspired to make blocks with skinny lines that I learned about in a Carol Taylor class. However, I wanted wider lines, so I cut the inserts larger and somewhat on the bias so they would curve more readily. There is a bit of beading along the curved quilting lines.

The photo I had taken years ago in Madison, CT, of tall oaks, a stream, and rocks is represented here.

I call the quilt Tomorrow May Be Too Late because I had the blocks in my UFO pile for a pretty long time before I decided I'd better use them while I was still alive and kicking.

December exhibit quilt 1

A number of months ago, Sisters in Cloth decided on two new themes for exhibits. In this post I will write about a challenge from Vivika Hansen Denegre, who we are proud to say is Quilting Arts Magazine editor, to make a quilt based upon our choice from the collection of postage stamps left to her.  We all pored over the selection that filled several cigar boxes and picked some we thought we could work with for our quilts. 

My choices: Dag Hammarskjöld stamps because the former head of the United Nations died in a plane crash the same day my grandfather died too young of a heart attack (September 18, 1961)--both Scandinavians. I think am the only person I know who knows the date Hammarskjöld died--or even remembers who he was. He was very well liked in my family in spite of the rivalry between Norwegians (us) and Swedes. 

Being a former R.N., I also picked a few stamps with nursing themes.

However, I had trouble getting truly inspired. The grandfather/Hammarskjöld theme didn't work as planned--I had pictured something that combined depictions of the two men. The nursing theme muse was also avoiding me. 

Then Hurricane Sandy happened.

And the American Red Cross was there, as it has been in so many other devastating events. When I was a child, one of my favorite biographies was that of Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross. Clara Barton stamps had to be the background. The appliques are old photos that I copied and printed on fabric. The two little girls are me (right) and my friend Joan, with whom I remain friends to this day in spite of geographical distances over the years of varying degrees. My mother made the nurse uniforms for us, and embroidered the red crosses. The other photo is me, many moons ago, my graduation photo from nursing school.

This small quilt was exhibited  at the Guilford Free Library in December.

Other postage stamp quilts made by Sisters in cloth members Debra Bento and Gail Kotowski, Carol Ludington, Yvette Howard and Robin Wolek,  Barb Adams, and Diane Wright are below. 

As usual, the variety of styles of our members made for a very interesting exhibit.

Gingerbread House contest

A bit of creative Christmas fun.

The winners of the Porters' annual gingerbread house decorating contest are here announced. Santa's Workshop, by CC, won as the most most original for its marshmallow roof and Santa in the back window; my granddaughter Mary's, Christmas Joy, won for being the prettiest, thanks to her candy cane hearts on the roof; Brooks called his Midnight, and won for the best use of a theme or color--his was also the neatest; Jane, really went to town creating Gumdrop Heaven, which was judged as the most appetizing (everyone wanted to eat it); and Bowen, who not only decorated the  house, but designed a path to his Gingerbread Man House, got the prize for being the most creative.

It's in the Bag

Debbie Bento, one of my fellow Sisters in Cloth, came up with a fun challenge for our group, inspired by Jane Davila's talk about using found objects in our quilts. Called It's in the Bag, each of us was given an identical brown paper bag into which we were to place objects we thought could be used in a quilt. As a subsequent meeting, we selected one of the bags. It was a big secret.

Although we did know for whom we were making a piece, no one else did. The photos below were taken on the reveal and exchange meeting. Part of the fun was to guess who had made your quilt.

When the quilts were laid out for us, we of course would know our own--we would recognize our objects in the quilts.

 It was sometimes a big surprise to see who had made what, but not always.

 Janine guessed that I made hers right off the bat.

Yvette Howard holding the quilt she made:

 Gail Kotowski with her lovely creation.

 Carol Ludington made this colorful piece:

 I didn't think mine was there because there was no quilt on the table that featured the objects I remembered putting in my bag. Where were the dollhouse woven rug, or the photo of the elephant.
Well, they weren't there, but the shells, tiny paper parasol, and shells were. Diane Wright's creative juices must have been overflowing making this for me:

A closeup of the piece I made from Janine's found objects:

 

Janine's objects were bits of coral, shells, beach glass, quartz, a lovely fabric that I used as  backdrop, a strip of green fabric, twigs, and heavy threads. She also included birch bark, which I was not able to incorporate into the piece.

The threads I used for the edges, zigzagging it down.  I mimicked the fabric pattern by cutting the green strip into stems and leaves, which I fused down. The bits of back coral twigs, and some of the shells and glass are glued down. The fabric at the top and bottom are pieces I added of my hand-painted fabric. Instead of batting, I used Timtex because of the weight of the items.

This was fun, and I felt good about the result.

It's been a long, long time...

...as the song goes.

In August, I finished the quilt I was making for my granddaughter Julia. It was supposed to be for Christmas, but running out of both fabric and time--well, you know the rest. Last fall I  offered to make her a quilt to replace her princess one (she is now 15), which we decided would be a Chinese theme. However, she noticed and liked a few blocks I was playing with, making disappearing nine-patch blocks. It so happened that she had new curtains in that particular green and preferred it to the red/gold/black Chinese theme. Without realizing I didn't have enough  fabric, I said sure.

The entire border is from fabrics I located later via the internet. The main fabric in the center was not to be found, except for one place in Germany that didn't ship to the U.S. However, I think it turned out better with the darker border and the four different corner blocks (again necessary, due to a lack of enough black).

The moral of this story is to buy enough fabric, unless you're going to make something right way. My fabrics usually spend some time aging before being used. Once a fabric is gone from the stores it is never to be found again--unless you find it in someone's stash.

New: Knitting and Crocheting page

I've created a page where I will include photos and information about interesting and/or innovative knitting and crocheting. I  am not dedicating the page to my own work (although I will probably include some).

Check out the page link above for some interesting takes on this form of fiber art.

The photo is the detail of a scarf I made for a friend.

I haven't figured out how to create new posts on the specific pages.  I'm not sure it's possible to do more than just add to what's there.

Any advice?

Yarn bombing in New Haven

 When I received a recent newsletter from Knit New Haven, I put the date right into my calendar--June 9 was yarn bombing day. The previous yarn bombing decor has gone a little dingy, having been out in the elements of downtown New Haven for the past couple (few?) years, so the owners organized a day to gather and knit or crochet. In spite of the threat of rain, everything was set up outside. A couple of sprinkles did not deter the group. 

 I think this turned out to be a pretty nice parking meter. It stills needs to be fed, however. The "meter maid" (I hope that's not a derogatory term) came by along and gave someone a ticket while we sat there.

I believe Gale created the character below. Pictured below, she is co-author of Craft Activism.  Gale has posted lots more pictures on her blog,  She Shoots Sheep Shots, including a photo of yours truly stitching one of my rectangles to the character pole (the yellow one).