2022

 2022 Temperature quilt

I haven't quilted this and I think I need to do something more as a border. Still, I made a small house a day for the entire year of 2022 and, even though I worried I'd not get the full spectrum of colors, our Summer turned very hot and the red appeared in the "over 100 degrees" days after all.  my only problem is I have a few days that were below zero and I didn't have a color assigned for that. I think I'll just add the actual temp number on the doors for those days. 

Since I've worked on this piece, I didn't spend my off times in early 2023 for quilting. Instead, I spent some time doing some death cleaning and organizing. I think I'm in a fallow stage and contemplating what my next focus will me. I am growing a bit tired of my artistic voice being subjected to themes, sizes, fabrics, etc.. If I have anything in the back of my mind, it's  the State dept. and spoonflower, but I'm not in any hurry. I really need to finish some projects I've got going around here. 

  I was sorting family photos and papers and just as I got everything contained, more arrived from my BIL. I did have much fun sorting those and delving a bit into genealogy papers I have and online sources. I wrote 30 + more family sheets for my collection. Online sources informed me I was a direct descendent of Pocahontas, which was a shock to me. Huh. I guess I learned I'm related to most founding fathers through connections in the 1500's.Most of those are more distant connections.  Genealogy is so time consuming and I just have to be in the mood to delve into that. 

I am back to work now and everything is packed away. I went to the Branson AQA quilt show and came away ambivalent. It felt like a carbon copy of last year's show, except I think they did a better job with the showcase of the cherrywood challenge pieces. I think the lighting was better as well. There is a movement to keep adding more and more quilting until most pieces are absolutely covered in thread. In many cases, the quilts were rippled, which shows uneven quilting and distortion. If it's a bed sized quilt, I suppose it wouldn't be noticeable, but wall pieces should hang well and they just didn't. It could be an indication of how well they were packed and shipped. (IDK) but I've had a few cases when my pieces were not presented well myself and it's always a sad feeling. In a couple situations, they were actually damaged and no one even mentioned it to me or apologized. 

 I went to the Rag barn in Alpena the day before and spent quite a bit on fabric I needed for landscaping quilts. I feel like my focus direction will be depicting the Ozarks.  

Bob Ross returns

   I don't recall how I learn of some quilt contests I participate in. Typically, it's a call for participants that are shared via Facebook these days. I suppose I learned of the Cherrywood Challenge from a couple different directions. In any event, I participated in the Bob Ross Challenge that was for 2019. I was shocked to learn I won first place.

 I was joyfully looking forward to getting a boost in my "career" from being part of it and winning 1st place. I didn't get any boost. They never used my quilt in any advertisements of their shows in any social media. I have no idea why.

 Because of Covid, what was supposed to travel for a year stretched to 3 years. They never really asked if they could keep the works, instead just sort of informed us. The last communication I saw was it would be returned in January, but suddenly, it just showed up in November when I was least expecting it. 

 Of course they have moved on to 2 other challenges since and one I got in and one I did not. At this point, the price of participating, the number of people participating while the exhibit numbers remain the same, means the odds against you are growing. There's a point that you must weigh if it's worth it or not. 

It's all making me rethink my place at this point. I'm getting older and I have achieved a lot of goals I've set over time. Despite the obstacles in my way. Maybe it's my way of looking at the world, but I am not interested in pay to play. It's always the artist that pays for the opportunity to share their vision with the world. 

 This week, Bob Ross returned home and the ribbon came with it. Nothing else. Not even a thank you letter. My husband looked at it and said, "I thought your piece was a portrait of Bob Ross." So, apparently no one really looks at what art I make. I don't know what to make of that.  

PQ 13-6 Flying Geese

 Flying Geese Fish

It's all a bit Fishy

19.5 x19.5

Let's talk about it

The challenge was to make at least 4 flying geese patches.

 EDIT: Somehow I missed that it needed to be 5 flying geese. I swear I saw 4 earlier. Anyway- I made a label from one, so my total is 5.

  Now let's Carry On: 

 Flying geese are a way to make a triangle that, when they are put together in a line, looks like geese are flying in the sky. Of course, you don't have to make them look like geese or put them in a line. I decided I would use them to make the front of my fish. The fish are made with a flying geese patch, a solid patch and an hourglass patch. I appliqued the eyes on them and I really Love these fish! I like how silly they look. 

  It reminded me of an old camp song I used to sing in Girl Scouts. I looked it up on the internet and discovered that there are a myriad of verses and a myriad of variations to those verses. Of course, I was talking to my husband (who was a 4-H er) and he had never heard of it. So, you might have heard this song, heard a variation or never heard of it at all. BUT-

  I was hearing a story about a Vice Principal who read a story to the school and it was a humorous book about Butts. Now, I am not familiar with that particular book, but I have raised a child who continues to think Farts are the funniest thing ever ( and she is 25), So I am familiar with those student readers who would find it endlessly funny. They fired him for reading that book.

