Well, two weeks have nearly evaporated since we last met, this time at Hannah’s house.  The drive down the snow peninsula toward Harpswell was beautiful… I love looking at the frozen salt water inlets, the ice heaved and shattered and piles like boulders…. We shared this and that, all of us seeming to relish a bit of a breather in our too-hectic lives.  Hannah been to a HUGE crafters and mixed media convention in California….. I think it is CHA or something like that, but check Hannah’s blog for pics… in the late January posts.

Kate has lately been seriously taken with rag rugs, including this beauty in my favorite colors….I have a feeling Kathy and Hannah are going to be following in her needlesteps…. (the needle by the way is a modified-by-kate-into-a-needle toothbrush…it has to be one of the old fashioned brushes with the hole at the end)

Kate's rag rug

Then Kathy shared what she has been doing…making mushrooms:

Kath's mushrooms and tin

and working on a project for our “round robin” of books.  When we first started meeting OMG four YEARS ago, we decided rather than do a round robin quilt, we’d do books, and make pages for each other.  Since Hannah joined us about two-plus years ago, we’ve kept talking about doing another round, and getting Hannah in on the act.  This is one of Kath’s pages in progress:

Hannah had made a ton of stuff for holiday craft sales…here she is with some of the very few items left:

Hannah and critter-friend

and how this panda excaped being bought is beyond me, he’s ADORABLE:

Hannah's Panda

I had a project (at long last!) to share, but alas can’t blog about it as I have submitted it to a magazine for possible publication. DRAT!  Stay tuned….sigh….

And of course there was food…thankfully, someone stood in for Deborah and reminded me to take pictures.  Deborah…we miss you!!!!!!!  Wish there were a job back here in Maine for hubby that could get you back from Texas!

Finally, here is Hannah’s new kitten, about 8-9 months (?) old…what a perfect cat-cat!

Kitten

Good think I like it, because we have a LOT of it!   Here are two pictures from a snow in late January, and many more from this past week.  Won’t say much…just share the pics!  Here’s the view before I went outside to see how much we got:

The answer:  a LOT!  Even before the street got its final plowing and sanding, the snow reached back up almost to the mailbox:

Mailbox

Then, looking toward the garage:

Looking down the driveway to the house

Here, looking down the street, with lotsa snow (slip slip slide) and ice underneath….

Here's what a mostly unplowed street looks like...snowy!

Sun Glow

The sun was hidden behind high thin cloud cover, and just glowed across the landscape…

Amazingly, there was no breeze and for several days the branches were crested with snow:

I love the tracery of the branches, and played a bit with Photoshop.  I think the two tweaked photos would make great  screens for printing…..

More branches and tracery...remember the Medieval cathedrals?

Photoshopped (posterized)

This year marks the 20th anniversary of SAQA, the Studio Art Quilt Associates.  They put out a call for entries from members a while back for small pieces for a traveling show.  They will all be matted with an 8×8 opening, so finished size had to be 9×9 or a bit larger (with the excess hidden under the mat, and used for mounting).  Since I make TONS of thread changes in a piece, even one that small, I decided to make two almost the same, send one to SAQA and prepare the other for sale.  I did take a photo of the SAQA one, but managed to delete it accidentally, but here is a photo of the 9×9 piece I kept (which is nearly identical).

Bird of Paradise block

It is made from my hand-dyes, commercial batiks, thread, yarn (edge-finish), and prismacolor pencil (there wasn’t enough contrast between the “spear” of the flower and the background, so light green pencil to the rescue…I hope).

I wanted to try something for this that I had done on smaller pieces…mount it on a painted/mixed media canvas.  I had some teal cloth out on the work table, tossed the piece on it, and it looked great.  So I  used mat medium to adhere acid-free tissue paper to the canvas, then painted the canvas the same teal color.  Bleah. It definitely didn’t work the same way. I added some green.

Bird on Blue canvas

Still needed more, so more paint to the rescue.  After checking with Frayed Edge Kathy D., we agreed it needed way more green.   In the end, it needed green and raw umber.  I painted the colors on, then swiped with a paper towel.

