On my Design Wall Right Now....

I've been working on the quilt I began in David Taylor's class at the International Quilt Festival Long Beach last month. The subject is my son at the age of 10 (he's now 19 and away at college) at summer camp on a Lake in the High Sierras. I photoshopped his image from a party at a gym on to another photo of Shaver Lake and presto! I've had this quilt in my mind for a couple of years and finally, thanks to David, the design was finalized.

The fabric selection for the background was done in a couple of days at home - a wide range of hand dyes and batiks plus some hand marbled fabric for the dead log. The photo shows the end of that process with all the pieces pinned together on my design board. Another few days to turn the edges over the freezer paper, and then it was glued together. Obviously I decided not to use David's hand applique' technique - it's just not me - too impatient for that. I've used Elmers to glue the edges and have sewn it down with zigzag.

Another couple of days have been spent thread painting David's image and adding branches to the large trees. I'm at a quandary right now regarding how much thread painting to do now versus quilting after it is sandwiched. I will attempt David's close quilting to put in some shading and detail in the background.

I've also completed a little art quilt called "Autumn Haze" which I've added to my Etsy shop
and to my website which started as a sample of a short 20 minute demo for the Santa Monica Quilt Guild on "Thread Painting". After the demo I brought it home, added some rubber stamped images, beading and three different patterns of quilting. I love the hazy green/rust "fallish" colors. (I guess I'm ready for the end of summer...) The demo must have been a success since I've been asked to do a full day workshop for the Guild in April. Another adventure....

"Night Flight " will be at Houston After All!

I'm very happy to say that the problem I mentioned with Quilts, Inc. and my quilt "Night Flight" which was part of Celebrate Spring at Chicago Festival has been resolved and it will, after all, be included when the exhibit travels to Houston Festival in October. I received this news and an apology for the office mistake this last week and I am extremely pleased that two of my quilts will be there. I only wish I could get there, too, since these lucky stars will probably never be aligned this way again! Sadly, It's not in the cards this year to make another quilting trip - I'm already set up for a weekend at Road to California and a week at Asilomar in the spring. I hope to find someone to take photos of my quilts hanging there.

Meanwhile I'm well into selecting the fabrics for my piece from the David Taylor class in Long Beach. It looks great on the wall so far... Maybe an in process photo soon.

International Quilt Festival Long Beach

The long anticipated second annual International Quilt Festival / Long Beach is now past and I am still basking in the glow! I spent most of the week commuting between my home in Westwood and the Long Beach Convention Center since this year I decided not to spend any more than necessary on hotel expenses. Actually the trip down in the morning was quite easy each day if we left by 7:30 AM and since we stayed until after dinner the evening traffic was not that awful.

I started off on Wednesday with Bonnie McCaffrey's wonderful class on painted fabric portraits. Her techniques are amazing and yes, you can do it if you follow her blueprint. in fact in the last few days at home I have used her techniques to paint a portrait of my son for a long planned quilt and it actually worked!

Friday, my class on calligraphy on fabric with Lisa Engelbrecht was very interesting and Friday night I began the two day class with David Taylor -www.davidtaylorquilts.com - which continued on Saturday. I am enormously impressed with his work which is visually glorious. I took the photo and drawing of my son at summer camp which I began at last year's Long Beach Festival in another class and think this time I may actually finish it. I'm not sure that it will be hand applique' - but I am quite inspired. David is charming and personable, a talented artist and a great teacher.

Sunday morning I tried my hand at "Accidental Landscapes" with Karen Eckmeier. It was a casual very enjoyable class using free cut curved fabric pieces layered into seascapes. It was great fun and a great technique. I came home with the central scene and in my studio added borders, fused applique' and beading and voila! a little finished art quilt - maybe a gift for a beach loving friend at Christmas. See it above! I'd love to try her technique again for other small landscape quilts.

In between classes there wasn't that much time to explore the show which didn't open until Friday. I tackled the exhibition quilts on Friday at lunch time and the vendors on the next day. I ran into my friend and art quilt minigroup companion Nancy and we did the quilts together. it's so much more fun to browse with someone! Nancy kindly took a photo of me with my quilt "Alright, Mr. Demille, I'm ready for My Close-up" exhibited in Silver Screen II (shown to the right )

I found the vendors a little disappointing on Saturday - seemingly hundreds of booths with much the same merchandise and ,frankly, a lot of junk.... I only bought a few fat quarters of hand dyed and batik cotton for my David Taylor class.

