After visiting Natasha Kemper-Cullen‘s studio (see earlier post), Kate, Kathy, Hannah and daughter Nina and I headed to a beach on Orr’s Island (at least I think that’s where we were…..). We drove down route 24 through Harpswell until we reached here:

Kate had brought some cloths to spread on the damp sand, and we munched away:

For once, I remembered to do a stand-in for Deborah (our dear friend in exile in the wilds of the Dallas metropolis) who always used to remember to take photos of our lunches. We each brought something to share… we had initially planned to meet at Hannah’s house where she was going to fix a salad, but we changed our plans to picnic, so she treated us to lunch-on-the-run from the local grocery. Here’s what I picked:

Now wouldn’t that make a glorious quilt?

After eating, we trolled the beach for beach glass and pottery shards.  I did OK finding the glass, but didn’t really know what I was looking for with the pottery…. but Hannah gave me her findings, saying she had MORE than enough at home…so here is my “booty”, displayed on a piece of fabric I  monoprinted (with dye) and overdyed last fall in Carol Soderlund’s workshop (pop Soderlund into the search box on the upper left sidebar if you want to check out those blogposts)… anyway, the fabric seemed perfect….

On the way home I actually had time to dawdle on the way, so thinking of Deborah I stopped in at Smitten in downtown (!) Wiscasset. Deborah just LOVED this store and the sign. I have to admit…Wiscasset really is a beautiful little town:

The for-the-oh-so-chic home items in this store are lovely and expensive, so I enjoy the visual treat. Then I moved up the street a few doors to Rock Paper Scissors, which is a great name for a store also, and not so coincidentally, owned by the same someone (I think).
I love the stuff in this store…the paper, the pens, the ribbon….. but they SERIOUSLY need to work on customer etiquette. When I walked in the clerk was on the phone. I browsed. She got off the phone, but didn’t say a thing. I browsed some more, and spent some serious time considering some ribbons. She never said hello or may I help you find something, not a thing. I browsed more, headed toward the door. I left. She never ONCE said hello, good-bye, thank you, let me know if can I help you, NOTHING. So as much as I love the contents of the store, I’m getting over it. I’ve been in there a few times, and every time it is the same. Not a way to win repeat customers!

Then I drove home to kids, family, work and all that stuff that makes life worthwhile.

Sheesh….. the week has evaporated yet again! This week started with a glorious Frayed Edges (my mini-group) day, so I’m going to break it into two posts. Then I got swamped when I realized entries for Houston (IQA) are due June 12th, and my quilt isn’t done let alone photographed and forms completed, so I’ve been quilting like a madwoman all week. I finished the quilt (well, except for the hanging sleeve and label, and they don’t have to be done to photo the front) last night, and will put entry in the mail on Monday. In the meantime… I get to share the wonderful day we had on Monday…

Hannah Beattie, the youngest of us, now lives in Harpswell, which is south of Brunswick, Maine, on a peninsula that has to be one of the most beautiful in Maine, and that is saying a LOT. I believe that Hannah must know and be friends with every amazing artist between New Hampshire and the mid-coast…see she’s one of those people that everyone love! So anyway, over the weekend Hannah writes to ask, would we like to go visit Natasha at her home and studio? Heck YES! As you can see f rom the photo above, when you drive up to the house you know you are in for a major treat… I mean, don’t you want shutters like these? I do! And in the vegetable patch to the left of the drive, look at these awesome garden people (which Natasha makes on commission, too)–that’s Kathy, Hannah and (in her arms) Nina:

For those of you who have come to art quilting lately, Natasha was one of the trail blazers, and has been at the forefront of the art quilt movement for longer than she probably wants to remember (and it also means she started young!). Here’s her website…I encourage you to go look and enjoy (and shop?). Anyway, there was plenty of color and creativity in her home… both in her studio and in the other rooms. Here’s Natasha with one of her works in progress…she began with white cloth, used lots of Shiva paintsticks and more:

and her studio (PS…please don’t blame me for the studio lust you’ll feel)

Repetition was a theme which I enjoyed… her yarn baskets:

Pencils and pens:

The pillows for sale on one table: (Kathy bought one!)