  But then I remember this song- and several verses and they all speak to a questionable activity that adults do not approve of talking about.  I suppose you could say that these camp songs were as much a part of my childhood as all the church songs I sang. In the 60's and 70's all of this was considered wholesome fun and I'd like to think I grew up to be a good citizen. (Didn't hurt me none) 

  If I had time and was a bigger piece, I would have made the words from fabric. But, since it was small and I'm back to work- It was iron-on vinyl to the rescue. 

  Speaking of Work- We are back!!! Opening day was Wednesday and it was CRAZY. So many people on spring break and so excited to visit. My Parasols are still "in Transit" so I worked in the fudge area and made a ton of popcorn and some caramel apples. I'll be happy when those Parasols come in for sure. 

 I'm thrilled to have completed another year of Project Quilting (I missed challenge 1 this year) and I had a really good time. Thanks for another great season!

PQ13-5 Rhythm and Repetition

 Thinking about Spring

Gnomes in the Garden  25" x 25"

OMG! How ridiculous  was my effort this week! The theme of Rhythm and Repetition is something that is so ubiquitous in the quilt world that it's an automatic GIVEN that a quilter would intimately know and often use these elements of art. Basically, it left the challenge so wide open, it was hard to lock down into something. My mind floundered from thought to thought until I was a scattered mess. Somehow I got fixated on the 6" gnome block (really cute!) and added some Cricut Cut flowers and mushrooms. All cute elements I think and worth doing something like it again. Maybe the 12" gnome will be in my future. 

 I've been trying to get a big jump on my quilt guild project of a bookcase quilt, so that's been taking my focus. It's a lovely project for the ice storm days we had. I literally did not go outside for a week. I finally did to get my eyes checked. New Glasses are in my future (7-10 days?) but my eyes are getting old, but not old enough yet. LOL Blurry vision is going to be my companion for awhile. Very disappointing. I didn't realize my "eyeballing" the mushrooms ended up not precise. I'll remember to do more measuring next time. 

Another bit of disappointment is that while some of the Cherrywood Challenge will be at the AQA show in Branson in March, my quilt is not in the right collection, so the locals will continue to not know I exist as a quilter. My collection will be in Missouri later at Missouri Star Quilt Co gallery and I'll try to get there during that time. 

My time away from the world is coming to a close. I start back to work on Monday if the weather allows. I don't know exactly what I'll find when I get there. Mostly cleaning I'm sure at first. I dream we have an elevator. LOL 

Project Quilting 13-4 Mining for Diamonds

Mining For Diamonds

You can look at this challenge many different ways, but my approach began by mining my stash for this group of fat Quarters in which one print was diamonds. The rest of the group was themed American Indian type designs. I'm not sure how the designer put Diamonds and Indians together, but there you go. So looking on the web, I found a technique that sounded interesting. 
  Basically, you start with a square, sew a border around it and Triangles in the corners. Then you cut that down the middle and each side into 4 sections. (8 in all) then (and here's the magic) you flip each strip and sew it together like that. 

Progress photo showing the original panel and cut and flipped to sew together.

One thing I did NOT do and it was suggested to do is starch heavily. I soon learned why, those pieces wiggled and wobbled every which way and each added border just compounded it. In the end, I have a very distorted small quilt. 

I am disappointed in my execution and not sure if I want to finish it. Should I get a different batting than I usually use to disguise some of my mistakes? Should I even bother to waste any more fabric (backing) and time to complete it since it is so wonky? 

12" x 7" Mug rug

My solution was to make a small version and starch the Heck out of it to see if that helped. Of course limited amounts left of the diamond and coordinating fabrics but I ended up with a mug rug. Because it was smaller, I made 6 cuts not 8. It still turned out interesting and starch made a big difference.  It's such a simple way to make a complex looking design IF you remember to starch. 

This is my first mug rug but I think it goes well with the coffee cup in our collection from the Cherokee Nation.  

Lessons learned:

I already said that starch is the answer to many of my problems so that's a given. While these blocks create an interesting secondary pattern when sewn together as I did, I lost some points, lost matching up seams so those are things to look out for. I really wanted to make these as a stripe with a lot of negative space to make the quilt. I think I would do that the next time. Not to mention the entire quilt was created on the Fat quarter's colorways, which wasn't easy to find coordinating fabric in my stash. I don't even know how I ended up with these FQ to begin with. I ended up using the gray in the mug rug because it was the only piece I hadn't used and had enough of to complete the smaller piece. 

All in all, I tried something new- failed miserably and redeemed myself with a smaller piece. I might try it again someday. 

 

Project Quilting 13-3 Kitchen Influence

 Kitchen Influence

I have fond memories of apple butter from my Grandmother's house. 

While she grew up in Pennsylvania, I grew up in Florida. Apples only made an appearance in the toe of my Christmas stocking. I found Apple butter to be quite a treat on buttered bread. She lived next door to me and, while we had several types of jelly and preserves at our house, only Grandma had Apple butter. 

Fast Forward to now and Silver Dollar City sells apple butter. I bought some and it was different from what I knew- it had a more jelled consistency. Not what I remembered. My shop also makes caramel apples. Sometimes the apples would be bruised and we would take them home. I made fried apples and apple crisp and then one day, I decided to look into making apple butter in a crock pot. 

