This morning I had a rash of spam – more than usual and a good portion of them were asking the same question in the exact same words with different names and addresses attached. Did I create my own website, basically. My website was created by Gloderworks and that is stated on the homepage. I highly recommend Gloderworks, they do an amazing job and are always there if I need any assistance.  So if you were asking for legitimate information, there you go. Gloderworks is in my “links”. If you were phishing – sorry. I don’t click on spam.

Speaking of links, I added one today for Quilters Blogs. They monitor 976 blogs a day so check it out if you just can’t get enough blogs. They also have an on-line search for quilt shops.

It occurred to me that I never did show you a full image of Spring Burning. I didn’t want to show it before it was accepted somewhere, but it will be at “Celebrate Spring” in Chicago and is already safely in Houston to go there.  It has a lot of beads that really don’t show up well in the picture.

I felt badly about keeping it so under wraps and that’s the reason I decided to open up the process with the next quilt “Colorado Kids”. Go back to Jan 25 the follow along with the step by step making of that one.

Yesterday I taught a Machine Quilting class at Stitching Traditions in Topeka. It was the class that had to be canceled back when the weather was so bad, but that was not a problem yesterday. Spring was in the air with temperatures in the 60’s! The class went well and everyone made great progress on their way to becoming super machine quilters.

The morning e-mail brought news that “The Merchant’s House” won Viewer’s Choice at the current show at The Topeka Art Guild Gallery.

The show, “Paint Pink” will be up for another month.

When I got home my acceptance letter for AQS was in the mail. “Spring Encounter” was juried in and will be going to Paducah!

Lyric Kinard just wrote a wonderful post about the jury process on her blog. If you have ever wondered about that process check it out. I met Lyric in Houston the year we both had pieces in “I Remember Mama” and she is one of the nicest people I know! How she finds the time to do all that she does with small children at home is beyond me!

Thanks everyone, for the comments!

First thing yesterday I cleaned off the cutting table and put the fabrics away. The empty table makes the whole studio look bigger! The design wall is empty too, makes me want to create something new to fill the void.  Or I could just hang my “Colorado Kids” back up…..

When all of the fabric was sorted and folded, this is all that was left of the rock fabrics – good thing the piece was not any larger!

Most of these pieces were too small to keep and went into the trash. In a few weeks when I go to PA for the AQS show, I’ll be shopping for rock fabric.

I did get a nice start on the taxes yesterday afternoon so maybe it won’t be too long before I can mess up that table again!

The top is finished!! I scrolled back to see when I started and it was Jan 25 that I posted the photograph I would be working with. It has been a long process but I am quite pleased with the way it turned out. You can click on the tag Mt Goats to go back to the beginning.  At this point it measures 39 x 45″.

Several hours were spent yesterday just removing the freezer paper from the back. I am eager to get started on the quilting which will change and enhance it, but realistically, I must put it aside for now as it’s deadline is not until August and I have more pressing things to deal with – like taxes!

Thanks all of you who have hung in there throughout the process and especially those of you who posted. It’s been fun!

I was really hoping to finish yesterday and it was an intense day trying! Lot’s of unsewing takes too much time. I changed out six rocks, altered sections to improve hind legs on the middle goat and added a leg to the front goat. In the photo his fourth leg does not show, but I decided it needed to. I also gave him a highlight on the chest which was blending away into a rock. The middle goat got a nose and a lighter shadow for his neck and some of the smaller units got sewn together.

I should be able to finish today!

I didn’t get to sew a stitch yesterday as I spent the morning doing other tasks including preparing to ship a quilt,  the afternoon in town meeting a friend for lunch and a movie, and running errands. We saw “The Princess and the Frog” which had some good music and fun moments, but was way too long and rather ho-hum.

My piece in “Meet the Artist: SAQA 20th Anniversary Trunk Show� has been chosen to be one of the 55 pieces archived in the permanent collection of the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.  It will be available to researchers and students as a record of the art quilt in 2009.

Sandra Sider, who selected the works for the IQSC collection says  “One of the best parts of the 2009 SAQA conference was the three hours I spent in my hotel room, with the 20th Anniversary Trunk Show spread out over beds, tables, chairs, and floor.  What an explosion of creative energy! My curatorial task was to select approximately fifty pieces that would be donated in 2010 as a SAQA collection to the International Quilt Study Center. This collection documents the various techniques, processes, materials, and artistic styles in quilt art during the early 21st century, and the SAQA Board envisions these quilts as research tools, far into the future.  Your quilt was selected because it represents a particularly distinctive or original approach. Congratulations! Sandra Sider SAQA Vice President.�

During the past year, many people have viewed the Trunk Shows in venues across the United States and in several other countries.  They have been shown at SAQA Regional meetings, to Quilt Guilds, in Gallery shows, at IQF receptions, and I’m sure to neighbors and friends wherever the trunks have visited. Everywhere they’ve traveled, they have received an overwhelmingly positive reaction.

These were small pieces, I think they were 12 x 12″. Mine is called “Vinca” and shows the technique of curved seam picture piecing and machine quilting. It is indeed an honor to be in a collection at IQSC!

I only got to work a couple of hours yesterday, but I got the eye enlarged and the sections of the upper half sewn together. Also a few of the units in the lower half.

Today I need to go to town so may not accomplish a whole lot! It’s time to get “Burlingame Fire” off to AQS for the Lancaster show.

Here it is the first of March already and this little snowdrop, that I think emerged in January is still looking good.

It is only the second year for the snowdrops that I planted and they have not yet multiplied as I had hoped but at least they are hanging in there.

The ice is melting on the fish pond. Here is a glimpse of a big Koi, two of the goldfish and a Golden Orfe.

As I worked yesterday it became apparent that the upper rock ledge was actually distracting,

drawing attention away from the babies, so I lopped off three and a half inches. Good! Now there is even less to work on! I thought the right upper brush border was too dark but I liked the idea of it so I re cut another from a lighter section of fabric and sewed it in.

By the end of the day, I had completed the units and sewn together the sections of the upper portion as well as the lower ledge.

This required some un sewing which is time consuming but necessary. Since I had to take apart the rock area below the back kid’s face I took the opportunity to add a smidgen of white to define his chin. Unfortunately while I was in there I forgot that I also wanted to enlarge his eye. I pinned up a bit of fabric to his eye and I really do think it is worth doing. I could go in with a Pigma pen and make it a little bigger but then there would be a seam line right across his eye. Not good. I will most likely take it apart again and fix it.

For the lower right border that was questionable – dark foliage, fern?- I ended up with neither, using instead some of the flower fabric that is in the hillside, with a bit more on the right edge of the rock ledge.

I sketched noses on vellum and pinned those in place on the two closest goats for an idea of how they might look.

At this point the piece measures about 40 x 46″. Quilting will take it up probably a couple of inches. I had intended for it to finish at least 40″ so I’m not sure what happened. I think I had planned to cut the edge pieces bigger and forgot!

Tomorrow I will start to address all the little bits I have pinned up and do my tweaks. It is nearly done! But I know from experience it will take longer than I think.

I replaced the “borrowed” piece back to the lowers section and cut some pieces of the new fabric for the upper portion. Completing the section at the upper left required subdividing some of the units in order to use those small bits of fabric that I have to left work with.

I cut the two right border strips, making the fern one shorter and recutting the ledge rock to extend out to the edge. I pinned a bit of the fern fabric over some light rock fabric behind the front goats back leg that has been bothering me. That whole section of ledge should probably be darker.

Now that I am not distracted by the recorded Olympics Figure Skating, I feel like I made pretty good progress yesterday!