Archive for March, 2010

Sold!

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Bathsheba has been sold and has gone to a new home!!

I’ll miss having her here, but I’m glad she’s out of storage and being enjoyed.

Yesterday we had to go to town to deliver everything to the tax preparer, ship patterns and generally run errands. I found a sale on roses so now I have to make time to plant four rose bushes. Two climbers for the gate and two Knock-Outs for who knows where. Those are the ones that are supposed to bloom all season.

It was on the schedule to ship “Spring Encounter” to AQS but I ran out of time to package it so will have to do another trip to town today for that – no wonder I never get caught up.

I missed a deadline yesterday by leaving it to the last minute, and recently realized that the deadline for IQF is in May! Can I make something? I don’t know!

Continued…

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Yesterday’s post ended rather abruptly as I hit “publish” instead of “edit”! I wanted to insert this photo from the Jungen exhibit which was a HUGE red quilty thing composed of  mostly clothing, everything from parkas to sheer dresses and even stuffed toys, everything red and texturey all sewn together.This photo shows only a small portion which by itself would be bed quilt size so the whole thing was gigantic.

After Chocolate World we went to a quilt shop – and, yes, I did buy more fabric! Then off to one of the markets that seem to be common in the area – like big indoor farmer’s markets, only more permanent. Wonderful selections of fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, baked goods, etc. Also places to purchase lunch, so we did. YUM! In the afternoon we had an appointment to visit the State Museum of PA to see some of the very old quilts that are stored in acid free boxes and wraps, and kept in cold storage. Rose volunteers there so we had a nice visit with the curator before spending some time alone with the wonderful quilts. What an amazing opportunity!

On the way to the airport in Baltimore on Saturday, we stopped off at another market where they were having an auction of Amish furniture and quilts, garden items and other things, but it turned out to be new, not antique, so didn’t hold our attention too long. We spent more time on the inside looking at the booths and furniture there, and having lunch. By then it was time to head out for the airport and a detour caused us to have to take a really scenic route, through the rolling hills and farmland. Sorry, I didn’t take photos, but just enjoyed it!

The flight home was uneventful, which is a GOOD thing!! Now I am still catching up and getting back into the swing of things here at home. There were orders to fill and ship, things to put away, so much to do – and I have new ideas and plans swirling in my head.

I’m Back!

Monday, March 29th, 2010

It was a great trip!! Rose gave me an unexpected treat- lunch and the afternoon in Washington, D.C., hoping to see the famous cherry blossoms, but we were a week too early, though there were a lot of other blooming trees and daffodils out. We couldn’t get very close to the Capitol, they were assembling a motorcade,

so we walked over to the U.S. Botanic Garden and enjoyed the hundreds of orchids on display as well as all of the other exhibits inside the Conservatory – it was pretty cold and windy outside so the tropical atmosphere felt nice!

After that we went to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian which was very impressive! A special exhibit on display there is art by Brian Jungen who make things out of common items like this Whale skeleton made out of those cheap white plastic lawn chairs.

It was getting late but we managed to squeeze in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History as well, where I really enjoyed seeing the Gems and Minerals and the Hope Diamond.

Then it was time to catch the train back to where we had left the car which for this country girl was an adventure in itself!!

The AQS show in Lancaster was the main reason for the trip, but the next morning we went to the MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) facility where Rose volunteers every Wed and helped with preparations for the big annual quilt sale which will be later this week. I hand sewed sleeves on a couple of wall hangings, cut a bunch of 5.5″ squares and started the marking of a large quilt. After lunch we toured the facility where they are hard at work preparing things to send to Haiti and other disaster sites round the world. Then we had a little show and tell where I showed some of my work. I do think they enjoyed seeing something very different from what they are used to, these ladies are wonderful hand quilters, doing traditional work.

By late afternoon we had to leave and head out to the show for a quick look around before grabbing something to eat and finding the venue for the evening lecture by Karen Stone. When we found “Burlingame Fire” we discovered that it had a Third Place ribbon!! That’s always pretty cool!

