Wednesday, September 29, 2010

You Know You Are A Quilter of Habit When....

You know you are a Quilter of habit when you try to bury the knot you just made after sewing a button on your husbands dress pants....Yup, I just tried to do that! Guess you know where my mind is!
I have set aside the truck quilt for another week. My mind just too distracted to concentrate on painting highlights and shading right now. I have a little bit of time before my personal deadline for this piece.
I started a new quilt yesterday that I am going to put in our family room. There is a dark corner in-between the built-in and the window that needs an artistic piece. My vision is for it to pull the inside colors(white, light tan, greens and blues) and the hydrangeas just outside the window. I'm planning on using different surface design techniques to pull in the greens, pinks, blues and purples of nature, but in an abstract way...
Have a creative day everyone!

Monday, September 20, 2010

Clearing My Mind.....

I have to blog today to clear my mind. There is just too much going on and I'm not as organized in my daily routine as I use to be!

Today is the deadline for entries for the 2010 Dallas Area Fiber Artists Membership Annual Show. I’m the Show Chair, and this is my first time to be involved in this capacity of a show, so I’m going a little crazy. My work background, before I ventured into full-time fiber art, was in Church Finance and before that, the Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities Market, writing processes and procedures, doing a little bit of report programming and training and compiling lots of information to send out to someone else. I'm use to having a "To Do" list going and right now I have several lists! Lists that I made in meetings, lists that I made in the car/kitchen, lists from emails I've received... I feel like an applique' quilt should come together here somewhere! Okay, it's time for me to get all these lists in one place! I'm going to try out the Microsoft software "OneNote" and see how I like it. Maybe this will be the stitch, or fusible, to bring all my notes together seemlessly!




Okay, now that you have read my venting for the day….on to more artistic things. Here is the latest photo of my truck quilt. The grill will have the strings of sequin beads for a texture break and this morning I was reading some things about Mistyfuse that I hadn’t tried before, so maybe there will be some Mistyfuse techniques added. Hopefully later this week I will be able to spend a day painting on this quilt, I really love the way it is coming together!

Oh, and if you haven't been to StudioJules on Artfire lately, I'm selling Mistyfuse by the yard!

Better eat some lunch and get back to making my lists, checking them twice and putting them all in one list!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I haven't gotten very far.....



Well, I haven't gotten as far as I would like on my truck quilt. I've suffered for three days with a sinus migraine and I just don't create very well with the pressure and pain. To cure the ache in my head I had a mani/pedi yesterday and a massage today. My body is sore, but I think after I have some lunch and my power drink, I should be good to go this afternoon.

I love, love, love the fabrics I'm using for this truck. The interior fabric is hand dyed silk I bought from Frieda Anderson. The tactile change in fabric is giving it a nice texture. I’m enjoying combining different fabrics and right now my studio is starting to look like there was a fabric explosion. There is tulle, organza, organdy, and cotton fabrics strewn about, along with sequin and other ornamental fabrics. Who knows what I’ll finally end up using on this quilt.

My daughter-in-law has already said that this quilt is hers when I'm done! We'll see about that, I may have to make two, one for her, one to show/sell. Maybe I'll make the one for her in fabrics that will go in Hudson's room, so he can grow up with the truck. Yesterday when I was talking to her on the phone he was playing with a train and choo chooing in the phone. So cute!

I'm listening to Lori Copeland's book "A Case of Crooked Letters". Blogging is making me feel better and ready to get back to work!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Starting the Truck Quilt

Yesterday I Misty fused my fabric for the truck quilt.





I’ve pulled additional fabrics out to include also, but won’t decide on those until I get further in the project today.

I also traced out the pattern onto freezer paper and placed the original underneath my appliqué press sheet.



Last year I special ordered this press sheet from Bear Thread Designs. They have stock sizes on their website and in their booths at the quilt shows, but I wanted a custom size. Mine measures 42”x36”. Since most of my quilts are approximately 30”x30”, I wanted one that would accommodate my quilts appropriately.
Today I’ll start “auditioning” the different fabrics for the various pieces of the truck. Here is the background fabric. I dyed it earlier this year.



It’s one of those pieces that was squirt the dye and see what happens. I love the colors and the abstract results.
Until later!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Exciting News!


This morning I received an email with exciting news! My Old Alton Bridge quilt was selected for a book to be published next year "Lone Stars III: Texas Quilts Today, 1986-2011". This book is the third in a series by Kary Bensenhan and Nancy O'Bryant Puentes. The book is being published by the University of Texas Press and will be released Fall of 2011 to coincide with the opening of the Texas Quilt Museum. To be included with so many nationally known Texas Quilters, well, to say the least, I'm in awe and am inspired to continue working on new art quilts and new surface processes.


This are the latest two art quilts in my Mailbox Series - "Fall Mailbox" and "2010 Cardinal Way". I completed it "Fall Mailbox" yesterday and "2010 Cardinal Way a couple of weeks ago.
Today I'm going to start on a new quilt. It's a pick-up truck. I'm using a picture of my grandfather's truck that we all learned how to drive in out in the pasture between fishing ponds.
I loved this old truck! I have wonderful memories of going fishing with my grandfather and just riding around in the pasture with him. We called him "Foxie". His favorite newspaper cartoon was "Grandpa Foxie", so that's what we called him! The nickname fit him much better than Grandpa, Grandfather, or Grandad.
I'll keep you posted on the progress of this quilt, it will be fun to work on it and try some new processes. I've already dyed, discharged and over dyed some fabric for it. We'll see what else I come up with.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Iraqi Bundles of Love

I think I posted this last year, I'm doing it again! One of our courageous servicemen is collecting "Bundles of Love" for the Iraqi people. What's a "Bundle of Love", FABRIC! Here is the link to his website, he is also on Facebook, so just search for "Iraqi Bundles of Love".
IBOL website
I'm spending the day getting ready for a community garage sale and trying to finish a small art quilt. I've worked on this small quilt for a couple of days and have started over three times. I just couldn't get the fabric, batting and fusible to cooperate very well. Kept getting the "wave" or "puckering" effect when I fused the background fabric on. Some people will say it's the batting, I say it's the fusible. From now on I'm only using MistyFuse, the other brands just don't compare!
Have a great day everyone and I'll post pictures of my IBOL bundle and my small art quilts when I'm done!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

On to Other Things


I finished the binding on the Traditional Batik Quilt and the Pumpkin Quilt yesterday. I was able to get this picture of the batik quilt, and had to wait for the wind to quit kicking up before I could get one of the pumpkin quilt. The batik quilt measures 65" square and the pumpkin quilt is 71"x73".



Since I finished these quilts I have taken time to hand paint on some fabric that I screen printed at my "Dye Party" a few weeks ago. Both of these will be 9"x12" and will go to the SAQA-Texas exhibit at the Houston show.



I'm calling this one "Hugs and Kisses". I hi-jacked this screen from one of the other ladies at the party. I'm going to hand quilt X's and O's on it.



"Feelin' Groovy", my Red, White and Blue Themed quilt. Hand painting this one was fun, going in waves and circles, controlling the paint...very relaxing.

I'm listening to books written by Susan Wiggs right now. Just finished "Lakeside Cottage" and today I started listening to "Table for Five". Listening to books is so relaxing and I'm able to escape to another world while I'm enjoying my art in my studio. Life is good!