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.

(June 15 – have been having computer problems and apparently this photo is lost. Imagine lots of little pieces, all in a pile with hopes that they might be recut to fit somewhere else)

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!

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…..

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.

Here’s the finished top – this was a lot of fun! I started with a yard of the background and pretty much used it all. I love it when old fabric finds  a home because I have more than I will ever use.

Busy, busy with the sewing, this is the best part!

Just to make it more interesting, and also to make it say “Springtime” I added the tulips. The wonderful hand dyes for the tulips and some of the leaves was purchased in Houston this year at Festival from Friestyle Handdyed. Just perfect!

I replaced the piece over the eye for one that was darker to make his eyebrow better and decided it was time to lay in some background. I was looking for something sort of abstract, painterly, but could not find it in my stash. I did find this nice floral that sort of fits the bill. This is a piece of fabric that has been in my stash for about 20 years! I originally bought it back when I was doing traditional quilts with the idea that it would make a nice baby quilt. I think it will do fine here and I am happy to have finally found a place for it!

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.

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.