The show was on three floors of the Convention Center, downtown and this is it’s first year. There are things that will need tweaking, but all in all, it went well. Some areas were poorly lit and there could have been better signage/information as to where things were. Parking was far away and you needed to take the free shuttle buses back and forth. The vendors were mixed in with the displays and I managed to spend some of my money and return home with a heavier bag, though I did not find the “rock” fabrics I was looking for.

By Friday we had seen everything we needed to at the show, so we spent that day running around. Visited Hershey’s Chocolate World for the factory tour- yum!

More tomorrow!

Flowers In The Snow

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

It’s Spring? Hard to tell with the 6″ of snow we got Saturday that caused our road to drift shut again! But with a little luck that will be the last snow for this season. The Hellebore White Lady bloomed anyway and has at least one more bud to come.

This is it’s first year for me and it is pretty cool to get flowers in the snow. The Snowdrops that started in January are still hanging in there, all 6 that I planted bloomed so I’m hoping they multiply for next year.

Last week when it was in the 60’s I walked around and saw that most of what I planted last fall is coming up.

I leave very early tomorrow morning to fly out to PA for the AQS-Lancaster show, so this will probably be my last post until next Sunday.

SAQA Foot Square Auction

Friday, March 19th, 2010

I recently received an unexpected surprise in the mail – two yards of beautiful hand dyed fabric by Judy Robertson! Thank you Del! When I looked at the yellow and purple one, I saw wonderful reflections and knew it needed to be water. I wanted something to divide it and considered a heron, but ended up with this sailboat, even though I know nothing about boats. Abject apologies to any sailors out there! I do know that a sail boat has a thing at the bottom of the mast to hold the sail, but this one may be wrecked. It does seem a bit wonky.

It is only 12 x 12″, machine pieced and machine quilted, and will go to the annual Studio Art Quilters Associates Benefit Auction which takes place on-line in the fall.

The whole little piece is cut from the one fabric, the main backgound from the area that first impressed me with the effect of a reflected bit of land and the boat and it’s reflection from another section. There is no seam between the boat and it’s reflection which meant I had to piece in a v-shaped bit of yellow at each end.

There is still quite a bit of the fabric left to make it’s way into other quilts, perhaps flowers.

Made It Into The Newspaper!

Monday, March 15th, 2010

There was a nice article in the Sunday paper yesterday about me and my quilts that did NOT start out with “Not your Grandmother’s quilts” as so often is the case with art quilts. That’s a GOOD thing! If you want to actually read it click here.

The only thing I wish had been added,  is that the photo cited was used with permission of the photographer.  But all in all, I think the reporter did a fine job!

Saturday I had a Machine Quilting class at Prairie Pieces which is about an hour away that was very well attended – we were really stacked in there! A great group of ladies and we had a lot of fun in spite of a few machine problems. Added bonus – I found some great fabrics to start replenishing my “rock”fabric that the mountain goat project ate up!

Yesterday I began the 12 x 12” piece for the SAQA Auction.  I’m hoping to get it finished today as tomorrow I plan to take my Bernina in for it’s annual checkup while I am away to PA and the AQS show next week. Busy, busy!!

http://cjonline.com/life/2010-03-13/womans_quilts_make_the_cut

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

As often happens every morning as I try to deal with my e-mail, I get led astray. This morning it was to Australia and New Zealand to enjoy the exhibit of seven textile artists called Southernlands curated by Dijanne Cevaal. Fair warning- it’ll eat up some of your time, but it’s worth it!

Yesterday I think I got everything lined out to take to the tax preparer, so today I just need to check it all over and call for an appointment.  Then attend to some entries with deadlines fast approaching- maybe already too late for some!  It is so easy to get behind, but I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel and thinking about the next project which needs to be a 12 x 12″piece for the SAQA auction.

Do Wacka Daisy

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

This lovely quilt, “Do Wacka Daisy”, was made by Karen Kielmeyer, started in a “Coneflowers” workshop in NW Arkansas last summer. Karen was using her own hand dyes, strip pieced, for the background pieces. I think it’s wonderful and so did AQS! It will be at Paducah next month!!

Congratulations Karen, and good luck!  Thanks for sharing…….

Spam

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

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.

Spring Burning

Monday, March 8th, 2010

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.