Now, these apples are green ones and quite tart, but it makes for an apple butter that is quite yummy to me. I've made a few batches and have shared. 

Apple Butter

7.5" x 10"

Let's Learn as we go!

I've never made an envelope quilt finish before. I am considering doing it for a bigger piece, so this was a perfect opportunity to try it out. I was using lots of scrap pieces of all fabrics for this piece and the batting was part of a sample packet. 

I sewed the backing to the front with the batting inside, leaving a 3" space to turn it. I poked out all the corners, turned under the edges of the opening and pinned it shut. 

I did all the quilting after it was turned and pressed right side out. 

My sewing machine has some "quilting stitches" that I never really tried using because they seem VERY small. In this case, since the piece was so small, I think it worked. I kept black thread in the bobbin so I could see how the stitches looked on both sides. In the end, after I did the jar and apples, I went back to free motion quilting. I used red, black, brown and blue threads in the top. 

What did I learn?

I learned that I had curving of the overall piece that I won't like in a bigger one. I'm not sure if I can adjust it by blocking it, but I'm sure that I will probably bind my other piece like I usually do. It's not worth all that work to not get a good final result. 

I learned that I probably will not use those pre programed quilt stitches for a larger piece. It is so dense and would take too long. 

Yes or No

There's a lot I like about this piece. I like how painterly it looks and how imperfect it is. I liked the collage approach to the apples and how the red thread brought it all together. I like how the background fabric reminds me of an old tablecloth and a bit old fashioned in a way. 

I like that I used up scraps (although I might have had different reds in the apples if I wasn't using just random scraps I dug out.) 

What I don't like is that I didn't keep it squared up and I'm not sure how to fix it so I don't end up with pointy corners and curvy sides, especially with a bigger piece. 

PQ 13-2 In Silhouette

Joy

8"x 10"

Lessons Spark Joy

Sometimes things that don't work

perfectly can spark a difference.

A while ago, I had explored making pieces based on Seminole Piecing from a book I picked up from the local guild. I played around with the green patterned fabric and discovered that there was a good reason why this technique is done with solids and not patterned fabrics. I also wasn't very precise in my piecing. But, there they were, strips in my stash of half made items. 

I still had some of that green fabric as well so I echoed it's presence with a strip. 

I'm also playing with the black with colored Fabrics placed strategically behind the cut outs with the flowers and bird. While I explored some brighter colors, I decided on a cream color. It worked well enough that I like that approach. It will be a technique I'll use again.

I cut my bird piece and the loopy border for the green fabric using a Cricut Maker. This is the sort of thing I purchased the Maker for because it has the option of a rotary blade which makes a big difference cutting fabric. 

I've been exploring different techniques to make a cut on my Cricut successful. I've got several techniques under my belt now and this went fairly quickly. 

My focus this winter has been working on a couple contest quilts. I missed the first Project Quilting challenge this year because I was in angst about another piece. I had started a piece and it didn't work in the end and I started over with a different vision. We often do that, don't we?- Plan B. I like my plan B better. 

 One more contest quilt looms and I'm still bouncing ideas from one extreme to another. 

The weather has been cold, a bit icy/ snowy and I am thankful I have no need to go anywhere. 

 

Project Quilting 12-6

 Ab Intra

  For the final challenge of Project Quilting for 2021, Trish really pulled out an obscure theme. Ab Intra, which means "from Inside".  Ohhh.. I had to think about this one for a while. What represents the me inside? What image would tell you something about me and what motivates me? 

   I always Loved making art from a young age and I continued to create art in various mediums over the years. I went to college and studied Commercial art and got a degree in teaching art. I also started taking pottery classes there and, after graduating, I apprenticed myself to a potter. For years, I travelled the Southeast selling pottery art art and craft shows until I got married. In college I also took several photo classes. I learned to love the Adams approach to photography, composing in the camera instead of manipulating in the darkroom. Over the years, I've transitioned from 35 mm film to digital and all the progress digital has made. I have a small collection of cameras from different ages. My favorite came from my great uncle David. 

   Photography, in general, has aided me in my art in other mediums, increased my skills at composing, and I've even begun selling photo-based images on Spoonflower. 

     What is my favorite thing to do? I love to walk in nature. I love to photograph nature and take moments to look closely at the nature elements. I believe that we will discover much more about how trees and plants communicate with each other. (Yes I've seen the documentaries) I love the  Japanese concept of "Forest Bathing". 

  I love family history and (on top of being an artist who finds value in things many don't) I ALSO have the issue of imparting life in objects (like my great uncle's camera). It leads me to have a clutter of stuff, but they become my cocoon of love, memories, touchstones. 

