…and the quilt frame

BOM quilt on frame

This project was put on hold indefinitely for a few reasons.  In the meantime, smaller projects have been finished on the frame and the problems/reasons for not working on this beast have been resolved.  Namely, there is now space for the frame with this over-size quilt on it and I have learned to discipline myself to no more than one hour of hand quilting per day to avoid repetitive stress injuries.

What a happy surprise when I uncovered this quilt I hadn’t seen in ages.  Why, it’s lovely!  This project began as a case of “careful what you wish for.”  Rarely do I win anything in a lottery-style drawing, but I had my heart set on winning these Block-of-the-Month entries back when I was a card-carrying member of our local quilt guild, Country Crossroads Quilters.  It was an unusual project in that everyone had a small piece of the same theme fabric and each quilter was to add companion fabrics and use a block design of her own choosing.  Those of you familiar with these types of activities know that generally participants are given a general color scheme and/or one theme fabric and a designated block design.  So the winner gets a number of blocks that generally coordinate color-wise and are all the same design and she sews them together and has an instant quilt top.  That’s the general theory.

Giving people carte blanche on the design of the blocks made for an interesting assortment and giving a theme fabric with so many colors meant that there wasn’t even really a consistent color theme as some quilters opted to bring out the Christmas theme of the fabric and others opted to showcase the purple.

So for once in my life, I did win the drawing.  It may have been rigged by my friends in the group who knew I wanted these blocks and knew I had been a faithful participant in the Block of the Month project for ages and had never won the blocks whilst some had won multiple times or worse, some had won the single time they threw a block in the mix.  Or, it may have been the universe out to teach me that careful what you wish for lesson.  Either way, I “won” the oddest assortment of blocks.  In the end, there were only 13 that were really useable.  Yes, 13.  Hmmm.  So I took the 5 that went together the best (accent on Christmas, no additional purple) and made a medallion out of those, which you can see in the middle of the photo above.  I confess I did add the Celtic Applique myself to the otherwise perfectly serviceable 9-patch block that just needed a bit of a lift and a shift of scale to be placed center front and play well with the rest of the Christmas themed blocks that had lots of white.  The rest of the blocks were used “as is.”  There were a few more that would not play well with the group no matter how I tried to make them settle in.  I waited to set these blocks until the makers of the unused ones were no longer around to see that their blocks were not included.  That took a while.  And the quilting has taken even longer.  Because of the medallion setting, the quilt got huge.  It’s the largest I’ve ever made.  Also because of the medallion setting, there is a lot of design space that cried out for hand quilting, although in retrospect, sending this off for custom machine quilting probably would have been the wiser choice. (Close-up below showing the block I contributed and some of the designs I adapted.)  I am determined to finish this before my hands and/or eyes fail me.  I’m currently more than half-way and it’s only taken me 15 years or so.  And when I’m done I’ll have a HUGE Christmas themed quilt.  But it will be gorgeous.

BOM quilt close-up

Back to the Drawing Board

Poetry book photo2

 

It’s time to get the studio up and running in the new place.  Since it’s been a while with no regular art production, I thought it best to start with some small exercises to get back in the swing of things.  In the move I found this project, a book of nature poems I got at a library book sale years ago that I felt needed “alteration.”  Altered books are a new phenomenon to me, schooled as I was never to write in books or deface them in any way.  I’m not sure I’m quite ready for some of the more radical alterations I’ve seen, but this book seemed to be crying out for more and different illustrations than it was born with upon publication, a sample of which is shown above. There are 3 or 4 more of these, one at the start of each section, and that’s it for illustrations.  The paper is nice and thick, with good tooth but no noticeable texture and it has aged to a lovely cream.  The poems are organized seasonally, so I decided to add little illustrations of my own surrounding the poetry in the generous margins each according to it’s season, like this:

Poetry book photo 1

 

 

Now, that’s more like it for illustrations in a book of nature poems for me. Spring in my new neighborhood means Loropetalum Chinense, also known as Fringe Plant, blooming wildly in almost every yard, including my own.  After bloom, these shrubs provide the red contrast that every landscape designer seeks for relief from overabundance of green.  It used to be only Flowering Plum provided that in these parts.  Happily, we now have many more choices.  My favorites are red Japanese Maples and certain cultivars of Heuchera, also known as Coral Bells.  I’d like this Fringe Plant much more if it wasn’t so ubiquitous all of a sudden.  Plants go in and out of fashion in just the same way that hemlines go up and down on the runways of Paris and New York and this is the must have shrub of the moment, at least in my new neck of the woods.

Fresh eggs

Fresh Eggs

 

The next best thing to having your own chickens is having a friend with a few too many.

Here’s an omelette-making secret I picked up by watching the pros do it at a buffet brunch:  put only the cheese in the middle.  Any vegetables or meat should go into the pan first and be cooked or reheated to your satisfaction first.  Then drop in the beaten eggs and proceed with standard omelette procedure.  When it’s ready to fold in half, put the cheese in.  Give it some time on each side to finish cooking and melt the cheese.   So much better than having a pile of mixed vegetables and cheese 2 inches high inside plain eggs.

Post and Toss

Or, this why I don’t do sculpture.  Or, why moving is good, bad and ugly.

Sawdust cow

 

This little cow was my first attempt at sculpture in at the tender age of 6.  I remember this being an assignment in first grade and that the sculpting medium was starch and sawdust.  Can that be right?  I also remember my poor little hands cracked and bled from working with the stuff.  How we suffer for our art.

Why my mother saved it and gave it back to me 30 years later is a mystery.  Why I kept it for 20 more years is an even greater mystery.  I assure you it is now where it belongs, in the trash.  Why the cow has a dark shadow on it’s back is not a mystery.  I believed at the time that was what the teacher wanted us to do.  It had something to do with shadows from the sun.  I think I got it backwards and we were supposed to shade the under side of the cows darker because the sun came from above.  Perhaps I was fascinated with the hairs growing out of the teacher’s chin and missed the point of the dark shadows lecture.  Who can say?  I do think it serves well as a reminder that 3-d art is not my strong suit and that letting go of things is healthy.  Letting go of things is healthy.  Letting go of things is healthy.

Oh, did I mention that I moved???  And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past several months?  It’s good to be back.