This year, probably because of all the rain, the wild sunflowers have been extra lovely. In the roadsides and in the fields, they are a delightful vision to brighten our days and remind us fall is just around the corner.

So in light of that and the fact that on my recent trip to the Kansas City Guild, my Sunflower Patch pattern was one of my best sellers,  I decided that today it should be my featured pattern for Focus Friday.

SUNFLOWER PATCH

Approximately 70 x 85 ”      $8.50       Click on Patterns in the side bar to order

A bright and sunny pieced quilt, quickly made from only twenty pieced 15″ original design blocks.  I used two different black and white prints to effectively set off the scrappy yellow and brown flowers – but imagine it with a scrappy blue or cream background instead!

SUNFLOWER PATCH sample quilt
Machine pieced and free motion machine quilted  The backing is also scrappy, created from a variety of green and gold and sunflower printed fabrics.  $1500.00. To purchase, email me.

Sometimes life gets in the way and things don’t go as planned. Progress on the art has taken a back seat to more important things, but still there has been some progress.

Unless I decide to add a bottom border, that is going to be the lower edge. I will have to tweak the reflection of the legs so that it doesn’t just look like extra long legs. Maybe with the quilting.

Some of what I had cut as feathers turned out to be background so I had to change that. I have shopped a couple of stores for some more sky fabric to finish up the top, but so far the perfect one has eluded me. Maybe I will look on line.

The spring rains continue and have produced an abundance of flowers.

The ponds are full and there has been flooding in some areas but not for us. We are ready for some sunshine but unfortunately that comes with 90-100 degree temps, that I am never ready for.

I’ve tried unsuccessfully to rebloom my Amaryllis inside in the wintertime for the last couple of years, but got only foliage. I set them outside this past spring to die back, but the early rains revived them and this is what happened! The other pot still has only foliage so far.

We were recently blessed with some cooler weather, so having completed the sewing of the new art quilt top, I was able to dedicate the whole morning to the bank between the house and the new storm shelter. Earlier in the spring we planted some burning bushes and a few perennials there, but then it went to weed grasses. At least they held the soil in place during the heavy rains. I pulled most of the weeds and started to plant Liriope. I’ve mentioned this plant before as it does so well here that I always have an excess ready to be thinned and planted somewhere else. It will hold this bank wonderfully well and look good doing it! Then I added the stepping stones to channel the dogs and us through the plantings. So far I have Liriope every 4-6″ in the top half, and the bottom half yet to do.

It will fill in quickly- probably too quickly! I left a few weeds to temporarily hold the soil in the meantime. In the fall, I think I will transplant some Plumbago to the space between the stones and the wall where it will drape over the edge.

I love the brilliant blue flowers, but it is a pretty plant even when it is not blooming. And it grows well enough for me that I have plenty to move . And maybe a few Dayliles will go nicely.

Every year about this time the blister beetles hit the Clematis and they can strip it overnight.

This year, since the Clematis has grown so vigorously they were only able to eat half of it overnight and with the cold morning, I was able to knock many of them off into a container of soapy water. Usually as soon as they sense you coming they dive off the plant, but the cold makes them sluggish. I checked a couple of times throughout the day and they seemed to be gone, but by morning the next day there were hoards again so – more knocking them off into the container. By then there was not a whole lot of green left so I applied some Sevin to try and save what’s left. So far, so good!

I’m excited to be sewing again! Lots of progress yesterday, but I am considering this one for another exhibit that does not allow showing of the work prior to the exhibit. I enjoy showing the step by step, and I know you enjoy seeing that, so I am sorry that this seems to be a trend these days. I am taking pictures and can show them later.

I have a weakness for blue flowers, here are some campanella and I think that is some kind of a sage. Everything is lush and lovely right now.

The Clematis Rugguchii grew so big and heavy this year that it toppled its support and sprawled on top of its neighbors. There is a lot of that going on in my garden this year, I think some thinning out is in my future.

I thought this was dead last summer after it was attacked and stripped by the blister beetles, but it has come back better than ever!

This coneflower was purchased last year, cheap and unmarked.

I got only one thinking it was just your basic purple coneflower, but I wish I had gotten more; this is quite nice! I have had bad luck with coneflowers in the past, it seems they like a well drained spot so I put this one at the top of a bank where it seems to be very content.

Quilt Market is currently in progress in Houston and I sort of miss the hustle and bustle, but not enough to consider going back! The morning weather report confirms that I am glad to be safely dry and at home, having experienced Houston’s torrential rain and flooded roads on a previous trip!

The Northcott Fabrics booth will be displaying this sample from my POPPY! pattern featuring their new Shimmer line of fabric.

Also on display in the exhibits area and staying through Festival next week are “Who, Me?” in “Celebrate Spring”, “Snow Buddies” in a special exhibit of pet quilts and “In The Bleak Midwinter” in “World of Beauty”. I do wish I could pop in to see those exhibits and Festival, but for this year, it is not to be.

Here at home I have been working on a small wall hanging commission. Each year in an attempt to entice folks to invest in art, the Topeka Art Guild Gallery asks for smaller less expensive works for sale during the month of December and January. A couple of years ago I entered a small landscape of a photo that I took on our Alaska trip and it was purchased by a lady who had lived in Alaska for a while. Ever since she has been after me to make her another, and last month she loaned me one of her photographs to render in fabric for her.

The next step is to quilt and bind it for delivery in a week or so.

I was so happy with the Sabatini Gallery‘s display of the current exhibit of works by the EDGE exhibiting group from the former Kansas Art Quilters organization, that I went back yesterday to get some pictures. It is my understanding that they will be posting the show to their website, so I am only concentrating on my three entries. Here is a long shot showing Bignonia and Spring Encounter.

The work is not crowded and the lighting is superb.

This photo does not really capture the vivid yellowness of the walls that perfectly compliments the yellow within the work. The lighting throughout enhances the quilting amazingly well.

By comparison. the white walls appear rather bland, but the lighting couldn’t be better! Bignonia stands out dark, vivid colors against the light wall.

My work is pieced in the old fashioned way, many little pieces of commercially printed or hand dyed fabrics sewn together with quarter inch seam allowances.  In the case of Bignonia, I chose to use curved seams to enhance the sinuous qualities of this tropical vining plant but the other two on display here use straight seams, which is easier.  This is such a fun process and not as hard as you might think.  I will be teaching a five day workshop on designing and piecing your own, in February at Empty Spools Seminars in Ca. Sounds like a great place to be in February, especially if, like me, you live where the snow flies!

Harrier Hunting is enhanced by the yellow walls as well. Again, the camera is not giving me the true strong yellow and playing around with the settings did not help. These were taken without flash.

The yellow in the grassy foreground really pops with that background. The quilting looks wonderful under these lights. Peeking around from the back is a “slice” of Watermelon Summer by Judith Trager and a display of Marcia Derse fabrics in the case.

One forgets how important lighting can be as it is usually sadly lacking at most venues, but here, attention to details is important.  At 5:30 on a Thursday afternoon there were only a few people in the gallery but the First Friday turnout was good. Hope YOU can make it!.

This exhibit continues at the Sabatini Gallery, Topeka Public and Shawnee Library, Topeka , KS through Sept 22.

Friday evening I went to the opening reception for the EDGE Material Conversations exhibit at the Sabatini Gallery in the Topeka Library. The exhibit looked great. I loved how my pieces looked, especially “Harrier Hunting” and “Spring Encounter”. Each was hung alone on a different yellow painted wall that really made the colors pop and brought out the yellows within the artwork. “Bignonia” which features yellow flowers was hung on a white wall. The lighting really enhanced the quilting highlighting wonderful texture. I did not bring my camera, thinking that photos would probably not be allowed, but I may go back and see if they will let me get some photos later, as they are just too good to pass up! The remainder of the exhibit was more abstract and it is always fun to see what everyone is doing and how the works play together.

If you are in the vicinity between now and the middle of Aug, I hope you will try to see it!

It’s been a whirlwind week with so much to do and catch up on. I finally downloaded my pictures from the Colorado trip. I didn’t get much before my battery went dead and I had neglected to bring the cord to recharge. Now I know why it went dead so fast! I accidentally had it set to video, so where I thought I was getting one shot it was really many. Spent some time this morning deleting hundreds of duplicate pictures.

The perennial borders at The Denver Botanic Gardens may give me some ideas for planting combinations at home. I have been inspired to spend some time in the garden since coming home, as the rain and cooler temps tempt me to transplant and weed. Actually there aren’t so many weeds anymore as I seem to have gotten pretty much ahead of them this year!

The blister beetles have stripped the Clematis Ruguchii which was gorgeous this year. They sneaked in and stripped it overnight and I am afraid

it may not recover as usually it puts out new growth right away and there is nothing there now but a skeleton.  They moved on to the Sweet Autumn Clematis, but I have fought back and that is doing OK.

A couple of mornings have been lost to paper work, show entries and shipping quilts and patterns.   It always takes so much longer than you think it should.  I discovered that I have nothing to send to Asheville or PaNational this year, but I did get two quilts shipped off to Houston, which will give me three pieces there this fall plus I hope to get a Silent Auction piece made for them.  Next in line is quilting the Eagles, but for now I am concentrating on getting the book keeping caught up, a job that I hate, so I always let it get away from me!

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!!