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!!

Saturday I got back to the sewing, tweaking what was already sewn as these past two weeks of just looking at it made me see some places that could be improved. Also sewed a few of the section seams. This morning’s e-mail brought a couple more leads on the fabric search so perhaps I need to wait a bit longer before cutting background!

Yesterday afternoon a friend and I went to see the musical Parade, a show I had never heard of, and it was VERY good! So no sewing yesterday.

Probably not today, either, as I need to prepare two quits for shipping – “Colorado Kids” to AQS, Lancaster and “Who, Me?” to IQA for Celebrate Spring. Last week I sent “Foxglove Fairy” to Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest.

We have a crew of workers here installing new Pella windows so today  looks like a good time to go to town, anyway!

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.

A portion of The Seasonal Palette exhibit is currently being shown at the Texas Quilt Museum. This is a lovely, well lit space.  Some of the walls are white but I love how December Dawn looks on this old brick wall! Unfortunately the space was not large enough for the whole collection to be shown and only 23 of the 37 quilts were selected. Quilts shown left to right:  Ice by Carol J Moore, Silent Snow, The Creek Is Singing by Carol Anne Grotrian, Snow Falls by Linda Colsh, December Dawn by Ruth Powers, Sparkling Forest by Marianne R Williamson. Photo by Vicki Mangum.

Ooops, it’s been awhile, and I was doing so good!

Last Friday was First Friday and I attended the reception for “Inspirations”, that collaborative exhibit of art inspired by photography. This year we had the main show of new work at the Classic Bean in Topeka and my entry “Prairie Power” won first place in the “People’s Choice” voting. It’s always gratifying when a quilted piece is recognized as art amongst paintings.

We also had an exhibit of some of previous years’ entries at another venue, Nexlynx in Topeka and “Majesty” received a Second Place there.

The Boxer is finished and I am happy with how it turned out. I always prewash all of my fabrics because I still do find some that will run, and when I wet this piece to block it one of the hand dyes did run in spite of that. It was a green so any bleeding it may have done on the front is not noticeable, but can be seen very slightly on the back. Luckily it was not a problem, but it does reiterate the need to prewash.

This shot has too much pink showing, because the morning sunrise was hitting it. Adding green helps but makes the background greenish.  It is nice and sharp though and shows the quilting nicely.

To see a video of the Seasonal Palette exhibit featuring Martha Seilman, executive director of SAQA being interviewed by Luana Rubin, click here.

As promised, here is what I am working on now. The original photo was taken of my grandson’s dog when he was a puppy; this is Bosco. This is planned to be my entry for “Celebrate Spring” next year. With Pokey’s announcement that IQA will be featuring pet quilts in the coming years, I have planned several new works from pictures I have on hand, ones that I have had on the back burner as “someday” works.  This may well be the year of the dog!

As usual, I am putting a lot of quilting on the seasonal piece. I think it is looking good and I guess I need to think up a name for it and stop calling it “the seasonal piece!�

I finished the quilting last week; it took so long because it’s big (32 x 78� finished so I’m working at about 35 x 83�) and I was putting in a lot of stitches, but also because I used so many different threads, so was constantly changing colors and burying ends.

I blocked and trimmed it for the binding over the weekend. Trimming was tricky, as it is so long, and the size requirements are precise! Measure twice and cut once didn’t even feel safe. I measured at least four times. I was up in the air about the finishing – facing or binding? I decided on binding a little larger than usual at 3/8â€�. That was sewed on yesterday and since when I do the binding I always incorporate the sleeve and the documentation tag into the binding seam, I had to commit to a name for the tag. I settled on “December Dawnâ€�. It is short and to the point.

Now all I have left to do is to finish the hand sewing on the back of the binding, the sides and bottom edges of the sleeve and two edges of the documentation tag, sign it, and it will be DONE!

Here you can see the machine stitched signature and a corner folded back to show part of the documentation tag.

Finished March 14, 2012.

Well, have you enjoyed the journey?  Do you want to see what’s next?

Last week (late Nov. 2011) on one of the quilting lists someone posted that she was being sued by a fabric designer for having used that person’s design in a piece that was published in a book. She wouldn’t elaborate or name the designer. Since what I do is all wrapped up in using commercial prints, this was pretty scary! Especially since this piece I am currently working on features so prominently the use of a printed panel cut up and rearranged.

One has to wonder why they would produce quilting fabric and then sue you for using it, but crazier things have happened. I didn’t even want to continue working! I wrote the designer and explained what I was doing and asked for written permission to proceed. It took a couple of days for the answer, during which time I imagined worse case scenarios, like “Now she knows what I’m doing and will be watching and waiting to sue me� But no. Michelle Mara was happy to grant permission. Monday I finished up the last of the seams and the top is finished. I think now it will be set aside since it has an April deadline and I’ll be concentrating on a new piece with a January deadline.  (Harrier Hunting)

Post from Feb. 28, 2012

Time to get back to Seasonal Palette. I’m using Matilda’s Own Wool for the batting and trimming it to a little larger all around than the top. This is the first time I have used wool but I have been hearing good things about it.

I prepared a back using another panel that I found online and purchased because I thought that it would be a good thing to show that I did not just use a printed panel as is, but how the panel looked before I cut it up and rearranged it.

In my stash, I found an old piece of fabric from the late 80’s when I first started quilting, that was the perfect blue to compliment this piece. You can see a bit of the top peeking out there at the bottom as I am trimming to size.

The three layers were pin basted and made ready for the machine quilting. I do free motion machine quilting on my Bernina 1260 with no stitch regulator.

I have spent the better part of three days now quilting on it and have about one third of it finished so I am in good shape to meet the deadline.  Today I will finish the foreground and hopefully get started on the sky.

I’ve been putting it off, but it is time to finish the integration of the deer into the main piece. Since I altered it by removing some from the bottom and adding some to the top, the seams no longer line up. I have to make some templates to transition between the two areas. This is not easy! You can see the registration marks on the back that help with correct sewing and some proposed seam lines that I have not used. As last minute decisions are made, often seam lines are altered, eliminated or even added!

In order to piece the ear in, I would have had to redo part of the tree, so I decided to appliqué that little bit. I replaced some of the dark fabrics that I had in the foreground that I thought were distracting.

It’s time to actually cut some sky pieces. I need some nice strong color at the tree line to transition the tree line into the sky.

I thought I would like the cloud print fabric that I had ordered,

but I liked the striated batik better.

The past week was spent tweaking the Seasonal piece, changing and adding fabrics. It is still in two pieces but bulky and awkward to work on. I think that I have at least one more change to make and then I will just live with it for awhile and see if anything else demands attention. At this point every change requires that I rip something apart and add in new, sort of like mending, which I hate.

That little place on the left will need to be fixed. The fabric that I was using there was not big enough and I was hoping that it would be in the “waste� area and to be cut away when I trim it to size, but I’m afraid it will be too much.

Last evening, I folded and put away all of the fabrics I was working with and swept up the bits on the floor, the studio will not look too bad for company on Thanksgiving!