  Finally, ever since I've been young, I've enjoyed what they now call Americana. I attended the local folk festival (even skipped school to do it) because I really loved the concept of saving our old ways. It might have coincided with the craft resurgence of the Bicentennial, but  I was impressionable and it has  lasted in many ways in my life. Now that I live in the Missouri Ozarks, I have continued to have the opportunity to enjoy the folkways of our forefathers. I fervently hope that after Covid is over and we open up more, Baker's Creek will have their festivals once more. My love and interest in Americana directed my desire to work at Silver Dollar City. While they have world class rides, the overall theme of the park in old times and that means that I wear a long dress, pantaloons, and knee socks every day to work (even the summer). Most of the fabric our dresses are made of comes from Marshall Dry Goods in Batesville, Ar. The costume shop would have a sale of left overs every year (before covid) and it worked out to $1 a yard. Whenever I found fabric that matched my dress, I would be excited. It came in handy when I had to wear masks for covid. I could match my dresses. This year, they gave me enough to make matching masks for my new dresses. 

  I also sit next to the Dulcimer shop and, after 10 years, I finally found my perfect one and bought it. I had an old one from my early 20's but this one is SO nice! I have been practicing to play it better ever since. 

Capturing Me

18" x 14.5

   This depicts my love of taking photos of nature. In the lenses the fabrics are taken from a photo I have in Spoonflower that shows my neighborhood at sunset. (lakes and mountains) It shows my love of having family objects around me. It shows my love of music and the final border is from the fabric my dresses from work are made from. 

Project Quilting 12-5 Crazy Quilting

 Crazy Quilted Heart

Set it Free

6" x 3"

This week the challenge is Crazy Quilting. Another technique challenge, although I suppose anything that would make you "Crazy" would qualify. Crazy Quilting is, traditionally, a way of showing off your luxury fabrics (such as velvets, satins, lace, etc) AND your impressive skills at embroidery stitching, both on the joining of the fabrics and feature elements. I might have dug out some fabrics that qualified, but I wasn't in the mood. In addition, I'm not into hand stitching so I used the fancy stiches on my machine. 

  I'm in the process of making a piece I might submit to a show, so I had these fabrics laying around. I like the idea of making a heart without any nod to traditional colors. In the spirit of crazy quilting, I added yarn and beads and the butterfly made from a thin felt. It's actually from a piece I picked up from work. Life is Good hats are sent with these felt pieces to hold a shape of the hat but customers pull them out, they end up on the floor, and I gather them up. 

  I used a Sizzix cutter (I have one plate to make butterflies) To cut the butterfly. I also used this felt as a foundation for the fabrics and sewing the stitches. I then added the yarn and beads (xo for love and kisses) and then stitched the entire thing to black felt. After I took the picture on my design wall, I added a pinback so I could wear it. 

  My husband said this reminded him of that saying in the 60's/70's that said:

"If you Love something, set it free.

If it comes back, it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was." 

So, here it is pinned onto a jean jacket. 

Project Quilting 12-4 Snail Trail block

 We have Snow! 

I've been looking out the window a lot this week. I'm not a big fan of cold, but I like when there's snow on the ground. So, as I finished up my quilt today, this is the accumulation of the snow... so far... it's still snowing here. It's a fine snow, so it's taken quite a while for it to pile up around here. It's fun looking out this window and remember all the years my kids would be out there playing and sledding. Such wonderful memories. If I get motivated, I'll take a walk to the Lake and take some pictures there. It's been a while since we have gotten this much snow and our lake is so deep it doesn't freeze. Anyway, onto the challenge...

The Cats are Cold

25" x25"

I had done a snail trail block a few times in the past so I was familiar with it but I was adamant I was NOT going to make a bigger quilt this time. Still, snail trail lends itself to the best impact being repeated in several blocks... But I really didn't want to make a big quilt. I found this one on Pinterest which uses just one snail trail for it's tails and then simple blocks for the rest of the cats. It seemed like something I could sketch out easily. I saw it made both like this and with a snowballed corner on the cat body. I liked keeping it more geometric. 

Every source I looked at for making a 12" BLOCK, gave different cutting instructions. I decided to make an 8" BLOCK and cut the pieces , 5 1/4", 3 3/4", 3', and 2", then sub cut the first 3 into half squares on the diagonal.

I practiced, and started on my precious Cherrywood fabric. These cats are using some fabric from the  "Alaskan Sunset" collection. I liked the humor of using that in the week of sub freezing temperatures. 

Both of my girls, who are living on their own, decided to own cats. We have had cats while they were growing up, but now we have the two dogs and no cats after ours have passed away from old age. So, it's a tribute to Psyche, Bob, Luke and Star. Maura's Luke is quite the scene stealer in her Zoom classroom. Cats are fun.  

So, what did I learn this time? I am usually clueless about quilting. This week, I became a bit more adventurous about free motion quilting. I gave myself permission to play and not be perfect. I also tried sewing a binding on totally by machine. I sewed it on the back and flipped to the front and I used a foot called a piecing foot guide which kept my stitches running right along the edge. I was mostly pleased with that experiment too. 

I had some thread breakage. I noticed when I went to block the piece, the water evaporated quickly. I'm wondering if the humidity was affecting my thread.. or if it's just too old? Maybe I should just get rid of it? Not sure. 

Calling this challenge done and happy with what I've learned. 

