I've seen a lot of blogs talk about last weekend's Quilt Market in Kansas City. I was there too, but my thoughts about market have remained just as organized as this Alexander Henry exhibit:
So you too will have to read other folks' descriptions and reviews for market news. I don't know what to tell you. The hype and merchandizing were ferocious.
There is a lovely little church on the south edge of my town that lets artists show work in their fellowship hall. I have an assortment of quilts there now:
Here is how to make fabric bowls: Take a bunch of too narrow to be useful fabric strips and either sew or tie or loop together into as long a strip as you can manage during the next step.
Next step: tie your fabric strip to the outside of a bobbin, put the bobbin on its winder, and then spin the strip into a twisted cord. Or, if you have a cordless drill and a helper, make a strip the length of your house and tie a knot in one end of the strip. Clamp the drill chuck on to the knot and spin, spin, spin a long cord. Roll this cord into a ball and then zigzag along the length of the cord. (This is a great way to use up old, possibly weak thread.)
Now you have a cotton cord that can be used any way you'd like. I like to hold the cord together in a tight spiral and zigzag it into a circle.
If you bend the resulting circle up as you continue to stitch around it, it will begin to form a bowl shape. Keep bending and stitching...another great use for unwanted thread.
Bright colored thread can make interesting designs along the sides of the bowl, and loops and beads can add interest too.
Currently at the 1109 Gallery I have three pieces in their "Art by the Park" exhibit. Using the techniques I learned in a class taught by Nan Renbarger, I made three bowls...or maybe two bowls and a platter:
Sunflower Bowl
Taos Sunset Bowl
Turquoise Bowl
I went through the ritual of entering a (hopefully) traveling exhibit put together by the Dinner at 8 artists a few months ago. This is an invitational exhibit, but entries still have to be juried in. There is a set size and theme. The first time I entered the theme was "Beneath the Surface" so I did a quilt about burrowing owls. It did not get in. Next, the theme was "The Space Between", so I did a quilt that was a mush of black and white print fabrics with some lines of colored prints. This one got in. This year the theme was "Rituals" but religion and politics were not to be used. I made a quilt about how my parrots wake me up every morning and alert me to the setting sun every evening. It did not get in. I wonder if the jury does not like birds? Or maybe they just want impressionistic mush? Or maybe my work just gets very weak when I use birds. Anyway, here is my quilt "Wake Up Call":
(The torn fabric is supposed to suggest being torn from sleep and the clocks...well you get the idea.)
My exhibit at the Lawrence Community Theater comes down this Sunday, but most of the work will then move to the exhibit space at the Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence. Here are two more pieces in the group:
Blue Flower Sketch
Red Flower Sketch
This weekend is my guild's annual quilt show. It is held at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Lawrence, KS. Hours are 10-5 on Saturday and 12-5 on Sunday. I'm helping with the "boutique" this year, where we sell handmade items, gently used sewing notions, and donated books and fabric. Several guild members were down-sizing this year so we have a LOT of stuff to sell. Please come buy something! There are also over a 100 miniquilts being silent auctioned to raise money for six local charities.
Here is a quick photo of the one new quilt I will have in the show. (I also entered a couple of older quilts.)
I call this quilt "Nickles and Dimes". It was made from the scraps leftover from factory pre-cuts of Barbara Brackman's Civil War fabrics. I added in a green hand-dyed fabric.
This month I am the featured artist at the local community theater for the duration of their production of "Steel Magnolias". As always, I had grand plans for an entire room full of new work. In reality, I got five new pieces finished, but they are each only six inches square. So a filled room would have to be a very small room. I added three old pieces into the exhibit and one larger new piece that was made for a different project...but it didn't get accepted into that show. More about that later. Since the show has magnolias in the title I made three new works with magnolias. (I know magnolias are spring flowers but the backgrounds indicate three different seasons to me):
Spring Magnolia
Summer Magnolia
Fall Magnolia
Now that there are toasters that burn faces on bread, I guess Jesus has to start appearing on other surfaces...
