WOW… what a whirlwind it has been, and what a lot of fun we had.

"Letters" quilts and the four Frayed Edges at the Picker Room, Camden Public Library, on July 9, 2011

Deborah Boschert, our “expat” member now living near Annapolis, Maryland (for those of you not in the US, that is near Washington, DC) flew up for the weekend to visit, so Deborah, Kathy Daniels, Kate Cutko and I had a glorious weekend.  The reason for the gathering was our second show (the first was in 2007, and is here and here and here) at the Picker Room of the Camden Public Library.  On July 1, Kate drove over an hour from her home to help me hang the show, and was I ever grateful for the help!  A week later, Deborah arrived and spent the night with me in Hope.  The next day, July 8, we gave a program on the show for the Coastal Quilters in the morning:

Deborah Boschert talks about her "long and skinny" piece which hangs over the glass display case in the Camden Public Library's Picker room; this is a first for the Coastal Quilters--rather than meet in the usual Lions' Club location, we met "on-site" in the library! Thanks to all who were able to come!

We had a short break on a glorious summer’s day , minus Kate who had to work her morning  job as Bowdoinham town librarian, and ate on the back deck at Marriner’s for lunch…astonishingly, we all look good in this photo! Clearly we are happy to be together!

 

Lunch at Marriner's, on the back deck over the Falls. L to R: Deborah Boschert, Kate (Kathy) Daniels, and me

Kate arrived in time for our 2-4 p.m. Artists’ Reception, which was well attended—I expect that is was almost all Kathy’s friends and relatives, and we so appreciate their coming!

Viewers at the Artists' Reception looking at our Letters pieces

Eighteen months ago, we starting noodling about the idea of a group challenge/themed pieces that would be new for the show.  I’ll blog more about the pieces in a later post, but the photo at the top of the post shows all the 12 pieces.  We each made two 12 x 12 inch pieces (inspired by Deborah’s participation in the Twelve by Twelve project, here) and a center piece that was 36 (or thereabouts) inches wide and anywhere between 16 to 42 inches tall.  I was inspired by the quilt exhibit by tACTile, a group of quilters from the Australia Capitol Territory (ACT), which you can see here.  But we decided since other groups have taken the idea of a line running through all the pieces, to not do that for our series.  Our theme was “Letters,” which we thought was a good one for a show in the Library and because each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, has used letters or words on our quilts.

At one point, Joshua drifted through (to see if I’d take some stuff home for  him, actually), but he kindly consented to let me take his picture with the portrait of him…he has grown up a bit!

Joshua playing air guitar in front of the quilt of Joshua playing guitar... I think I'm glad I didn't have to quilt the beard that he has had since shortly after the photos I took for the quilt! And isn't that a cool lion on his t-shirt?

We had lots of thoughtful visitors:

Kate chats with a gentleman who really seemed to enjoy the show and spent lots of time looking at the pieces.

and

Kate chatting with the architect, Deborah at the far end of the table, Kathy speaking with the artist who did the recent show with the colorful goldfish paintings

and

Deborah's three pieces on the left, Paul (hubby!) looking at Kate's graphic novel-inspired pieces

and

More of Kath's friends and family, plus a really nice couple who are part-time Maine residents and drove an hour just to come up for the show...way cool!

and

Kate and Deborah looking at the room and show

and

"Letters" quilts and the four Frayed Edges. We are standing in the same order as our quilts: Deborah's inspired by letters home, Kate's graphic novel-inspired pieces which will find a home at her Bowdoinham Library, me with pieces inspired by the Getty Museum, and Kathy's chicken who became Tillie of Tillie Lays an Egg (with permission of the author)

and that’s it for the day….  I’ll post again about the Frayed Edges FUN as well as our Letters Quilts.  Of course, I think I had better go take good pictures of the quilts…would make blogging about them a lot easier, eh?  That’s it for today…stay tuned!

Yes, while the turkey was roasting on Christmas day and the potatoes were boiling and the pie and stuffing were done, I took a little time for art!  About a thousand lifetimes ago (meaning last winter, maybe February-ish) I took an online class with Sharon Boggon (her site is here and is now called In a Minute Ago, here blog is  Pin Tangle)  about a “working” sketchbook.  Not a fancy, work-of-art-in-itself journal, but about using a journal as a way to flesh out ideas and stimulate creativity.  Here’s a link to the class description…I really enjoyed the class!  Alas, I have been abysmal at keeping up with it–simply too much life happening.  BUT…. I have the journal and the supplies and the desire.  So on Christmas I made the time!