Project Quilting 12-3 Virtual Vacation

 Virtual Vacation

It's cold in the winter here and, unlike last year with it's spectacular sunrises, this has been gray (oh so gray) with few actual snowfalls to brighten up the place. I would normally think about a trip, but Covid has squashed that thought. I just need to be happy snuggled up in my house with my quilt making. The theme this week made me remember a couple years ago when I was able to spend a couple weeks at the beach in the Emerald Coast of Florida. Destin and Pensacola area, where the beaches are sugar sand and every day was a different version of a beach paradise. Sigh! I photographed so much and I have so many spectacular views of that area, I decided to upload them to Spoonflower and have them printed. I wanted to work in some of the proofs I made as well. 

 My shop is called  "Elijahbluewallacestudio" 

Gold Coast Dreams 

44.5" x 40.5" 

I used a larger print of a sunset and then added in a few smaller pieces of proofs and colorful fabrics. The darker fabric I used looked informally woven and I liked how it made the brighter pieces pop. 

A closeup of the pieces show some of the different sizes of the Pensacola Beach sign I had printed. This is the vintage sign, which they recently replaced. It was so well loved, the new one really mimics the old one in design. Then, of course we ALL have scraps of fabrics around and they just seem to multiply. You would think this project might have gotten rid of a lot, but no... still a bin full. 

  Quilting (my nemesis) Continues to frustrate me. I used a pastel thread for the whole piece, mimicking the cloud lines in the sky and then carrying that down onto the sand area. The borders are all stitched a simple back and forth (wiggly at times) in different directions, crossed in the corners. 

  I'm seeing a trend this year of making basically a baby quilt sized quilt every time so far and I am pushed to finish in time. I like how I was able to use some of my spoonflower proofs. I don't know why I'm making this size this year. 

  I was talking with my daughter the other day and I mentioned just how much PQ has started to influence my fabric choices. Opening my eyes to a different esthetic for sure. 

Now for a totally off topic bit-

One day this week, I had to go out and mail off packages (including the cherrywood challenge) and I decided to get my hair cut. I was able to get an appointment fairly easily and I walked in and tried to explain what was going on with my hair.  The simple truth is that I shed hair. A lot. All the time. Everywhere. Then I also grow hair, constantly losing and growing. I am not a fussy person and I gave up with styling it a long time ago. Thus, I usually just washed my hair, then put it in a ponytail or sometimes braided it and let it go. That meant that when I was shedding hair, it was a very long piece of hair. So I had layers of length from 3 ft to about 4 or 5 inches, depending on the stage of growth. So anyway, my only instruction was to try to make it look better. So, quite a bit of the length is now gone, it's layered to work in the new growth and the bangs are also part of that. 

  My husband's first comment was to ask me why my hair looked like platinum blond . I had to laugh at him. Didn't notice that literally feet of hair was missing, it was just whiter. So, there you go. My gray shows up more. Other than my husband, there's really no one else to see it except at an occasional trip to the grocery store. I'm sure no one there really cares. 

Project Quilting 12-2

 Fussy Cutting

This challenge was a real challenge for me, which is a good thing, because that's the reason why we do it. 

The first challenge was to find a fabric I wanted to work with. I tend to use solids, atmospheric sorts of fabrics, batiks, etc.. all the sorts of fabrics that I can manipulate for art quilts I make. Finding a good pattern that was large enough to fussy cut was going to be a challenge. 

We all have random fat quarter packs that have pieces you like and some ... not so much. I looked through these and found a cute little deer print. I had enough images that I could make a small quilt of 9 blocks with these deer as the center. 

Back to my stash for coordinating fabric and, again, challenged! Just not a lot of the colors I like to use and, again, hit up those odd fat quarter pieces, or remnants of other projects. I made some math mistakes and cutting mistakes and generally grew frustrated with this project. Revisions upon revisions of my original idea gave me a basic plan and resurrecting some really ancient stash fabrics and I had a plan. 

So this is a close up of my feature fabric. Cute right? 

I ended up with a design plan that gave me an opportunity to Make an applique of the deer and other elements from the print. I'm just now realizing I'm doing an applique element like I did in 12-1 challenge. Sigh! It's wasn't intended but solved a problem. Anyway, I thought it needed it and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. 

To make the deer, I used a photo of the deer to enlarge and create a pattern for my applique. I added a few flowers from the scraps I used for the blocks to add design elements matching those in the feature fabrics. 

Speaking of using elements from the feature print, I used some elements like stars, clouds and swirls to form my quilting lines. I drew them out using heat sensitive pens. With the exception of making a star template, it was basically just free drawn. It was easily followed in the lighter fabrics, much harder to follow in the darker block areas and, in the end I just sketched out the stars and just decided to "wing it" for the rest. I was happy to try a new technique. I was frustrated at times. I don't think it ends up looking absolutely fabulous and I'm happy that it doesn't make much of a visual impact in the end. It's quilted and that's about the best I can say about it. 

