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Color Inspiration

February 15th, 2006


The other day I was driving home when I glimpsed the most incredible colors through the trees on the rise facing west. My camera isn’t very good, and the zoom is pathetic so the “close up” is kinda blurry, and the color got washed out a bit, but who cares…look at those COLORS! I actually turned the car around, drove back a few hundred yards and turned back towards home just to take the pictures…. Makes me want to dye fabric and sew!

It also reminds me of some of Judith Content’s quilts. Here are a few at Thirteen Moons Gallery and some more at Audart Quilts .

Busy! Lots of little bits….

February 12th, 2006

Hi all….what a crazy few weeks it has been. Since January 28, I think I’ve put over 800 miles on my car! Usually I get one or two tanks of gas a month …that’s about 250-400 miles a month…..
Anyway, I’ve been working on a series of journal sized quilts about color, which will be teaching samples. Here’s what my design wall looks like:

A bulletin board is more like it! I want to get the color studies fused up, then take a break before quilting, make up the samples for my Fine Finishes class (an assortment of binding techniques), and finally get started on my Tableaux quilt……phew!

Amaryllis Symmetry

February 10th, 2006

Wow….talk about symmetry….I LOVE the way this amaryllis bloomed in four directions. Perfect color, perfect symmetry.

There is also something incredibly voluptuous and sexual about these blossoms. Since this is ostensibly a G rated site, I’ll let you fill in the appropriate references, but talk about lush, enticing….there’s a quilt or three in here, I KNOW it!

New England Quilt Museum

February 9th, 2006

Part of the crazy week just past was a road trip to Lowell, Massachusetts, to the New England Quilt Museum. I was really floored and honored when the state-wide Pine Tree Quilt Guild asked me to submit my quilt Bijagos Warrior to be the guild’s entry into the juried exhibit, The Best of New England Quilt Guilds. Well, he got juried in! Phew! After them asking me, such a newcomer to the state, I was really thrilled he made it into the show.

With the materials to send in the quilt, was an invitation….would anyone like to present a “Brown Bag Lunch” on either March 2 or February 2 in conjunction with the exhibit. Seeing a great opportunity to get my name out there and just have fun, I called immediately, they booked me, and I planned a road trip. Cheri Tamm Raymond, the former manager (last day was last Friday!) of the local quilt shop (a tiny place) and her grown daughter Meg and I planned a road trip, and prayed it didn’t snow. Well, it didn’t, and did we have fun. Cheri took this picture of me standing next to my quilt (taken with permission of the museum director…normally you can’t take pics!):

After that, we popped into Friends Fabric Art in Lowell…..Cheri is mostly a traditional quilter (was Professional Quilter’s Teacher of the Year in 1988, and boy was I nervous the first time I taught in the shop with her there, but she has been SOOOOO encouraging and helpful and supportive…it’s wonderful!), but I have high hopes of enticing her to the art side, at least sometimes, as she bought a wonderful assortment of Stef Francis hand-dyed silk cocoons and ribbons and trims.

Then we drove north to Portsmouth, to visit Portsmouth Fabrics. Oh WOW….I have never, ever seen so many batiks on one place other than the Bali Fabrics Warehouse (yeah…the company warehouse). AND they had velvets, and batik rayons, and silks…oh my! I was relatively restrained in my purchases, but happy to meet the owner, Gretchen, who bought some of my patterns for the shop. At her request I shared a few of my quilts, and left my teaching brochure….crossing my fingers!

So that was that….now, to crash for the night and do more posts soon!

Frayed Edges, February 2006

February 7th, 2006

Bittersweet……

this was our last meeting with Deborah, at least with her living here in Maine, who is moving to Dallas on Feb. 17th. Sigh. Sob. Oh dear. Well……..it is in the same state as Houston, so here’s to Houston in October!!!! We will miss having Deborah SO much!

As a farewell, we had a wonderful lunch and Deborah treated us to a prototype of a workshop, working in a series on postcard-sized art pieces. We started the day almost as usual. Hannah Beattie, whom Deborah met recently, was able to come and join us…yeah! Kathy Daniels, alas, had to work—her co-worker had the audacity to have a baby and have to have a c-section on our last day (ahem!). So we were up one and down one….but in spirit we are all together. Morning was coffee and yapping (of course) and sharing (ditto). Then we had a wonderful lunch–Deborah’s a whiz with that George Foreman grill, and actually has me mulling the idea of buying one, salad and fresh pineapple from Kate and Hannah.

And, drum roll, I went waaaaayyyyy off my diet and made my mom’s “Christmas Rum Cake”—the only reason for Christmas is that is what we always made for the holiday. Otherwise it is cake soaked in a coffee rum syrup, with a rum-laced custard between the three layers, frosted with whipped cream topped with apricot halves. DELECTABLE!

The afternoon, believe it or not, was even better. We made art cards! Here we all are:

Kate is contemplating her flowers,

while Deborah and Hannah are consulting about Hannah’s wonderful houses.

I love the roof lines, which for some reason (bizarre way that my brain works) remind me of gnome hats (this is a good, whimsical association by the way).

Deborah worked on these scenics, but since she was the teacher this time, she didn’t get as far along as we three did.

Then, in the middle of it, the phone rings–the floral delivery guy arrived with this vase of flowers:

From KATHY! Gulp….the one time I almost started to cry…we’re gonna miss Deborah so much! But Kathy was there with us in spirit, and we’ll just e-mail, blog, photos-on-the-web, and call when Deborah is in Texas.

And last of all, here are my turtles. Two are a size that will make it to Virginia Spiegel’s fundraiser to fight cancer (sold at the quilt show in Chicago), so I’d better finish them up soon!