The highlight of Sunday afternoon was my two hour shift working at the SAQA booth. I arrived to find that my little quilt "Currents" which I had donated to the September SAQA on-line auction was hanging along with others in the booth. What a nice surprise! I met several SAQA members - Jamie Fingal, Jeanette Kelly among them - and it was so great to be able to put names with faces and spread the word about SAQA and the work it does to promote Art Quilters and their work. We sold several books and gave out a lot of information. I helped pack up the booth at closing and watched the process of taking down all the quilts and the vendors packing up. Just like closing night of an antique show - my other life.....

My one disappointment with the show was arriving on Wednesday and finding that my quilt "Night Flight" had not been brought from Houston and was not on exhibit in "Celebrate Spring"and would not be going on to Houston in October. I was told it was a "Glitch in the office" at Quilts, Inc. I'm afraid the situation colored some of my enjoyment of the show (More about this in a future post) but on the whole Long Beach was a wonderful experience and I am already looking forward to next year....

June/ July in Southern California

Well, June flew by in a flash. I was very busy working on the Santa Monica Quilt Guild Quilt Show the early and middle of the month and took the rest of the month to recuperate. The show was very successful keeping in mind the state of the economy and will allow the Guild to bring a wonderful group of nationally known professional teachers to meetings and workshops over the next two years. The show looked fabulous - it was beautifully hung in the light and airy gymnasium at Loyola Marymount University. \ The quality of quilts exhibited by Guild Members was top notch and our featured quilter Sherry Kleinman provided a stellar display of her art quilts. As Treasurer and Awards and Prizes chair I was kept very busy....

Speaking of awards I was thrilled and more than a little embarrassed to learn that my quilt "Stairway to Heaven" (see its photo in a post below0 won three awards - Best Machine Quilting, Best use of Color and 2nd place Viewers' Choice. Another quilt "Alright, Mr. Demille, I'm ready for my Close-up" won Best Use of Embellishment. I was humbled.....

The good news continued after the show - I was thrilled and surprised to receive a fat envelope from Houston this year - "Stairway to Heaven" will be going there very soon as a finalist in "Quilts: A World of Beauty". I only wish I could get to Houston in October to see it hanging in all that illustrious company, but alas, it is not in the cards this year. Perhaps someone will snap a few photos of it for me...

I'm looking ahead to next week's International Quilt Festival at Long Beach. I've signed up for several classes including one with David Taylor and will be with quilting friends. Two of my quilts will be shown there which will be very exciting. "Alright Mr. Demille..." is in Silver Screen II and "Night Flight" is travelling with "Celebrate Spring" which debuted at Chicago in April.

In my "real" world of business all is pretty depressing right now, but in my quilting world everything is blooming!

So Much Going On!

So much going on in my quilting world that it's time to sit down and talk!

Good news last week I learned that my quilt "Alright, Mr. Demille, I'm Ready For My Close-up" has been accepted into "Silver Screen II" which will debut at the Long Beach Quilt Festival here in Southern California this July. That makes two quilts for the show since my "Night Flight" was in the Chicago Festival's "Celebrate Spring" and will be traveling to Long Beach as well. I'll be taking classes at the Festival most of the week.

Award Winning art quilter B.J. Adams spoke at our regular Santa Monica Quilt Guild meeting last week. Her Power Point presentation was inspiring and highlighted both her amazing thread painting techniques and her incredible imagination. I was immediately drawn to her hyper realistic almost surrealistic images. The South Bay Quilters Guild sponsored a workshop with her the next day which I was thrilled to attend and learn her techniques with washaway stabilizer, fabric and tulle. I came away with just a few samples, but I can't wait to try more.....

We're down to the wire with less than 30 days to go before the Santa Monica Quilt Guild's Quilt Show - "Explorations". It's June 13th and 14th at Loyola Marymount University. I've been feverishly making purses and totes for the "Bag Boutique", entering my quilts, and serving as Treasurer and Awards and Prizes Chair.

I'm also happy to be packing up a lot of quilts for shipping to various venues including Sacred Threads and the Long Beach Quilt Festival. I'm also sending a quilt to Jean Biddick in Tucson which will be photographed for her new book for CT publishing on mosaic quilts. Very exciting to be almost published!

Two Projects Finished

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!!

A beautiful Easter Sunday

It's been a beautiful week in Southern California topped by a gorgeous sunny, though cool Easter Sunday. The white Iceberg roses are going crazy in the front garden . some were cut this morning by my flower arranging husband for an Easter Brunch display.