The broken-ceramics tiling she did on the woodstove chimney in the living room:

and close up:

Then there is the jewelry for sale (does natasha ever sleep????):

And tho it isn’t repetition in the same way, I LUST after this bathroom mirror:

OK..I also lust for color, and the time to create….

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Doesn’t that piece just make you want to RUN to the studio and play?

And finally, on the way out….

Next post (or maybe the one after), what we did with the rest of our day….

Not so long ago I shared the results of the Coastal Quilters’ Art Quilt Challenge, to take Dwight P’s photo of ropes and buoys and make a 10 by 10 inch art quilt. I decided to crop the photo tightly on the buoys and make a piece with the same values (light and dark areas) as the original photo, but in entirely different colors. I couldn’t decide whether to go with blues or with something wild, so I decided to make two! First, I enlarged the cropped photo to the desired size, then traced the outlines by taping tracing paper over my computer screen and, with a pencil, lightly marking the outlines:

The first is in blues (click to make larger):

The second is in pinks and purples:

After the group quilts have been displayed at the statewide annual show, Maine Quilts (in Augusta the last weekend in July), I’ll mount my two pieces on stretched cloth the way I did with the crane (below) and offer them for sale. (The crane is for sale, too….. write me if you’re interested or go surf the for sale gallery on my website). The instructions on how to mount works this way is included in the Creative Quilting With Beads book for my second project. Hmm… don’t think I’ve shared that one yet, have I? Guess that’s a new blogpost! Anyway, hope you like the style (click for larger view):

Sometimes when you do a “chore” it becomes a pleasure. I love taking ‘Widgeon for walkies… like this photo I shared not too long ago, you can find inspiration anywhere:

When we reached the end of Sweetbriar (a nearby short road), I saw a flit of black and red… a pileated woodpecker! AND I happened to have my camera with me, and he alit on a tree for long enough to get this shot:

And then we turned the corner and the sunlight was glinting off the stone wall in the Fagan’s back yard:

Walkies are fun!

One of the members on one of my e-lists is going through a rough year, recently diagnosed with not one but TWO serious illnesses at the same time. So, another group member is going to put together a snuggly quilt for her, and I made this block. The stitching around it reads: fabric, friends, health, hugs, thread, these things I wish for you, fabric, friends, health, hugs:

Then I FINALLY, after five months, got the squares cut from my BlauViolett dyed cottons and silks so I can do some tests for lightfastness (as in, will it fade a lot or not?) for this dye, procion MX-RX-7 known as BlauViolett. You may (dimly, in your distant memory) recall reading this blogpost about my December dyeing adventures. Well, I didn’t want glue to be a factor in any lightfastness testing, so I cut sorta-square pieces about 3 1/2 inches on a side and stitched them to some stabilizer (a sewing product used to prevent fabric from behaving badly when doing dense stitchery). Here is what the fabrics looked like in December up on my work table:

Here are the stitched up groups. There is a VERY wiggly sheer silk at the top, followed by the cotton (the dye is reputed to be very unstable on cotton exposed to light), silk dupioni, a silk jacquard (with a mystery fiber that is clearly neither silk nor cellulose fiber as it stayed white), and the delectable, want to roll naked in it wear it next to my body sandwashed silk . One source has told me that on silk, the dye is stable and retains its GLORIOUS color, but that on cotton it fades horribly. The two vertical strips on the left are going into the dark. The far left one is inside a manila envelope inside a cupboard, the short strip is on top of the envelope in the cupboard (which is opened fairly regularly but not subject to intense light exposure).

The other four strips are dated with the date they went up on the window. I will, I hope

remember to take them down at one-month intervals. This window faces east-southeast, and gets some of the best sunlight / exposure in our house. We don’t have any windows without the sashings, so this is the best testing spot I can find (the only other option would be pinned to the screen on the back porch, subject to the elements…nah!). At the end of summer we’ll compare the six strips side by side!