I just LOVE how this turned out....it makes me happy. Being creative and noodling around just makes me content. I should do this more!

I took some of the squares I had cut from magazine pages, and some words and phrases, and started gluing them up.  One page became two…. then I took my WONDERFUL Christmas gift from hubby:  a set of 72 Derwent Inktense pencils

The Inktense pencils are in the upper left. My magazine snippings are in the box, and the bag on the right is my travel-art bag, with room for a set of 6 graphite pencils, a 12-travel-set of watercolor, a waterbrush, glue stick and a couple odd pens are inside in their custom-made pockets

and a waterbrush and, in the evening after supper while watching Starman with my family, colored in the background.  I LOVE IT!

And I cannot let the last Christmas posting pass without Kate’s candles–I’ll blog about our Frayed Edges meeting in a few days, but I had to share these.  Kate found the votives in cylindrical glass cups then re-purposed old (tossed out) sheet music.  The large one is from Stonewall Kitchen (a Maine company) and smells of “Maine Forest.”

My new Canon G12 has a "candlelight" setting on the dial, and this was taken just holding the camera still, no tripod or bracing...love it!

Some days are just perfect, and this month’s Frayed Edges was just that.

Birthday cupcakes from Kathy

My birthday is around about now, and Kate and Kath were amazing!  We met at Kate’s home, a quintessential New England Cape home that is WELL over a hundred fifty years old if it is a day!  It has, of course, been updated, and the skylights and double-paned windows make is so sunny and homey! On the way down, I decided to go via route 24, which runs along the western bank of the Kennebec river, so I turned west onto Route 17 to head towards Augusta.  At that point I turned the GPS on to head to Kate’s home.  It told me to turn before I got to my usual spot, so I thought “Why not?”  OH MY GOODNESS!   The sad part is I was driving and couldn’t take pictures at the same time, but I think I drove through the most beautiful non-coastal part of Maine I have seen yet.  Autumn is just beginning, with flashes of scarlet and gold….small Maine towns, white steeples, babbling brooks, blueberry barrens glowing crimson and auburn and russet….oh my!

This was the table that greeted us:

Kathy arrived before I did, and Kate’s lovely autumn setting (notice her felted-sweater napkin rings, complete with acorns made with real acorn caps and felted wool balls?) was so welcoming!

Kate has these incredible hand-made dishes and silverware that she takes out for our special days.  I just love the cheerful sunflowers:

Kate's place setting...so lovely!

Then we filled them with a new squash and sausage soup, accompanied by salad and some awesome sourdough bread I bought at the Market Basket in Rockport (I really did NOT need to learn that their breads are SO good):

Those goodies you see on the left are birthday prezzies….  Kate UTTERLY indulged me with a Pashmina scarf/shawl in my all-time favorite turquoise/teal/aqua, and Kath bought hand-made chocolates given on a one-of-a-kind pottery spoon rest, accompanied by the adorable Egbert (  made by Kathy and christened on the spot).  What a perfect funny bird!

And here we are, beak-to-beak:

Sarah and Egbert, getting acquainted

He just makes me smile!  He is now on my dining table where I work at my laptop and keeps me in good humor!

We ate lunch a bit early so we could play with paint; a couple weekends earlier Kath and I had attended the SAQA-Maine weekend (more on that in a future post), and I shared a couple techniques I learned.

Playing with paint

What could be more perfect:  wonderful friends, food, art, friends, fabric and ideas and warmth, glorious Maine, friends…. I am so truly blessed!  As you can see…. the cupcakes were delectable with Kathy’s made-by-her ganache (talk about melt in your mouth heavenly):

The landscaping at the Getty Museum gardens is just as much a work of art as the buildings and their contents.   The picture above is of the run-off culvert and bridges, with Los Angeles city in the distance.  The Getty website page about the landscape says:

Landscaping the Getty Center has been a collaborative effort involving a number of distinguished landscape architects, consultants and craftspeople through the years. Emmet Wemple, landscape architect for the Getty Villa in Malibu, began the project and conceived preliminary designs. Richard Meier conceived the master plan, which called for developing 19 of 24 acres as landscape or gardens. Dennis Hickok of Richard Meier & Partners served as liaison and for design and development of the works for the architects and landscape architects. Laurie Olin and the Olin Partnership, Philadelphia, PA, joined the team in 1992, and have remained through the project’s completion. Fong and Associates of Orange County and Raymond Hansen assisted in plant selection, procurement, and administration. Daniel Urban Kiley consulted on the project beginning in 1990. The landscaping would not have been possible without the work of numerous other consultants, contractors and craftspeople who helped create this impressive environment.

I love the tracery cast by the shadows of tree branches especially in the non-leafy seasons.  Here, Joyce is walking down the stairs and  path in front of me:

And here I am taking a picture of someone taking a picture…ya think this place inspires?

Again, successful use of elements of design:  rhythm, repetition, line, contrast (trees are organic, walls and stones are rectilinear), depth and dimension…..sigh….. I want to make art every time I look at these pictures! The next photo is one I think, with some tweaking in Photoshop, could make be used to make a great screen for printing onto cloth…..

Here is a view of the lower gardens:

On the way, you pass this stunning building-view:

And a cropped version that I may turn into a quilt for a Frayed Edges project:

Hope you’ve enjoyed this installment of my trip to the Getty…clearly way more than a day’s worth of   inspiration in just one visit!  more down the line…

Deborah Boschert, one of my Frayed Edges mini-group, is also part of a wonderful project called Twelve  x 12.  They have a blog here, and a website here, and even better…..well, not sure if I can tell you about it yet but there is something really cool coming in their future!   So hold on to that thought.  Anyway, Deborah now lives (sob we miss her) near Dallas, and the Dallas Quilt Guild is hosting a 12 x 12 challenge.  The rules:  anything goes as long as it is 12 by 12 inches.  Deborah invited us to participate and send quilts to hand in the show this March.  Well…..

I was totally, utterly blocked.  I had NOT A CLUE.  Not a whiff of an idea.  Inside of brain darker than a cave in a coalmine with no lights.  Nada.  Nicht.  Zip.  Zilch.  Then I had to walk the dog.  This dog (note…there are fifteen photos in this post, and all are clickable for a larger view):

Isn’t he CUTE?  Even from the hind view with curly little tail and dog butt, he is CUTE.  Well, the good news is that the quilt is NOT of his hind end.  I figured the cuteness of a dog’s butt is not necessarily appreciated by all, but how could ANYONE not love a pug mug?   So, I scoured through the umpteen thousand (literally) photos on my hard drive, found the one above, and cropped the photo:

Then I decided to use value as my plan of attack for fusing up this puppy.  At first I selected beige, tan, charcoal, and went YUCK.  I wanna play with color.  Back in the fused fabric stash they went.  Out came the colored fused stash.  I started with medium values…some lovely turquoises.  Then lights, deep darks, and some transitional values.  Not suprisingly, the light lights were yellows, the deep darks were navy and purple.

To get ready, I enlarged the photo to 12 inches on my computer, got out the large tracing paper, and traced his outlines.  This tracing was my pattern guide in cutting the pieces of fabric for his sweet face.  Here is the first bits:

Then a bit more work–you can see the tracing in the top left, the laptop with the cropped photo for reference, and the scattered bits of pre-fused fabrics tossed about (and note the yellow mug…I LOVE the fiesta ware!):

Here’s a close-up of the pug at this stage:

Then even more; I have added the background, but notice the face is kinda upright, not that cute cocked head, the quizzical look (note the green fiestaware mug):

Edges trimmed, but face is still upright…wrong!

So after uttering a few cuss words at having not noticed I was trimming him with his head in the wrong position, I sliced things off and fused up some more background–and yes, there is an “issue” with the shape of his head on the left, but I knew that would be cropped off so I ignored it:

This shows ‘Widgeon quilted (tho not the background…more on that in a sec):

and a close-up:

Here’s what it looks like from the back:

Next, I trimmed away the “middle-backing” and the wool batt I was using from under the turquoise background:

I then added cotton batting and the “real” backing and quilted the background, plus some of the major creases in his pug mug:

Finally, I had thought I would face the edges.  I used an old rust colored fabric on the back, and for the facings, and realized it looked MUCH better than the turned/faced edge.  So I found a better quality hand-dyed and made narrow bias bindings:

Last but not least…two close-ups.

Hope you liked the journey through the process. The quilt started out with a working title of “You want me to sit STILL?” (as in sit still so I can take a picture of you!), but that evolved into either “Walkies?  Puhleeze walkies!” or “Cookie???? PLEEEZE cookie!”  Eli (the dog is really his) and I both liked the Cookie version better, so that’s the title!

I absolutely ADORE this little 12 x 12 inch quilt… I think I did OK, because each time my sons see the quilt they start grinning, too!  Of course, we are biased and utterly in love with the little dog-beast!