My Quilt for Wounded Warriors

It all started with a slightly odd email to our Westside Quilters email address (I'm guild president)  from an Air Force Captain in Afghanistan - someone who I didn't know - asking if we were the group who had sent her unit quilts for their wounded and their medal ceremonies and if we could send more as soon as possible. We were not, but I was intrigued and hoped to help her find her way, so I started with Google and then called and emailed a few quilting contacts and finally came up with the name of a lady nearby in the Los Angeles area who I was told would know.  Well, Arlene Zobrist did know and she is in fact in charge of a group in Southern California's South Bay that makes and collects quilts to be sent to wounded soldiers in Iraq an Afghanistan. She contacted the Air Force Captain and made sure that more quilts were on the way.

As I learned more about Arlene ( a member of  Blue Star Mothers - her son is in the Air Force) and her group "Quilts for Wounded Warriors" I was hooked. The quilts are made in patriotic fabrics and colors of 100% cotton fabric and batting - they will be washed often and must be fire resistant. They are forwarded directly to hospitals in the battle zone and are given to the wounded as they  are evacuated out of theater to Europe or the US. The transport planes and helicopters are cold and these provide needed warmth and comfort. Wounded Warriors is one of the few groups that sends quilts outside of the US. Most other groups provide quilts for the wounded when they arrive back in the states. The local chapter of Blue Star Mothers provides some of the funds for shipping. Arlene said that her group's quilts follow the soldier from the initial hospital overseas all the way back to the states where they become beloved heirlooms. she has sent me copies of wonderful thank you letters from the soldiers. I asked her about the required size which at 48" X 78" is long and narrow.  They are stretcher size, she told me.
That's what finally got me.


I invited Arlene to visit one of our Guild meetings this last February where she gave us a moving presentation and a trunk show of some of the recently donated quilts before they were sent on our way. Several of our members have made their own Wounded Warriors quilt and they will be shown  along with mine made from Sylvia Davis' handsome Kumasi Star pattern at our next meeting on May 21st and then will be delivered to Arlene for their trip to Afghanistan.I'll post more photos of the quilts on the Westside Quilters Website!



http://amyscreativeside.com/

Creating in Palos Verdes ....

I had a wonerdul day yesterday at Deborah Weir's Fiberfly Studio in Palos Verdes playing with my new needle felting machine. Wools, cottons, silk, yarns, angelina fibers,dyed cheesecloth, wool roving - we played with it all. Deborah took some photos of all our work so take a look below. I'll post a finished piece soon....

This free picture slideshow generated with Smilebox

Very Happy To Be in Sacred Threads Again!

I'm so happy to say two of my quilts have been accepted into Sacred Threads 2011 to be held this time around in the Washington DC area June 22- July 4 at the Church of the Epiphany, 3301 Hidden Meadow Drive, Herndon, Virginia. 

Balancing Act and Forrest's Flowers are shown below.

A description of the genesis of  Sacred Threads from their website: "Founder Vikki Pignatelli and the other committee members wanted to create a dignified exhibit of artwork that would touch all those who viewed it on both spiritual and personal levels. We wanted to share the experiences of quilters whose stories would be a source of healing and strength for others by allowing the artist to submit a statement which would be exhibited with the artwork that described the meaning or inspiration for the piece.  We also encourage attendees to complete artist comment forms if they are particularly moved by a quilt - these are returned to the artists with their quilt."

"The Sacred Threads quilts are divided into categories based on theme. These are Expressions of Joy, Spirituality, Inspiration, Grief, Healing and Peace/Brotherhood.  The artwork themes provide thought-provoking insights, encouragement, inspiration and healing responses to grief and human hardships."

Beautiful Asilomar.....

A few photos from my March idyll at Asilomar for an Empty Spools Seminar. Enjoy!

Quilting a' la Diane

Every late winter I look forward to my annual session at Empty Spools Seminars at the stunning  Asilomar Conference Grounds right on the beach at Pacific Grove. This year I was in great anticipation and more then a little trepidation because after three years of trying I had finally landed a spot in a class with the free motion machine quilting goddess Diane Gaudynski. I'm afraid I played hard ball this year and added a little note on my application noting how many years I had been disappointed and the veiled threat that if i didn't get in this time, I wasn't coming at all.

I consider myself more of an art quilter these days, but I still love and admire the graceful free motion quilting by machine I see on traditional quilts and have practiced and studied it with a number of teachers. I  had read Diane's books (check  these out on the right), mooned over her beautiful work in magazines and at quilt shows and visited her classroom at previous Asilomar sessions on Open House afternoon. I wondered if I would ever be able to do anything like her very fine intricate work. I also thought that anyone who did such exacting and perfect stitching must be very serious and a very tough task master. I worried that my slightly haphazard approach to machine workmanship would never measure up.  Still, I new that I needed to go through this difficult boot camp to get to the next level and I was determined to try.  I was scared.....