Although the first image I saw was a sphinx, and sometimes I see Jane Eyre. It all reminds me of one of my favorite cartoons:
I have been doing a little sewing lately, but I keep getting distracted with crochet. Like those spike balls for instance...but also bags crocheted out of plastic "plarn" that I make from the plastic bags the newspaper comes in. Originally, I thought I'd just make them until my crochet cotton ran out. (I like to combine the plarn and crochet cotton together to give the bag more color and strength.) But last week saw me sneaking into Michael's with a 40% off coupon to buy more crochet cotton. I did a brief tutorial about making these bags here. Several friends have started saving bags for me because other newspapers use different colored bags. Who knew? (I am beginning to have a hard time keeping up!) Here are some of the results:
You may be able to spot some Dollar Store and Westlakes plarn in these bags but the one below is pure Lawrence Journal World.
Last Fall I found a free pattern on-line for crocheted 12 pointed shapes here. I thought the project was beautiful and interesting... and the result wouldn't have to fit or be the right size. A win, win. So I worked up several and sold them all. The last one was bought by a fellow who was very enthusiastic and asked me to make five more for him. It took a while, but I got them done and sent him a picture. Not a great picture, but after all, I thought he already loved them. Well, no response. But that is ok, I will put them aside as inventory for the next craft fair.
p.s. I think the pattern needs a correction on the 11th point, which must be connected on four sides, not three. You'll see what I mean when you get there.
p.p.s. Tonight's basketball game did not have the ending I had hoped for (sigh) but I am pretty sure the sun will come up tomorrow anyway. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
We have been consumed with college basketball here, deep into March Madness. It has been so much fun watching a team exceed expectations-which is rare here. We are so spoiled with a great coach and very good teams year after year. This year my long suffering husband and I got off the sofa and went to the first two rounds of games, first to Omaha and then to St. Louis. It was a lot of fun! Here is a self portrait of b-ball fans in Omaha:
Now, a shout out to Portlandia fans... We had breakfast in an Omaha coffee shop/bakery one morning, and lets face it, I always clean my plate and have never really understood what folks are talking about when they say something is "too rich". BUT the lovely cinnamon rolls we bought for breakfast had double frosting and no noticeable cinnamon. I couldn't finish my near tasteless blob. Possibly a first.
I decided we has stumbled upon a "Cup of Joe, Side of Dough" special.
To complete the Portlandia theme, the coffee shop had a nice exhibit of bad art:
Martha Sielman, along with Lark Books, just published a really inspirational art quilt book titled "Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World". This book has profiles of some of my favorite textile artists:
And what is really exciting for me is that my quilt "Golden Bird" was included in one of the galleries! To buy a copy click here.
Remember that quilt shop owner who was handing out fabric at my quilt guild to challenge us to make more mini-quilts for our silent auction? The final challenge was to use some of Barbara Brackman's Old Fashioned Calico. This is her new line of fabric that is similar to what we were sewing with back in 60s. I received the red and yellow prints, so I thought I could make yoyo flowers or berries and put them on a green background that suggested trees or leaves. Here is the result:
The green print is original Cranston Printworks fabric in the old 36 inch wide format and the green solid is a polyester fabric from the same era. Barbara has an interesting post here about the history of green fabric and how it was produced. I made the dress she shows in that post from fabric I bought at the TG&Y in 1973 or 1974. I felt pretty stylish in that dress and even wore it to a wedding rehersal... maybe even to a wedding. Thankfully, most of those memories are faded.
Unlike the dress. Which is still quite bright and groovy.
To boost the number of fund-raising mini-quilts to be at my guild's quilt show, a local fabric store has been handing out fabric and challenge themes. For this challenge the theme was "Almost Amish" and each person was given two solid colored "Amish" cotton fabrics. For my quilt, I added in a pale blue fabric and some fish batik that a friend had given me. The quilt pattern is the old "Trip Around the World" design. Naturally, I call my quilt "Trip Around the Ocean".
Here are some cell phone decorations and earrings that I made a while back. They feature felted hearts and balls, and some metal charms. Do folks put dangling things on iphones and droids like they used to for the older style phones?
This is a quick quilt I made from the last of a "jelly roll" of batik strips. I added in some narrower strips of turquoise fabric to help hide the fact that the remaining strips were a little repetitive.
Some of us got together and made a baby quilt for the new grandmother in our group. Group projects are great when each step gets done by the members who excel at that step. The fabrics are picked by the person(s) with that great sense of color. Seams are sewn by the steadiest hands. The blocks are arranged by someone with the best attention for detail. The quilting is done by a master machine quilter. Everything quickly "just falls into place" and everyone is happy with the result. Check out this example:
Here is a closer look:
