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I am currently in a funk with the quilt I’ve been working on for six months. Our Relationship began last October at the IQF show in Houston with the kernel of an idea and became a Committed Relationship a month later in November when I began to work on it. But he was thought of long before Houston. I’ve decided that I have a Love Relationship with the quilts I make. Like any Relationship, it’s unique. I create the quilts and once I’m done, I send them off into the world on their own and break off the Relationship. They may…
Lily-of-the-Valleys are one of my favorite flowers. I love their little upside down teacup blooms, their heady fragrance and their furling leaves. My Mom’s Lily Bed quilt captured some of that feeling. My Mom passed away a year ago in Feb and Lily-of-the-Valleys will always remind me of her. After I returned home from her funeral last year, my sweet friend Laura brought me a Lily plant. I thought that was such a beautiful and thoughtful gesture, especially since it is a very rare find here in the searing San Joaquin Valley. I knew I had to find a special…
I’m currently working on a large whole cloth quilt that has a lot of intense free motion work. It’s critical that the quilt sandwich moves smoothly so that I can make my movements with ease. I have seen my students struggle with this in class and I began to wonder if I could effectively communicate some ideas I have on how to best manage the quilt sandwich while free motion quilting. I’m going to give it a try: Here I’m working with the practice sandwich that I use to test tension, motifs, threads and scale. Most of the work on…
I love my yard! I take joy in wandering around it frequently. It’s not on the cover of Sunset Gardens, but it is full of beauty that changes as my plantings mature. We’ve had such an early spring that the butterflies have already arrived, along with dragon flies and hummingbirds. I love how over time, almost any kind of plantings will begin to grow into each other and create new combinations: The sedums are ready to take over the hen ‘n chicks. I try to get as much variety in shape, texture and color as I can. I’m loving the dusty…
The first ever Northern CA-Northern NV Region‘s exhibit for Studio Art Quilt Associates has opened! “Put Your Best Foot Forward” opened April 1st at Creative Framing & Gallery in Oakland. The exhibit features 44 one-foot-square works from 26 artists-including my “Jewel Box”. If you’ve not seen work in this diminutive format, you will be pleasantly surprised at how delightful these gems are. Here is a sampling of some of the work you’ll see: Our Opening Reception is April 13, 6 – 9PM and the Closing Reception is May 25, 6 – 9PM. I hope you’ll stop by the gallery and…
Ever since I sent off my SAQA donation piece last week, I’ve been itching to try another hand-dyed wool/organza/cut-work piece. But I couldn’t even start before finding more hand-dyed wool. I had a lovely visit with the uber creative dyer/quilter/surface designer Linda Waddle and I came home with this mini-stash of some of her gorgeous hand-dyed wool. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do, but I needed to dig into my design files and books and other resources to hone in on my plan. I was thinking this was one piece where things should go smoothly…
Yesterday was yet another spectacular spring day and I took the opportunity to visit the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery. Known as the “Resting Place of California Pioneers”, the cemetery was established in 1849 and chronicles California history from the Gold Rush through today. A diverse group rests here: from Civil War veterans to famous citizens and former residents of diverse cultural heritage. The cemetery has an “Adopt a Plot” program and volunteers take over the gardening of their selected plots. The result is a spectacular display of mainly perennial beauties. These guys seemed to group together in dappled sunlight, shying…
Lucky me, I finally got to go to a spring quilt show, my first of the season. “Prime Time in the Foothills” was this year’s theme for the Foothill Quilters Guild show last weekend. And it was indeed Prime Time-everything was in bloom and it was a spectacular drive to Auburn on a gorgeous sunny day! Freddy Moran was the Guest Quilter this year and there were probably 25 of Freddy’s colorful quilts on display-you just had to smile when you walked into the room. Who else can use color like this? Candy Brown was the Featured Quilter and she…
I’ve had a bit of a run of things that have taken me away from my quilting-all of them good! But upon my return, I see a sea of work that I do not like: It’s not that I don’t like the stitching, it’s just that I chose a thread color on the front of this piece that just fades- I need to change the color. And… you can see that the stitches are tiny, tiny and it’s going to take a long time to rip out a whole area of this. Ugh. One of my recent diversions was a…
After last week’s playtime with my hand dyed wool/sheer/cutwork piece, I was inspired to pull out a hand dyed wool piece I had purchased at my guild’s show in Feb. Patty Henderson dyed this beautiful piece and I knew I had to use it in a similar way. Spring is busting out all over Northern California and that inspired me to place a flower in the center, and surround it with stylized nature motifs and some curves. I find Patty’s artistry with hand dyed wool to be breath taking. I layered it atop some hand dyed silk organza and began to…