Deer One 

42" x 38.5

Final thoughts. Man! Quilting and binding is my very least favorite part of making quilts. It's always a struggle for me. But, I sure remember the first time I was able to upgrade my sewing machine to one that CAN do free motion quilting. It was a game changer for me. But time has moved on and, unless I win a quilting machine, I'll still struggle with this part. 

I was very happy to find a home for some of these odd pieces of fabrics that have been lingering in my stash for years (if not decades). 

Limits in coordinating fabrics and the limited amounts of such fabrics (not to mention a few mistakes) defined this design. It's a true "Make it work" project. I think it turned out ok in the end. Thanks Ya'll. 

PQ 12-1 Illumination +ultimate gray

 It's that time again!

Project Quilting season 12 begins! This week's theme was based on the pantone colors of yellow and gray. I have been drawn to grays lately but yellow! As much as I always think I need to get yellow in my stash, it's always the color I have the least of and is the most challenging for me to find something I like. 

   When I began working on this, I was still working, so it was a struggle to head into the sewing room after I had 8 hours of bending and stretching to count the store. I knew it had to be something simple to get it done in a week. I had found the bee fabric in a small shop in upstate New York last year. I recognized it from a fabric line I had seen at Houston Market years before and had only been able to find the blue colorway locally. I originally thought I could use it in a bee quilt I was working on, but, in the end, it really didn't fit in. The gray I had in my stash and it's an interesting gray wood grain pattern and the yellow is two different shades of yellow from my Cherrywood stash. 

  The  Quilt is a super simple design like the beginning of a "Trip around the World". I added the bees on Wednesday  when I realized I was done working for the season and it could use a bit more interest.

  Someone asked about how I made the bees. They are a raw edged applique, sewn on with a satin stitch. I basically cut out the black and slipped the white and yellow in between the black and the quilt top. 

  To quilt it I just did a basic grid with diagonal crosses both ways. This was my first time trying out a mid tone thread as I talked about in my last post here so I picked Lilac! I like it too. It will be something I will consider again in the future. 

Bee mine 40"x40"

 So here's my entry this week all quilted. The binding is the same as the backing, another gray patterned fabric. Finished in a week. 

Joy in a time of Uncertainty

   Where does this story begin? 

I'll start with Project Quilting. It's a fun challenge oriented event, scheduled in the early winter, by Kim Lapacek. I think I stumbled across this challenge two or three years ago. It mostly corresponded with my time off from work, so it was something that kept me focused on quilting to a theme and I enjoy it very much. If you complete the challenge, your name gets put in a drawing. There's weekly drawings and then a final grand prize drawing. I've been lucky enough to win a few times and lucky enough to get to try out new products and be gifted with some fabric as well. Such is the case of the layer cake I used to make this quilt. 

  I'm not a modern quilter (for the most part) but I tried some of the predominant traits I see in them. Namely, Larger blocks more focused on the fabric than the piecing and More negative space. 

  So, I made this top and shared it with Project Quilting folks.  Joy@The Joyful Quilter  contacted me. I missed the email. She contacted me again. Joy offered to quilt this piece for me for free. ( WHAT!!!) Joy explained that someone did something nice for her earlier and she wanted to continue in that vein... sharing it forward. At the time, I was still in lock down from Covid and couldn't go out shopping. I explained I didn't have backing fabric that large here. (Remember, I'm mostly an art quilter) So Joy said," Nevermind, I'll do the backing fabric too." So, I mailed it to her. 

  Meanwhile, Covid continued, then my husband when back to work. Then I did as well... at severely reduced hours. I'm not going to say everything is back to normal at this point because it's not. I am not an essential worker but I go out among the public every day and try to make people happy, with all the precautions of mask wearing, temp checks, sanitizing, etc.. We just hope everyone plays along and remembers to keep their masks on. Some just don't. 

  Anyway, a package arrived and in it held a beautifully quilted quilt back from Joy. I just had to bind it and it would be finished. So, I jumped onto that as soon as I could. Hours at work changed from day to evening, so some was done in the evenings after work and some in the morning before. It's done! And here it is!   I dreamed of doing a better photo shoot for this, but at the moment, this is the best I can do.  

I never would have thought to do swirls on this. Let's be honest, I never would have made it this wonderful. It's quilted with a  light turquoise colored thread. I never would have thought of that either.  

I recently listened to a YouTube called "Karen's Quilt Circle with Anita Zorbens". It's a new off shoot of "Just get it done Quilts" You Tube channel. Anyway, it was about thread and needles. One thing Anita was saying is quilting with "in between" colors or pastels would read as white on white fabrics and blend nicely with others. I had an ah ha moment because I had Joy's example right before me. The thread reads white and gives dimension on the whites while blends nicely with all the other colors. So, Joy taught me a wonderful lesson. Thank you again for that, Joy! 

 

Now a brief word about generosity and making connections. I'm a introverted artist. I observe and I'm not particularly good at socializing. I'm not saying I glower in the corner of all gatherings, but my first instinct is to sit in the corner and watch everything rather than wear the lampshade. Communicating on the computer is easier for me, even though I keep having to learn all sorts of technical things and still type with two fingers. 

