Go ahead... be square

I have been a busy bee this week,

See the bee in the center of the flowers in the center of the weeds???

Getting ready for our local quilt show, and my two classes.
One is on the principles of design where we'll all be making a tiny abstract quilt and one is on the need for binding and how to join the binding strip at the end.

Even one hour classes take work to organize. So I haven't been sewing enough.





The blue blocks were made a few months ago but I wanted to show the people over at RSC2015 because light blue is our color this month

check out the scissors and the bees!

This block is one made with strips of lightest blue sewn together and cut into a square, and darker or medium blue scraps sewn and cut. Right sides together perpendicular to each other. Sew all the way around, cut crosswise on the diagonal (a big X) and it makes four little blocks to be sewn into the larger 15.5 inch block.
I now have four of these big boys

and I like how they all look together in the photo. I think they'll make a spectacular bedsized quilt for my husband. Over the last 20 plus years I know if a quilt has lots of blue he'll like it.

linking to several parties see my links page
a new party to me is: pinkdoxies

Quilt Show Season

Time for a show!!
It's quilt show season around the Mid-Atlantic y'all!
I will be doing demos at our local guild show this weekend and would love to meet you! It's the Annapolis Quilts by the Bay show Saturday and Sunday.

Two other guilds had shows I attended so I wondered if you'd enjoy seeing a few quilts and hearing of my adventures? Here goes...

A fellow blogger Preeti Harris (sewpreetiquilts) and I met at the QU show in Virginia.

What a fun time full of laughter and shopping and quilt viewing we had!
As I said in the last post, blogging has brought me friends across the miles, and this time we live within an hour of each other. Preeti is full of life and fun, smart and sassy and just my kind of person!!

She is exceptional at looking at a geometric design and knowing almost instantly how they constructed it. The really interesting thing to me is that we both love quilting but gravitate to the opposite ends of the spectrum. The fact that we see different aspects of a quilt only enhanced both our experiences.
I'm looking forward to seeing her more often.

Antique pin cushion love!!!  (no I did not buy one this time... the Scotty dog is my latest love) I did manage to buy a bit of fabric and a few beads at this show.
I fell for this quilt

Dancing Umbrellas by Elizabeth Shugart

This challenge quilt called "I'm just saying" by Dianne H. Thomas interested me a lot. She noticed the shape of a guitar and the shape of a woman, ahem, one with a waist that is, were similar.
I love to see original work and feel it gives me new ways to look at the world. It's a glimpse into an artist's mind. Please note that art and good construction technique go together.

The last one I want to share is of course a hexi

Sundays Best  by Ann Heber

This was fresh and clean and a great use of hexies around the border and in the baskets.
Preeti and I spent all day at the show, shopping and looking and chatting and it made the show so much fun!

On to the Bayside Quilters show in Easton Maryland

Look what greeted us when we drove up!! There were fabric banners everywhere dancing in the breeze! How totally festive! Just like this group of women.
I was lucky enough to speak to this group of fun talented artistic quilters this year, as well as teach two classes. When I came to the show, it was so much fun to see them again and renew friendships.
Their display was awesome

and they had lots of original work on the challenge quilts displayed. Their challenge was to interpret a color they were given and this one is an example of orange...

Red Hot Jimmy  by Laura Boehl

I loved the scrappy crab and the newsprint background. ( Marylanders crack crabs onto newspapers)

Time by Jeanne Hechner

Check out the use of antique watches. And by Antique I mean ones I grew up with, ones my older sisters wore! I like the use of clock fabric behind them. There were lots of cool quilts at this show. I left with some scrap bags, of course, at a bargain of $ 2 each!  Bringing in other people's scraps increases variety ya know.
I had a fun day at this show, but oh the traffic coming and going! The Eastern Shore of Maryland is a lovely place but a popular place especially on summer weekends. Cole came from this area, way back 13 years ago. He stayed home for these shows but in solidarity and poodle love I share this last quilt...

Bosco and Bingo  by Jan Bohn

Jan was in one of my classes at her guild, and brought the real Bosco and Bingo in to meet me.
What a barrel of monkeys Poodles! All gorgeous and active and friendly and happy!
Poodle love. Quilt love. Hope you can come visit with me this weekend! Friends make for the best time!

Inspiration

Isn't this staircase amazing?!

 I started blogging, not quite two years ago now and doesn't Time Fly....??

when you're in the studio making art....

or when you're enjoying an outing with your husband and poodle

 Everything you do, and see, and experience goes into what you make... 
You just have to decide what you want to express on this day.

Whatever you choose, let it be personal and meaningful.

If you are new to my blog, there are labels over on the right for more lovely posts on living the creative life including overcoming roadblocks, poodle posts, outings and events, interviews with artists. Enjoy

Tea Reading

pattern source sew precise

The color of the month over at soscrappy (Click) is light blue.
Hmmm this is really a challenge for me, not for lack of blue scraps because that pile will apparently never be used up.The challenge with colors for me is that when a color is chosen, I use all shades and tints of that color in my blocks.

When I saw this "swiss cheese" piece of remnant I started to get happy!!
A teapot!

I also happen to love aqua and red, so the teapot is in those colors.

Notice the woman is a wee bit chubby, and is reading and is walking a poodle.
Viola! Another self portrait! lol
This scrap led me to some cups...

When you want to fussy cut an emblem for a block it takes some finagling because the scrap is just so big... and the pattern is just so big.... and the challenge here is for ascrapaholic like myself to allow for waste.

