Miss October!

I now have a copy of the Martingale 2011 Calendar of IQA Award Winning Quilts, and I'm proud to say that I am Miss October (well, actually Last Dance is).


I had so much fun making this little quilt, and I'm just delighted to be in the calendar again this year.

I happened to be at a Metrothreads meeting on Saturday, and someone made an interesting remark. They admired how I made the left wing look transparent, so that the leaf beneath it showed through. Truth by told, I didn't do that. When I took the original picture, which you can see here, the butterfly was resting on dried oak leaves. As I manipulated the photo, including increasing the saturation, the colors on the oak leaf and the butterfly wing became more similar, producing the illusion of transparency. You can see an explanation of how I created the central image here, and see what a difference upping the contrast made.

I was very lucky to be in the right time and place to catch this somewhat unusual moment - a butterfly resting on autumn leaves. Keep your eyes open, and maybe you'll catch a magical moment too.

Snow Dyes - Rounds 1 & 2

I've done three rounds of snow dyeing so far (with *plenty* of snow left to work with). Here are some results from rounds one and two. All of the pictures can be made bigger by clicking on them.

Snow Dyed, then snowverdyed ;)

Bottom fabric was dyed in the drip pan below other fabrics, so technically it was low water immersion dyed

Center fabric was snow dyed twice - once with chocolate brown, then again with grape
The bottom piece was another "drip catcher"

I confess that for my work I prefer little to no white space on a piece of hand dyed fabric. This has led me to usually dye with fabric that has been soaked in soda ash solution then dried before dyeing, or use a drip dyeing method like Robbi Eklow explains in her book Free Expression. For the snow dyed pieces I either redyed ones that came out with more white space than I wanted, or squirted a little extra dye on areas that I could see were really pale. I have a couple of more pieces I'll post a little later.

I finished up an article for the May issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited this week. It's about designing your own quilting motifs, and it was fun to think of lots of ways you can go about that.

I'm also super excited that once again this year I'll have a quilt in Martingale's calendar of IQA award winning quilts. It will be interesting to see what month they decide to use for Last Dance.

Houston Quilt Festival 2009

Well, I once again took a fun but *quick* trip to Houston for the International Quilt Festival. Here's the lowdown.

I took a super early flight on Tuesday and had lunch with my good friends Jill and Bill. Back in the day Jill and I were both engineers at McDonnell Douglas and were known as "the bookends" - we did just about everything together except quilt. It's always a highlight of my trip to get to see them again.

Tuesday night was the exciting awards ceremony - I was delighted to receive third place in the miniature art category. I of course saw Pokey (who presented my award), and fellow award winners including Sarah Ann Smith, Judy Coates Perez, and Candace West.

Wednesday morning I had breakfast with my good friend Debra Gabel of Zebra Patterns. Debra is both an amazing quilt artist as well as an incredible pattern designer. She'd been to quilt market and also had a booth at festival. Her CityStamp, StateStamp, and NationStamp designs were a really big hit - very unique and clever. I also had the pleasure of meeting her friends (and booth staff) Peggy, Dee and Sandy.

This year the luncheon where the top eight award winners speak was thankfully moved to Wednesday (instead of Saturday). I'd never been able to hang around until Saturday, so it was wonderful to be able to attend the luncheon this year. The tables were quite large so I didn't get to chat with everyone, but did sit next to Barbara Lies and Candace.

One side of festival that I've never experienced before is vending. I had the opportunity to help Debra and company with some last minute booth preparations and it was both fun and educational.

Wednesday night - preview night! For the third year in a row the delightful Lisa Ellis did me the favor of taking my picture next to my quilt. I think the next time I go I'll have to plan a little better and actually eat dinner with her or something.

I did my best to see as much of the show as possible. After wards Debra, Peggy, Dee and I headed out to get a bite to eat. We ended up at the House of Blues, and after all was said and done we now have the recipe for the Best Margarita Ever.