I've spent a lifetime now in the arts. Quilters tend to say we are the most generous group of people.  I've seen, over the years, just how generous quilters can be in making quilts for those in need. Veterans. Hurricane survivors. Children at risk. All the masks quilters made for Covid. Quilters are generous people, no doubt about it. People who receive these gifts have no idea how valuable they are. The money involved, certainly, but also the time involved. 

For me to have received this gift from Joy, it's a bit different. I'm not in need and I know full well the value of this gift. Her final response was:

Thank you, again, for trusting me with your quilt. It was an honor to do this for you. I hope you will remember the experience fondly as one of the GOOD things that happened during the pandemic and "pay it forward" at some point in the future.

I certainly will, Joy. Thank You again. 

the End of PQ Quarantine

I think people are just getting tired of this challenge, frankly. Many people have been able to go on with their jobs and life, therefore, this challenge is not so much fun as a burden. I totally understand it. I see all sorts of people going about their business and ignoring the Virus. 

I am still waiting for my job to open and I think they are waiting to see how other theme parks go about opening and what the outcomes are. I get it. I think there's going to be a point where we just can't do it safely and we'll just have to throw our hands up and do it. 

In the meantime, I'm still sheltering at home and just made a trip to the grocery store yesterday. I think that was my trip for the week. 

People are not exactly following simple rules anymore. 

It is crazy how many items are out of stock at the store, most notably meat, but odd things as well. Every time I go, it's an adventure that I've never experienced before. 

  Anyway, here's my latest piece, because I'm still in  self- quarantine and still quilting. But, my quilting has slowed down as the garden takes my focus and, frankly, I'm not very inspired to quilt this week. I am still making a house a day. I'm on week 11. 

Quarantine Challenge- Spots

Spots

Quarantine 

13.5" X 12.75"

This week's theme is spots. I used the opportunity to try a technique using my Cricut to cut out shapes in the fabric. In this case, I cut out the "holes" in the black fabric and backed it with a patterned Batik. I chose an irregular circle pattern and, to me it ended up looking like cells. 

 I decided to commit to my first piece  addressing the Covid-19 Virus. I found a picture of a Corona Virus and manipulated it to be cut on my cricut from green fabric. I fused that to some black fabric to give it more definition and then Cut this shape with scissors.I decided to go ahead and cut out the words in the Batik and fuse it onto a black border. 

Because this is a small piece, I decided to do some simple  Quilting stitching using clear thread on top and black thread on the bottom to hold all the pieces down. 

 I like how it all turned out. It reminds me of a poster presentation of this subject. The entire project went quickly. I started this morning and finished the piece by early afternoon. 

 I am emotionally struggling this week and doing my best to evaluate why and address issues as they come up. I think it's important to keep a welfare check going for myself at this point. Generally, I'm still in good shape. 

  I've been spending a lot of time (on my 9th week now) sheltering in place and, at first, I was keeping myself so busy making quilts I barely looked up from it. I could not separate my anxiety of the news from any sort of artistic processing. Last week, I just made a list of things, phrases, and touch words to begin to deal with it. I continue to make a house every morning to record the time I've been in shelter-in-place. Now, I've made this piece, just naming it. 

  

Slowing Down

 Most of my posts here are an easy way to post my Project Quilting entries, but this time, I'm taking a moment to self- evaluate how I'm doing in the time of Quarantine.

The good news first:

•   My husband finally gave up on having our spatially challenged son to rebuild the stairs and did it himself. While it's still not safe enough for me to walk them, the structure is there and son can finish them. 
•   We have a plan for the house issues.
• The weather is nice enough for us to enjoy working in the yard, although I am struggling to reclaim certain planting areas and I need to make decisions soon regarding gardening. 
•  I have a new great-nephew, born this month and he's cute as a button. 
• I have enjoyed connecting with family on the phone or via zoom. 

 My concerns:

• I still don't know how my job can restart. While I am lucky enough to be getting unemployment, I am concerned that it will end before my job can restart. 
•  I believe that our government has given up on having a better plan for a response to the Virus and have decided that the deaths are viewed as "acceptable losses" rather than seeing them as US citizens dying needlessly. It will speak to their morals and our morals as a nation forever. 
•  My family has done a good job of social distancing, but as soon as we open up, we are all at risk. 

 So, while the bigger concerns have been swirling around, my day to day activities are how I deal with them. My days generally look like this: I wake up at 4:30 or 5:00 and make coffee, drink coffee and listen to the news while I wake up. I make my house for the day. I've had big quilt projects that I have been meaning to do but never seemed to have the time to do. At first, I was working extremely hard on them, often until 2 in the afternoon. Now that I've had 2 months home, I've done most of those and I'm slowly working on other things. Like, I've collected patriotic fabrics for a few years, so now I'll do one of those. Never high on my list, but here we are. 

 I work on those until 12 or 1 now and then I eat lunch and watch tv. I take a nap. I wake up in time for decide on what dinner will be (with wavering enthusiasm) and then we settle in for a movie of some sort which I may or may not sleep through. Then bed. 

