Quilting on the Edge

Snowbird arrival on Gulf Coast

Sorry I haven't posted for about  week.........I've been travelling to our place on the gulf coast of Florida where we escape the winter of the midwest.  Yes, I'm a snowbird.........and happy for it!  House is no worse for our absence......immediately opened the shutters and windows and doors to let in that wonderful gulf breeze and sounds of the palm trees moving in the wind, and distant roar of the surf.  Today I plan to set up my studio again....miss my fabrics, books, and sewing machine, anxious to make something,anything!  Just to be busy creating, regardless of the outcome.  At dawn I'll take a walk on the beach, dawn arrives late these days until we fall back the clocks one hour in a few days.  It's six thirty AM now and still very dark outside........ want to set up the outdoor furnishings also today if I have the time and energy.  Travelling can be exhausting........I'm not as young as I used to be!  (she said, combing her greying hair).  I'll post a photo soon of a great movable  sculpture we purchased in Sedona Arizona and that now graces our patio here........ Chris

Fabled Fiber Exhibit at International Quilt Show in Houston

                This is my contribution to the Fabled Fibers Exhibit debuting at the International Quilt Show in Houston in early November.  It is to illustrate the fable The Tortoise and The Hare.....special thanks to my sister for Sue Manering for making the two animals for me to place on my quilt.  To see all the quilts, go to www.Fabledfibers.com       There will be a calendar and notecards printed and 25 percent of all monies are give to Operation KidComfort, to assist children of miliary families.  You'll be able to order the calendar and notecards from that website in the near future. 

Priority Quilts for Alzheimers

                      In the quilt art online group, those of us not going to Houston Quilt Show are going to make priority quilts for the Alzheimers project started by Ami Simms.  This is the piece I made, it's 9 by 12 inches, and it's called Miss Millie.  She was the preschool teacher of my sons more than 20 years ago, and recently lost her battle with Alzheimers.   It shows building blocks arranged in a column, and then they tumble off, just like it must feel when you are losing your thoughts and memories to Alzheimer's.  The close up shows a written phrase:"and the blocks come tumbling down", written along the curvature of the background line. The nature of the background fabric reminded me of brain tissue, and that became the inspiration for this piece.

Solitary Heron

                        The inspiraton for this piece was from a photo I took of a small heron sitting on a rock right in front of me sitting on the beach of Tampa Bay on Anna Maria Island.  I transferred the actual photo to fabric, then used other fabrics to extend the beach, sky, and water to create a larger quilt. Lot of stitching to create beach prints and grasses was done.  You probably can see where the photo ends and other fabrics begin by looking closely.

Art Quilts XII: River Rush

This is my piece River Rush that is currently on exhibit at the Art Quilts XII exhibit in Chandler Arizona.  The theme of the exhibit is "Current", and I chose to show the power of water as it conforms to a narrow path or ravine.  The blue rectangles on the edges are meant to be sticks that usually accumulate on a river bed, these are also rushing along with the river.

Innocence Lost

This piece came about after I was reading in the paper a few weeks ago about the Amish community in Nickel Mines PA and how they were doing a year after that horrible tragedy in which five girls were killed in the schoolhouse.  I couldn't get it out of my mind, so I decided to make this small quilt to honor the girls.  I used traditional Amish colors to piece the typical Amish background.  The focus blocks are for each lost girl, I decided to show the ties  from their white caps as a symbol of them.  I finished it with seed stitching by hand around the ties in gold metallic thread. 

Walnut Dyeing of Fabric

                     This afternoon I took a bike ride around the lakes in our town and afterwards stopped to sit and enjoy the view when I noticed a bunch of walnuts lying on the ground.  I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to take them home and see how they would dye white fabric. The first photo is of the walnuts in a plastic bucket.  I boiled water and poured it over the walnuts, and inserted two pieces of white fabric.  After about a half hour there was not noticeable difference in the color of the fabric, so I left it in for three hours.  The picture above shows the color change between the original white fabric and the walnut dyed fabric.  More walnuts and darkers hulls probably would have made the color change more intense.  Just my Thursday afternoon experiment! 

Sunlit Branch

I had so much fun making "Wildfire" with the two inch scrap pieces that I went for it again, this time with the greens.  I have always really really loved the gold and green fabric with the lines that remind me of branches, so a few squares of that fabric became my focal point for this foot square art quilt. I get the sense of sun reaching into the forest and selecting just one place to shine.  I also love the mood it creates.   Hope you do as well!