Well, I needn't have been. The first afternoon Diane put us completely at our ease.  The 24 students were all at different levels  from absolute beginners to more advanced with a lot of experience.  My trusty Viking Designer SE behaved (she  must have enjoyed her very expensive  pre-class cleaning and tune-up at the spa at Sewing Arts Center)

To my great relief, Diane was relaxed, personable, patient and very funny if not downright silly occasionally. She instilled confidence. We all had the feeling from the beginning that if we followed her techniques and studied her demos, we all could do it. So throughout the week, we learned Diane's techniques and tricks. Among them - using 100 weight silk in the top and the bobbin on light as air wool batting, marking stencils and stems with blue washout marker and then riffing around them with free hand quilting and fill patterns. We learned how to get rid of the "dreaded lagoon of poof" by stitching on the bias and not with the grain of the fabric. Lastly, we learned from her patient demos some of her signature quilting patterns like Diane-shiko, Diane-shallot and "Bananas". We practiced on 18" quilt sandwiches which by the end of a few days were works of art in themselves. Then, some of us started on our real class project - a 32" pieced nine patch quilt prepared at home in advance or another small project to show off our new found skills.

My own 9 patch was bits of dupioni silk in mostly pastel colors that were left over from another project with a pieced square in a square in the center. The sheen of the silk allows the texture of the quilting to stand out beautifully. I tried to stitch a different stencil and background fill technique in each square and finished a number of them in class. The rest including the four borders stitched freehand save for the marked spines (each one different, but based on Diane's designs) were finished when I returned home to LA.

It is now trimmed, bound and labeled "Silk Fantasy A La Diane"  and is a great memento of another wonderful week at Empty Spools/Asilomar.

  I sent a photo to Diane earlier today and she has asked if she can use my quilt in her evening presentation at her next session at Asilomar in May.
I am truly honored. Sadly, Diane is retiring from teaching at the end of this year and I feel very privileged to have been one of her last students.
Check out her blog at
/http://dianegaudynski.blogspot.com/
and her website at
http://www.dianegaudynski.net/



 

It's been a long recovery!

Well, it has been a long recovery from Houston, I guess. I can't believe that I've neglected posting since November. Can I really say that I've been that busy? Maybe just that lazy?

Business - yes, very busy. Right after the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show in late October we were immersed in doing a big estate sale in Pasadena that is still in play. No Los Angeles Antiques Show for us this year, but I was again co-chair of the vetting committee for the Antiques Dealers Association of California and busy with my job as ADAC Secretary.

Our new quilt guild - Westside Quilters - is keeping me on my toes as president. We've had some wonderful workshops in the last several months and a fascinating program with Margarete Heinisch in January.

I have taken some time to finish some art quilt projects including a small journal quilt begun in a workshop with the wonderful Pam Holland in Houston. My photographs and sketches of a trip to Mt. St Michel on the Brittany coast many years ago were the inspiration for this one which includes my own sketches which were digitally printed and transferred them to the background using TAP transfer paper - my new most favorite discovery! The wine glasses made from fused sheer fabrics are leftovers from another workshop with Esterita Austin a few years ago. They finally found a home. These little quilts are a great way to freeze very happy memories.

A few days spent at Road to California and a class with Terry Waldron in
January brought about a very quick free-cut applique' quilt of my fantasy of the kelp forests of the California Coast. "Beneath the Surface" features lots of couched yarns and hand beading and was so totally fun to do. I kept humming "Under the Sea" from Disney's "Little Mermaid" .

I've also returned recently from a blissful week at Empty Spools and a fabulous class with the amazingly talented free motion quilter Diane Gaudynski. More on that soon!

It's good to be back!

Recovering From Houston quilt Festival

Well, I'm back from my first Quilt Festival in Houston. What an overwhelming experience. I flew in for four days with a friend from LA. I stayed in luxury at the Four Seasons, but walked my socks off to and from the Convention Center and around the floor. So many fabulous quilts - hundreds of vendors. It literally took me three days to cover the vendor floor - my box of purchases should be arriving in a day or so.


It was great visiting my quilts on display in the show including "Fossil Fueled" (above in the IQA Judged show) and my three in various traveling shows - "Night Flight" in In Full Bloom, "Stairway to Heaven" in Tactile Architecture and "Balancing Act" in West Coast Wonders.




I signed up for only two classes - I had been warned that I would need loads of time to cover the show - and neither was a disappointment. Susan Cleveland's class on miters was fabulous and my Saturday class with the wonderful Pam Holland doing travel journal quilts was so inspiring that I spent most of my time on the plane home with my sketchbook sorting out ideas. I can't wait to get going on it again.

My favorite quilts in the show? Well, my friend Sharon Schamber's quilt "Mystique" won a well deserved Best of Show. Pam Holland's Rhinosceros after a drawing by Albrecht Durer and her sample from her Bayeux Tapestry project keep appearing in my mind. But there were so many others, both traditional and avant garde that drew me.

Will I plan to get to Houston again? I sure hope so! It's an experience.