“Snow Buddies” formerly known as “the dogs quilt” is finally finished! It measures 48 x 48″.

Quilting it took a long time due to the size of it and the density of the stitching. These are my dogs, a Komondor, 145 lbs and a Shepard mix, 165 lbs!

I took the photo several years ago and have wanted for some time to make it into an art quilt.   Komondors are a fairly rare breed and it is not easy to find them in art so I was especially interested in doing this for a special exhibit that will take place at International Quilt Festival in Houston in the fall.

For those of you who are not quilters, my work is entirely pieced by machine from bits of commercially printed or hand dyed fabrics and then machine quilted.I love the search for just the right fabric to portray my vision.

Koms are always white and are usually shown with long cords to the ground so they resemble a big rag mop. I don’t show this one so I keep his cords cut back so as to lessen the amount of stuff he can collect outside.  Still he can bring in a lot of trash as he loves to roll in leaves and dirt.  They both have huge feet and I dread mud season!

The Kaw Valley Quilt Guild met yesterday and I learned that my quilt “The Merchant’s House” won First Place in the Viewer’s Choice voting in the show last weekend.

The Machine Quilting Unlimited April 2013 E-News is showing the cover of the May/June issue which features my “Prairie Fire” quilt and my article. This issue will be available  in late April.

I have resisted getting involved with social media, because I feel like I am stressed to keep up with everything as it is! But Studio Art Quilts Assoc. has a Pinterest page for the SAQA Benefit Auction and they have posted my donation, “Northern Cardinal” along with others there. And IQA has posted “Who, Me?” on their Facebook page about “Celebrate Spring”. When I looked last week there were over 600 hits! People love puppies!! Celebrate Spring debuts in Cincinnati April 11-13.

Last night was First Friday at the Topeka Art Guild Gallery and the presentation for awards for the judged show that is up right now, “My Earth, My Art”. This is predominately paintings, a few photography works and my quilt art. One of my entries, “Bignonia” won the second place cash award!

It’s a great show, if you are in the area be sure and check it out before the end of May. My “Colorado Kids” is also there on display.

Also in the area this weekend is the Kaw Valley Quilt Guild Quilt show at the Toyota dealership on Hwy 59 (Iowa St) in Lawrence, KS. It’s always a great show and three of my pieces will be there, “Merchants House”, “Mon Grand Pere” and “What’s Up at the 4-H Fair?”.

I will be there late Sunday to see the show and pick up my things.

Empty Spools at Asilomar has posted the teachers for the 2014 workshops, including ME in the first session; not sure when it is open for enrollment, as the current 2013 offerings are going on now.

I finally finished the quilting on the dogs quilt – oh, dear – I really do need a name for it! I still need to block, trim and bind it though. I am looking forward to starting the next one!!

The snow is nearly gone and the mud is here! Should be in the 60′s this weekend, but maybe with rain, which is not a bad thing.

Yesterday I quilted most all day, I NEED to get this dog quilt finished; I don’t remember ever spending this much time on one quilt. Not so much the hours, but the calendar time. I guess I just need closer deadlines to keep my nose to the grindstone. I tend to get distracted. It’s coming along, though and a few more dedicated days will do wonders. I am planning a couple more projects which I hope will be smaller!

When I posted those last pictures, I noticed right away a change that needed to be made at the upper right.

It was a quick fix and I got the layering done and the quilting started. I’ve had a few days to work on it and it’s coming right along. Those are white tipped pins in the eyes to help me decide where the sparkles go.  The eyes don’t come alive til they get some sparkle.

Yesterday I taught a hand quilting class so did not work on it at all and today I finished up the tax prep so will not work on it today either, as it is getting late and I am tired of sitting!

We’ve been getting rain and the snow is all gone. For the first time in 8 or 9 months there is water in the farm ponds. Just a big puddle but what an improvement. Imagine the mud that two big dogs can track in with these big hairy feet. The Kom is 145 lbs and the Shepard mix is 165 lbs! They are loving this weather!

So this is what it looked like the last time I posted. I was working with fabric that was not exactly what I wanted and was not happy with the results.

I liked the idea of the large scale white on blue leaf print for the foregound, but the reality of it was not so good. It was too busy, too demanding of your attention.

Saturday I taught an Intro to Picture Piecing class at a local shop and found a batik with possibilities. It was one that I had rejected earlier because It was a clearer blue than I wanted and it had muddy brownish areas. Since that time, I had added some browns around the dogs’ feet, so that became a possible asset and I purchased a half yard which cost more than a full yard did back when I started his crazy journey!

I used the new fabric to replace the large leaf print and I like it much better. I finished the sewing yesterday and spent a couple of hours watching “The Way We Were” and removing all of the hundreds of little bits of paper. Today I hope to put away the fabric and begin the layering and quilting process. This piece has already taken way too long!