  My hours are so messed up and my enthusiasm for projects have waned somewhat. I'm trying to keep myself busy with projects that are not all that important. I get a level of satisfaction when I've completed a quilt top, especially one I liked designing.

    But, I feel like speaking of the Virus needs to be said in an art quilt and I'm just not there yet. Perhaps because the story isn't finished and I've yet to come to terms with all of what it means. Who made good choices and bad ones? Who did ridiculous things during it and how did it affect us all? Can I live with the choices I've made? What will my choices be going forward? How do I represent my feeling on the insanity I witness? At some point, it will come about. I'm just now starting to allow my thoughts to come. 

  I've gone through so much of my fabric stash, which is a good thing. After this patriotic one, perhaps I'll work on a Fall and then a Halloween one. I have quite a bit of fabric collected for those. I just have to decide what patterns to try for those. I'm just keeping on keeping on. 

   

   

 

Vintage

Totally Vintage

 Project Quilting (quarantine edition) them is " Vintage" this week. 

Most quilters never turn down fabric, even if it's not their style. Especially in the beginning when you aren't sure what kind of quilts you really like to make. As such, you end up with some fabric you aren't sure why you have it. 

 So, this was a chance for me to use some of the reproduction fabrics and some "real" vintage pieces. I think it makes a cute baby quilt with a star pattern I saw online. Some of the fabric included were given to me by a woman in her 80's and she told me the fabric was given to her by her Mother-in-law from dresses she made her daughters. I wasn't clear if she meant her husband's sisters or that Mom made dresses for her granddaughters. Either way makes those pieces older than me.  It feels good to have them find a home in a new piece. 

My nod to the situation is I'm not finishing this piece for now. I want to think about the sorts of backing fabric to use instead of using anything I have at hand. 

I wanted to share a picture of the most vintage toy I own that has a connection to my childhood. 

This was given to my sister, Ann, when she was young by the neighbors whose kids had outgrown it. 

Not only did it survive her childhood, but made it all the way to me, born 14 years later, and a large influx of kids. I have no idea how my of us this guy comforted in the family, but I do remember my brother and I fighting over ownership and Grandma sewing the buttons on for his eyes. I guess I won ownership since I have it and I'll be 60 this year. I'm going to post his picture on my facebook page and ask who remembers him. It will be interested to hear what my siblings will say. 

Floral Challenge

Floral Art Sketch

The Project Quilting Quarantine Challenge this week is Floral.

I've been meaning to try this technique for awhile so this was a great week to try it. I used A light colored Cherrywood fat quarter as my top fabric. It's a fabulous fabric to sew with and to paint on. I looked at several photos I took of a messy garden and sketched several elements from those photos into a composition. I used a frixion pen on the fabric. I sandwiched it with some black batting pieces I had and black backing fabric. I used black thread and free motion quilted the sketch onto the fabric. I ended up with this.

I used fabric medium and watercolor paint to color the piece. It got very intense and bled quite a bit. I liked the effect but I wasn't sure how to control the edges. I sprayed some water to encourage the spread. Then I added salt to the whole piece and let it dry. I used pink Himalayan Salt, cause I had a bag of it handy, but you can use any salt. It pulls the water towards it and thus, the paint, so the end result is a mottled look I really like. 

 After it dried and I brushed all the salt off,(Outside and with a good brush) I realized I wanted a few more flowers but lighter, so I used a lighter thread, instead of black, to sketch in a few more. I used Inktense pencils with fabric medium to bring out some more spots of color that I lost from bleeding before. I've never actually made a quilt with a rounded top , but always wanted to try it. It's roughly 13 x 20.  

Overall, I liked this project. I got to do some techniques I had wanted to try and I like the overall feel of the piece, like it's a watercolor sketch. I'd forgotten just how much I like the effects of salt. I really liked the whole piece as a great little project. 

Small escapes during Coronavirus-19

Social Distancing

It's been a bit more than 3 weeks of social distancing for me. At first, the days were moving so slowly and I kept thinking I needed to be highly productive every day. Now, I'm settling into a pattern of life and I'm not quite as driven. I can spend a week at a time indoors but then I need to step out a bit. I am sheltering in a rural area and can easily spend some outdoor time without encountering anyone. I celebrated the super moon by spending quite a bit of time at the lake. 

 I've been waking up very early  and taking pictures of the dawn. I don't know why I am waking up so early every day. 

 I enjoy watching dawn every day. 

 Just for variety, I went to the lake for sunset. The sky was mostly cloudless, but also fewer contrails. It's Spring, which means lots of rain and the lake is flooded. I miss being able to walk along the shore. 

I've been enjoying the wild life out my window. Some are quicker than others. I've missed photos of the groundhog and fox, but this little guy is a frequent visitor.

 I am not sure how long we'll be social distancing and unable to go to work. It sounds bleak. I understand the social distancing means we don't overwhelm the hospitals, but at some point, are we supposed to get it? Are we just delaying the day? Can we really survive like this long enough to get a vaccine?That's over a year. If we do get it, and survive, are we immune? The jury is still out on that. Not sure if our government even knows or has some sort of overall plan.