The fabric came last week, ( late Oct) I had ordered these sunrise / sunset fabrics for consideration for the sky. I do think they will work. Now I can be more confident in the selection of other fabrics for the scene.

I have chosen some orangey prints to give reflected highlights to the tree trunks. An old batik with both blue and orange will make nice reflections on the pond ice.

The distant tree line is the backside of another batik. It will look more like trees when the quilting is added.

I have integrated several other fabrics into the foreground to further fracture the panel, give added interest and tie into the piecing of the other prints.

Some peachy reflections on the snow have been laid in.

Sewing some seams tightens things up. That brush against snow fabric with the peachy background was a lucky find from my stash. The rusty batik will help the background trees blend into the sky.

Well, there has been a lot going on, it is now mid November, and I have been busy . Some days there is not time to sew at all, and some days time to manage only a few seams.

This week has been better and I have had a few days to really work at it. I am starting to lay in some sky color.

As I work at it, I am constantly tweaking and changing things so I try to avoid sewing all of the seams until I live with the fabric choices for a while but there comes a time when, just to get things in perspective, you just have to sew some seams! Inevitably then you have to UN sew some seams as choices made at the bottom affect choices made at the top and vice-versa. The long narrow layout (32 x 78�) of this piece presents it’s own challenges! Luckily the deadline is April, so I can take my time and enjoy the process.

The first step was to figure out how to place seam lines that would integrate the deer into the whole. I did this by tracing the print to freezer paper and aligning it with the full sized freezer paper pattern on the wall. Then I could plot out the seam lines to be able to cut and sew it to fit into the scene. I wanted to fracture the panel and make some changes in the placement of the deer.

Luckily, the freezer paper allowed enough of the print to show through so that I could trace the basic outline of the deer!

I started the piecing with the bottom of the tree area, so that I would have a base on which to add the deer.

It has not been without drama though. After several day’s work, I was not happy with some aspects. I decided that the tree needed to be lower, more behind the deer allowing me to add more branches to the top of the tree to balance the composition.

I reworked parts and now I have the problem of fitting already pieced elements into a revised whole, but it will work out, I’m sure. I ordered more fabric from two different sources, as I found some sky and some coordinating foreground prints that might work in. The first arrived yesterday and the second is due any day now. It’s a little difficult to plan without the fabric here so I am working on the parts where I feel safe, knowing I may have to tweak later. This has enough challenges to keep it interesting for me!

To be continued……….

My work is machine pieced, in this case I will be using straight seams.
Transferring the original picture to tracing paper, figuring out where the
seam lines will go and dividing those into sewable sections comes next. I have to leave space at the bottom for the deer.

The finished piece needs to be 32 X 78� , so my working pattern will be
about 36 x 85� since I know that my intensive machine quilting will take up several inches in the end.

When I am satisfied, the lines are transferred to overhead projection film and projected in the mirror image to freezer paper on the wall in the finished size, which will be cut apart to become the working templates.

Freezer paper has a plastic side which will temporarily stick to fabric when pressed with a hot iron.

When these templates are ironed to the wrong side of the fabrics, cut with a quarter inch seam allowance and sewn, it will look like the original layout.

I have a pretty good stash of commercial prints and hand dyes suitable for nature inspired work. One of the first things I do when starting a new work is to pull any fabrics that I think have possibilities of working into the piece.

My studio has good natural light from windows and overhead fixtures so I keep my fabric behind bamboo and canvas roll – up blinds to combat fading.

Much of what I choose will never make it in and more will be added later, but this is a starting place. The fabrics are all 100% cotton, mostly commercial prints, though I do sometimes use hand dyes. I use a lot of batik fabric because I love the variations of colors within a piece that lends itself well to the nature inspired work that I do.

Behind the cutting table, you can see the blinds in the down position.

When I was teaching in Springfield, Mo., I found this wonderful panel.

(Winter Whispers by Michelle Mara, Wilmington Prints)

The scale seemed right and since my specialty is working with commercial prints, and even though I didn’t know if I would be accepted into Seasonal Palette I just had to buy two panels just in case! I needed two panels so that I could accommodate the seam allowances and still have things line up. I would want to fracture the scene, maybe rearrange the figures and integrate them into the piecing.

Deer often frequent the area of our farm pond and I thought they would bring life to the composition.

When my acceptance letter came, I was lucky enough to be assigned “WINTER” based on the committee liking the “In The Bleak Midwinterâ€� photo in my entry package. There were so many entries and over half of them wanted winter which surprised me! They asked that my new piece should be in the same style. I had said that even in winter there is much color to be seen and the one they liked had sunset colors reflecting on the snow.

“In The Bleak Midwinter� 32 x 34� 2011

The first step was going through my photos for a likely inspiration picture. I cropped long narrow portions of several before settling on this one, which is a shot that I took across our farm pond in the snow.

Since I proposed that my finished piece would be reminiscent of  “In The Bleak Midwinter�,  I decided to change the time of day to dawn so I could get some nice reflections on the ice and snow.

I isolated one tree to be the focal point.

More tomorrow!