I really did think that someone, somewhere would know where some of that Wheat batik was when I posted it to the QuiltArt list with thousands of members. It was gratifying to see the number of quilters who responded with offers of similar fabrics. But I already had similar fabrics and was holding out for THE one. Along the way I followed all of the leads and even ordered a few that I thought might work as it became apparent that the right one was not going to surface. The one on the left is the one I wanted and the others are possibilities. But they are mostly lighter in color than what I wanted. The current trend with the blues is less grayed than the one I was looking for, But the white dog contains some beige-y blues so maybe these will be even better.

Thanks again to all who tried to help!!

So now, I guess I am ready to carry on and reconnect with the cutting and sewing using the fabrics that I have. With my luck, once I cut and sew the “right” one will come along!!

In the interim I have been busy with tax prep, designing some new work and hand quilting on the Oak and Acorn quilt. I have entered some more shows and shipped some more quilts.

My contract for teaching a five day Picture Piecing Design workshop at Empty Spools, Asilomar a year from now has arrived. So for those of you who are intrigued with this process, I hope you will consider signing up for that. It will be a wonderful place to spend a week in February 2014!

Monday it was just beautiful here, with a record breaking high of 77 degrees then yesterday it was 0. We went on a fabric quest but with no luck. I used this batik in the shadowed areas of the Kom’s coat and when I was working on the background, I decided it would be just perfect there, too.

Unfortunately, I have only a little left and it is old. I have searched in vain online, so now I appeal to you. have you seen it anywhere? There must be a shop somewhere that still has some they would love to get rid of. It is a greyed blue mottled background with lighter frosty looking wheat. Kind of large scale with the wheat portion being 3-4 inches. I’d love to find a half yard or a yard somewhere. Please let me know if you have seen it anywhere.

The newest issue of American Quilter just came with a nice article on Seasonal Palette and one of the quilts they showed was “December Dawn” Both as a nice full view and as an installation shot. Great coverage!!

Good news, two acceptances. “Colorado Kids” will be going to AQS, Lancaster and “Who, Me?” to “Celebrate Spring” at the IQA shows starting with spring. “In The Bleak Midwinter” is currently showing at the Topeka Art Guild Gallery and we had a great crowd last night at First Friday in spite of the cold.

The success of this technique, I think, depends a lot on the fabric choices. You have to be willing to audition and reject those that just don’t quite do the job.

All of those little bits at the upper left are some of the pieces that weren’t quite right for the spot they were cut for. They may work somewhere else later but they may be too small to re-cut and will end up in the trash. That’s OK.  Better to trash them than to use them if they are not right.

Yesterday I finished the piecing of the dogs and put away all that fabric. The cutting table looks so much better and I have room to play with the big background pieces. I have a wonderful hand dye, bought at Festival in Houston with the background of this piece in mind. It is gray and white and will work great, I think, for the snowy background. But it is only one yard, probably not enough. Challenges like that keep things interesting!

I knew it had been a while since I’ve posted but I didn’t think it had been THAT long! I have been having a very tenuous connection to the internet lately, sometimes going for days without being able to get online. I finally called for a technician to come out and investigate and after he found and fixed a couple of problems, now it works like a charm!

We’ve also had water problems, probably due to the extremely dry soil the pipes had a leak somewhere between the road and the house which involved digging equipment and considerable time, but now, over sixteen hundred dollars later we are leak free. What next??

I have managed, most days to sew at least a few seams and the dog’s portrait is progressing nicely. The process is slow as the Komondor’s corded coat requires many seams and color changes.

 

Between sewing sessions I have made some show entries, written a magazine article, caught up on emails and orders that piled up during the offline time and worked on the account books, so I have not been just laying around!

The weather has been alternately freezing cold and Springlike and in the garden the Snowdrops are blooming and the Lenten Rose is sending up buds. I can’t get used to flowers in January.

2012 has been a wonderful year for me, and I hope for you as well. Best wishes for a very special 2013 for everyone!

Christmas was a blur from the great Grandson tearing into his gifts

to the delicious dinner topped off by this made from scratch cheesecake made by my Grandson. Everyone agreed he can be the official cheesecake baker as it was every bit a good as it looked!

With Christmas out of the way and all of the evidence cleaned up, I was able to get started on the newest art quilt. It is always so exciting to start something new. Here is the progress after about three days of sewing.

This is going to be pretty good sized, what you see here is about 8 x 12″.  I’ve spent a couple of hours online looking for some more of that McKenna Ryan fabric that makes good fur, but it is too old and unavailable. No problem, I’ll just use something different, and it will be even more interesting! We are expecting more snow today so I will be happy to stay inside and sew.

You can scroll back to see the photo that I am working from, of our dogs in the snow, taken a few years ago .  WordPress has made improvements (?) and I just lost my entire post during the uploading photos stage. I should learn to “save” more often…..