The most fun this week was the monthly meeting of the my Art Quilt Group The Fiber Fanatics - always a happily anticipated meeting of seven of my friends - all talented and dedicated fiber artists with wicked senses of humor and all generous with constructive ideas and criticism. We meet once a month for a day of show and tell and lunch at a rotation of homes in West Los Angeles and I admit it is almost always the best day in the quilting month.
I had two finished projects to show. The first was from this year's trip to Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar in Pacific Grove. In Esterita Austin's five day class I translated a photograph of the beautiful 12th century Chapter House Stairs at Wells Cathedral in Southwest England with the use of fabric, thread and paint. The class was based on abstraction but my chosen photograph was not entirely suitable to abstracting the image. I decided to abstract it in color instead and chose hand dyes and batiks in purple, red orange and green . Esterita taught an unusual raw edge applique' technique. As always, I loved the beautiful winter week on the California coast and look forward to next year already.
The other finished quilt is a small version of part of my painted wholecloth quilt Magnolia Soulangiana which you can see by clicking on the photo below. A friend and member of my Guild in Santa Monica loved the original quilt and told me she'd love to have a small bit of it. I decided to surprise her with a little one which will be donated to our quilt auction at the upcoming Santa Monica Quilt Show in June. She's better bid on it!!