Now that Quilt Festival is over for this year and Seasonal Palette has had it’s grand opening everyone is free to post those long awaited pictures! My entry is called “December Dawn”.

Click here to see them all.

The process began with submitting photos of existing work from which 37 artists were selected to produce seasonal works measuring 78 x 32� each. The working styles of the selected artists are vastly different, coming together to stage an amazingly cohesive body of work. The exhibit was staged in an enclosed, hard walled space with a tranquil gallery feeling that was so calming amid the crowds and bustle of the show floor. In progressing around the space, one walked through the seasons. In the center of the space was a table where artists journals of the making of each piece was displayed, with benches so you could sit and spend as much time as you wanted with the journals and the actual artworks. I wish I had had enough time to read each and every one!

There is a lovely catalog of the exhibit available for only $20.00 showing each piece with a more in depth view of the making of some of them, including “December Dawn“ at the end.

At this premier opening, already two pieces were sold!  I have been enjoying the posting of the making of some of the pieces as they are posted to blogs, so starting tomorrow I will begin to publish entries from my own journal.

Since I had to fly out of Houston Sunday morning, I missed the entire last day of the show. It was not until I was back home that I was told that “Prairie Fire� had sold during the show. I had several inquiries about purchasing it, but so far I do not know who bought it. I hope they enjoy living with it as much as I have.

Before I left on Saturday, I checked the status of my “Prairie Fire Mini� in the Silent Auction and it was at $260.00. I’m anxious to see what it eventually brought and who got it.

There were lots of opportunities to purchase quilts at Festival, and I was lucky enough to come away with two 12 x 12� pieces from the SAQA Auction.

“Squirrel Food� by Nancy G. Cook and “Woman Of The Year� by Bodil Gardner. I feel very fortunate to have them as they are both beautiful and made by artists that I admire. It was great to see the actual quiltlets on display- they are even better in person than on-line, and I am thrilled to have them.

The purchaser of my little Yorkie postcard for the Pet Project came by where I was sitting with “Prairie Fire” to tell me how much she loved it and I was so glad someone got it that really appreciated the work in it.  I think I heard that this will be an ongoing feature at festival so I hope to get an earlier start on some cards for next year. I know that this year’s event surpassed the goal for the no-kill shelter in Houston.

Friday evening and Saturday morning were spent at the OCAE. When I agreed to do this show last spring, I thought it was an exhibit that they would set up and I would not have to stay, however it turned out to be more like an art fair, though, thankfully inside. I don’t normally do art fairs. It was an interesting experience as most of the folks had never seen work like mine and of course they thought it was too expensive. But I think for the most part, they enjoyed looking at it and talking about some friend or relative that makes real quilts.

Part of the time I flipped “Bignonia” to show “Colorado Kids”

Now that that is out of the way, I can concentrate on getting ready for Houston!!

This time next week I will know what I have won in Houston! I have been busy wrapping up loose ends and making arrangements. Trying to figure out what to wear and getting things ready.

Since my friend Rose, who usually travels with me to Houston was unable to go this year, I offered the extra bed to Gloria, the GLO in Gloderworks the company responsible for my wonderful website. She accepted and I am looking forward to getting to know her better. I admire Gloria‘s quilting work as well, and she is also a winner this year, in addition to being an author and computer guru.

I have permission from Quilts, Inc and SAQA to show the two pieces that have been kept under wraps so far and they can be seem in the “Upcoming Events” section of the website. “Prairie Fire” the winner in “World of Beauty” and “December Dawn” in “Seasonal Palette”.  They did ask that I announce that there is a catalog available for “Seasonal Palette”.

This week has been good! I finished two pieces.

“Cloudy With A Chance Of Rain” 31 x 24″

You may remember this one without the borders. I think they give it a little more presence and help the binding to blend in better.

The sky fabric is a hand dye painted piece that really depicts a Kansas summer storm rolling in. The horse is a figment of my imagination but the shed is real! It was a lucky day when I found that batik for the rusty roof!!

This was made for the”It’s All Kansas” exhibit at The Topeka Art Guild Gallery and needs to be delivered today for a show running through Oct and Nov.

The next one is not due for a week or so but now I don’t have to worry about it. It was made for the “Inspirations” exhibit in Topeka, that collaborative exhibit of artwork inspired by local photographers. Here I was inspired by two photos by Tammy Patterson, both with cows and turbines and the hand dyed Shibouri fabric used for the sky. Tammy and I have paired up for this annual exhibit since it began three years ago and have won the People’s Choice” awards both previous years, first with “Colorado Kids” and last year with “Majesty”. She is an amazing photographer! Those can be seen on my website in the Gallery.

“Prairie Power” 27 x 30″
If you followed the making of this one you may remember that I had bound it in black and was not happy with that. You can see that by following the link above. Changing it to blend with the scene is better, I think.

Here is the finished Silent Auction Donation quilt for Quilt Festival in Houston. I am pretty happy with the way it came out and I hope it makes them lots of money!

Prairie Fire Mini 15w X 17h” Machine pieced, machine quilted.

Now that that is done, I need to go prepare for my trip to Bella Vista, Arkansas tomorrow where I will do the guild program on Monday.  Looks like great weather to travel!