I met many other nice folks, and was happy to reconnect with others I've met at previous shows. My flight home was Thursday afternoon, so I soaked in as much atmosphere as possible before then and took one last look at all the great exhibits and show quilts. Once again a fabulous show and of course lots of friendly and creative quilters!

Eye of the Quilter

Once again the Houston International Quilt Festival folks came up with a great idea for a special exhibit - The Eye of the Quilter. Instead of quilts, it's photographs taken by quilters that they find inspirational.

While perusing thousands of photos on my computer in search of some entries, I realized that there are a number of things (besides my children) that I photograph over and over:
- I think I'm in contention for having taken the most macro photographs of flowers in the nation, if not the world
- reflections - in bodies of water, windows, and on cars
- water droplets and condensation on *anything*
- bare branches
- the Japanese maple in our yard in its autumn glory
- anything natural in our yard, whether flora or fauna - it's amazing to me the variety of things I've photographed on our property

I did enter three photos and have my fingers crossed, but instead of showing them I'll show several that were in contention that I didn't send. All of them can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Waterlilies at Brookside Gardens

The red maple mentioned above - this is part of the view outside my dining room window

A different view of the red maple

My youngest son's eyelashes a few years ago

I also noticed that sometimes weeks or months go by when I don't take very many photographs, but once I get on a roll watch out.

On another note, yesterday I got "the call" from the IQA that Last Dance won a cash award in the Houston show. That call really made my day!

Devotion to One's Art

I was so pleased to receive an acceptance for this year's IQA show in Houston for Last Dance (blogged about here). I'd really wanted to make a "big", new quilt to enter, but life conspired against me. I love this little quilt so I'm happy it will have a chance to travel again.



Recently I've read some interesting posts on QuiltArt about whether folks prefer to read just about the art (quilting), or if it's better to throw in some personal goings on. Sometimes, for me, all I have time for is family life with three busy boys, so my quilting posts are few and far between. In the past year we shared our home for 7 months with a relative displaced by damage caused by Hurricane Ike, and this too impacted my quilt making. I somehow managed to write 4 magazine articles in that time, but couldn't spare the time or concentration to create a major new piece. Having Last Dance in my back pocket as a potential entry for Houston helped me to let go and relax a little this spring instead of going 100 miles an hour to finish a quilt in time. It's funny how things manage to work out.

When I'm strongly focused on finishing a quilt for a deadline it's hard to want to stop working on it. To my amusement I can see this trait in my youngest son, age 6. He LOVES to draw. He loves it so much that the elementary school principal called me to commend him on his creativity (that was a little surprising). Anyway, we were doing errands the other day and that did not stop his drawing. He carried an 11"x18" piece of paper and a pencil with him to Target, the pediatrician's office, and Radio Shack. As we walked through Target each time we stopped to look at something he'd squat on the floor, put his drawing on an available empty shelf, and draw. He also drew at the doctor's office and Radio Shack. I'd call that devotion to one's art!

A penguin, with an ice sword and ice helmet, riding on the back of a baby polar bear while fighting a sea lion. The back of the paper has a shark (or perhaps killer whale?) on it.

I hope that you're finding time for both your art, and some relaxation, this summer.

Last Dance

As always, autumn is spookily busy for me. I have manged to work on a few small pieces in the last few weeks, and made it through 3 of the 4 fall family birthdays!

This piece was just completed in time for the Piedmont Arts Association Invitational exhibit. I named it "Last Dance" because the photos used to make this quilt were taken in October and I was amazed that this butterfly was still around at that late date.



I detailed how I made the digital imagery in this post. I wrote another post about adding the appliqued leaves are here.


This detail image shows some of the quilting in the border. My intent was to add quilting that looked like fungi or leaf litter. As always, the free motion quilting is the most enjoyable part of quilt making for me and it feels like dancing.

The leaves are really starting to turn around here, and it's just beautiful. Tomorrow I'm heading to Houston for a brief sojourn at the Houston International Quilt Festival. I'm sure I'll spend some time hanging out by my quilt. If you see me be sure and say "Hi".