Here is the finished piece.  It will be for sale directly from  my website for a few weeks, then I’ll take it over to the Ducktrap Gallery that has my work here in Camden, Maine:

Bird of Paradise full shot

And here are two detail photos that show the texture of the canvas, which I rather like:

and:

Bird, detail 2

Amazing…. after two years working on the book and assorted family crises, I get to make art!  I’m looking forward to MORE!

After years of hinting to me that her customers would love a landscape class, I finally agreed to teach one at Maine-ly Sewing (www.mainelysewing.com) in Nobleboro, Maine.  (Contact the store to sign up, etc.)   The class will be Saturday, Feb. 28th, from 10-4 !

Birch Pond, Summer

As usual, I figured why make one quilt when you can make two…. So I made the fusible applique quilt two ways, autumn and summer.  I am so pleased with the results that I think I’ll do the four seasons, write it up as a pattern and sell it…let me know what you think?   The pattern is actually quite easy, finishes about 22×25 inches (depending on your border and your final composition of the scene…there is definitely fudge-room here!).  PS–photos are clickable for a slightly larger view.

I did easy quilting so that beginning quilters and machine quilters won’t feel intimidated…I PROMISE, it really is easy to do the quilting on these patterns even when you are new to it!  Here is a detail photo:

Initially I did the autumn version… I just love the glorious colors of Maine in Fall.  However, given that Fall is behind us, and it has been winter for quite a while, Marge and I decided to use the Summer version (hope is eternal!  It WILL come again!) to advertise the class.  But, I wanted students to see that they can make the quilt in many ways.  Frankly, I kinda think it would be fun to do it another time in totally wild colors, like plum and turquoise and mango and lime…. wouldn’t that be a hoot?  Anyway, here is a more realistic, autumnal version:

And a detail of the Autumn version; note that I did the leaf canopy two different ways… in summer I used the twist-and-chop way to cut chunks, for autumn I used the slice it into confetti method!

Hope you like the quilts, and hope to see some of you in class!

Birch Pond, Autumn, detail

A large envelope arrived from the International Quilt Festival folks in Houston yesterday; despite its size, I figured it had to be a sorry, no thanks.  WRONG!   I am teaching in Houston this coming Fall!!!!!!!!  I am elated beyond belief… it has been quite the effort to float down to be able to reach the keyboard LOL!

After I met yet another deadline I checked to see when applications were due…it was in six days!  So I quickly put together everything (I had last year asked on my blog for letters of recommendation and received several…thanks Betty, Jan, Mathea and Rebecca for your help!) and overnighted it ($16 well spent!) to Houston to make the deadline for certain.  Well, yesterday I received the results, and will have four days of teaching (I wanted 3 or 4):

Monday, October 12,
Fine Finishes (bindings and edge finishes)

Tuesday, October 13,
Machine Applique Three Ways
(the Blue Gingko pattern)

Wednesday, October 14
Tame Fiddly, Fussy Threads for Machine Quilting
(the More Machine Quilting class)

Thursday, October 15
Chunk and Jigsaw Fusible Applique–
total fun!  fabric postcards plus

The classes will be in the Janome machine classroom (yeah!) except for the Wednesday class, which will be in the BabyLock classroom…better go find a BabyLock dealer and see how their machines are set up!

I’ve set it up to do small kits for the classes, as that makes it a lot easier for both the students and teachers.  They get what they need that is unusual (they are asked to b ring their own fabric, batting, etc….usual items) like crisp interfacing, water soluble paper, fancy threads, that sort of thing.

So, now I’m going to go eat breakfast (Irish oats and a banana) and float again!  THEN, after I finish a project to submit for consideration for the 2009 Quilting Arts Gifts issue (comes out before the holidays) and get that mailed off, I need to start getting my set-up done to use the video camera and digital projector in my teaching.  I actually signed up for a Jan Krentz workshop this may tho I pretty much never do traditional piecing any more just so I can watch how she teaches.  She’s coming to Maine in May at the invitation of the Pine Tree Quilt Guild, and I can’t wait!