There's going to be some waste.

Remember when we all made clothes from a pattern, cut around the pattern... and THREW away the rest of the fabric??? Didn't seem to bother me then.

I wasn't a quilter yet.

"Runs with Scissors" latest STAT project

"Runs with Scissors" 12" X 12"

The last STAT project (SEE MORE OF THEM HERE) was the study of the artist lois mailou jones and interpreting her style in fabric. I used this painting as my inspiration

Water Carriers

The color blocking and strong figures made me wonder what it would be like to freely cut pieces of silk and overlap them in a pleasing way.

There is an exuberance to her work, so I wanted my poodle to be running on the piece, looking behind him, kicking up his dog-heels, gleeful!

These are all small works but full of texture and details. I hope after reading this you go see some of my others. I am partial to Polynesian Poodle, If Monet had a poodle, Seurat but love all the ones I've made. Can't ask more of a piece of art than loving the finished product!!

I had a tiny scrap of black silk in my fusible scrap bin, and just started cutting a poodle shape. I credit the who cares if it works attitude for making it work! I didn't draw it, I didn't make a pattern, I got out scissors and started cutting.
In fact

that's how I cut the squares and rectangles of silk, with pinking sheers and not concerning myself with size or being exact.
I did a post on that earlier(here is one)
and (here is on on embroidery)

The most fun was doing the hand embroidery.

I approached it the same way as the rest of the piece... not worrying, running with scissors! Trying it!

Some people would hate the asymmetry and the uneven nature but I love it. I find it surprising and gleeful, balanced while being free formed.

Note there is hand stitching, embroidery, machine stitching... the scissors were painted with metallic gold and embellished with twisted bugle beads.

The binding was some slinky gold metallic sheer, that was so badly behaved that it began unraveling as I cut it!! I persevered and it got on but it is probably trying to unravel INSIDE the binding!!!
<=my fave spiral stitch on Bernina 

Did you notice the black crystal eye and nose?? It sparkles in person.

How about that texture in the silk weave?
Thick threads?

For a texture lover, this STAT project has been heavenly to work on. I am behind by one artist, Georgia O'Keefe.
That will make 12 little quilts. I plan to add in one or two more artist studies just for myself, for fun.
The last detail? painting a label with markers....

The binding strip was just too small, so I added in another color silk, and it looks great to me.

Unexpected.

Lessons learned:
>play with silks more often
>use more hand embroidery
>creating quickly pays off
>not everything needs a plan
>Beads are the icing on the cake but don't need to cover the piece.

Friendship square for a friend

"Chocolate and quilting HEAL!"  6" X 6"

Our quilt guild sends heart blocks to members who are ill or going through a tough time.
Right now one of our bee members is going through an illness so we are making her 6 inch friendship quilts instead of the usual blocks. This way she can flip through them like cards.

these are the main fabrics I used, plus a yellow and red for binding, a black to make the chocolate box, and some white to fill in the back. All that in a teensy little 6 inch quilt!
But it needed it. You know?  The flowers are good for a sick person, and well, chocolates are always called for, and the little quilting lady is my friend down to a T

The back with signature

So, for the back I pieced her onto the word fabric, just to remind her of priorities.
I machine appliqued the chocolates to the black with a buttonhole stitch, the black to the flowers with a zigzag stitch, did a long stitch with thick thread by hand as my friend loves hand embroidery. All before sandwiching the layers with peltex for stability. Machine quilted with cotton thread and free motion... really free motion... flips and swirls. 

the binding is fused on after cutting the edge with pinking shears, then topstitching two lines of straightstitch for fun.
The way I see it, no quilt is too small to ignore the details, know what I mean? Now wouldn't this cheer you up?

Bunny dreams

Zzzzzzz.......snort!... Zzzzzzz.....Zzzzzzz.... um, bunnies! yeah, that's right, buy me a bunny....

I'm taking a nap here, but earlier in the day I had a bit of an adventure. If I accidentally pulled momma's arm out of her shoulder a teensy bit, well sorry about that.

I couldn't help it! Y'all know what it's like, right?

It all started at the Farmer's Market just up from our house...
Lots of people, fresh bread, smells, sun, breezes, dogs, and then...

Crikey!
A bunny right at eye level!
(this could be where the arm yanking happened, I can't remember)

In the words of  Audrey the plant on little shop of horrors,
Hey! that bunny (AND his vege) looks like dog food to me!

Sorry to be insensitive, but I'm a hunter by nature, see?? and I chase these critters all day long and here's one right in front of me?? It's more than a poodle can stand!

I mean this is how I usually see them, thumbing their little paws at me as they eat the clover in MY YARD.
Look at them, eating the dandelion leaves with no thought to a big bad poodle about to pounce.

Then I take one step too many and poof!
They're flicking that little white tail at me, and all I have to show for it is a sniff where they were.
All those years of chasing bunnies, then one is here in front of me, on a platter so to speak! I asked the little pug mix what he thought....

He was too busy sniffing the tree area to care... then I decided to sniff the tree area too, just to be nice,  and he was right it was pretty smelly!

Momma was still grumbling under her breath, all, Cole I swear if you pull me one more time... why I oughtta.... grrr.... so she needed some cooling off time.
Long story short, no bunny for Cole. Poor me.
They never buy me anything.

That's about it for today. I came home and took a much needed nap from the excitement of the morning.