Margaret Atwood: In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination
Daniel: Stray Sock Sewing: Making One of a Kind Creatures from Socks
Diana Taylor: Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Ficklesticks: Art Sticks to Bend, Wrap, Weave & Wear
Kim Schaefer: Cozy Modern Quilts: 23 Easy Pieced Projects to Bust Your Stash
Karen Seiger: Markets of New York City: A Guide to the Best Artisan, Farmer, Food, and Flea Markets
I'm in a New York state of mind, wishing I could see Philip Taaffe's new show at the Luhring Augustine Gallery.
Taaffe uses stencils, stamps and rollers to create beautiful layered art that could be used as inspiration for pieced and painted quilts.
Fabulous, just fabulous.
If it was the first of April I would think this news was part of a joke. However, it has been a few days since I saw this online and no one has retracted it so... NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg is scheduled to be the first quilter in space. (Or maybe the first to admit it.) When she is launched into space she is taking four fat quarters, needles and thread along to do some stitching. She was excited to learn that there might be some second hand fabric available to her on the space station since flight suits are worn for only one week and then discarded into a trash bin.
In addition to the regular challenges of quilting, Karen will have to keep carefull control of all thread bits so they don't float into someone's eyes. She will have to find some way to brace herself and her work too in the zero gravity. For the rest of the story click here. I am looking forward to seeing what she makes!
I saw an interview with Jimmy Connors last night that mentioned he now plays tennis on two new hips. He seemed to be able to run around the court like the old days...which is encouraging to me as I limp along with my cane, babying my single new hip. Not that I could play tennis before, but I did manage to walk without support in the old days. Here is just about all I have accomplished lately:
An infinity scarf done in a fairly simple double crochet stitch.
Have I mentioned my family history of debilitating arthritis? No? Good. It is a boring tale that includes a lot of whining about pain. I'm breaking from family tradition (not the whining part) and starting out on what will probably be a series of joint replacements. Everyone else has just toughed it out.
The plan is to replace this with some smooth moving hardware:
so I can get back to the dance floor.
How about some bad photos of a quilt I made for a friend/client? This quilt features fabrics with pictures of dogs:
And here is the final product:
I try to make at least one quilt a year that could be considered bed-sized. Usually this results in a quilt that is too big for the wall and too small for any bed we have around here. But since most days I make quilts for the joy of sewing and the dent it might make in the fabric hoard, I just go ahead and crank these out. Here is the latest, which I call "Cutting Corners":
It was inspired by this 1960s quilt made by Marjorie Childress:
The prairie points on my quilt were made by sewing around two face to face 2.5 inch squares, cutting the result in half diagonally and then turning those two pieces right side out. There are about 900 points on my quilt. I think Marjorie has me beat by quite a bit. The fabric I used for the sashing is a misprinted version of the border fabric. It has white spaces where the printing process failed to get enough ink or paint on the fabric. I think it gives the center of the quilt a little bit of light. (The white blob on the right is a label-this picture was taken at a quilt show.)
Still doing boutique items... Here are decorated hair bands:
No,not Easter chicks. They are catnip stuffed cat toys to be sold at my guild's Boutique at our quilt show next weekend. (More info here.)
I think they turned out pretty cute.
One of the items donated to the general cause was a very textured wool weaving done in 70's colors. It had been folded and sewn into a bag shape. Probably because I had the catnip out... I filled it with batting scraps and catnip, added some eyes and sewed the final side shut. It is an extra large cat toy for a multiple cat household that looks like a cross between the Wichita State Shocker mascot and Oscar the Grouch.
Truly one of a kind items!
We are celebrating Pi day at my house with a delicious chocolate pie that arrived on our front porch last night as a delayed birthday present for my husband. It is great to extend these events this way...we ran out of birthday cake a couple of days ago. I'm still sewing even though I don't seem to be blogging. Here is another mini quilt that will be auctioned off at my guild's quilt show:
Here are a couple of valentines just for you:
A while back I saw this great quilt on the internet:
The label called it Marjorie Childress's 1960s quilt. I don't know if Marjorie made the quilt or just owns it, but I decided to make one like it. Instead of the traditional method of making prairie points, I used 2.5 inch square "quilter's candy" squares that I had acquired over the years. I placed one square right side together with a second randomly-sized (but bigger than 2.5" square) piece of fabric and stitched all the way around the square. I then cut the result once diagonally from corner to corner. Turned the triangles right side out and pressed. So you get two "prairie points" for each 2.5 inch square that you cut...which seemed like a time saver until I was doing the right side out turning and pressing...that took a while. I'm 900 or so points along now and I am beginning to have trouble remembering what I liked about this quilt. But the top is finished, so lets get it quilted in time to be in my guild's show. Stay tuned.
One last sock monkey quilt to use up the last of the monkey fabric:
There is a new show at the 1109 Gallery in Lawrence, and the theme is "Sweethearts". It runs through Feb. 17. This may be the last show at the gallery since it is having difficulty paying the rent. Artists seem to be abandoning the ship as there was a struggle to fill this show. I decided this would be a good show to enter the maximum number of pieces and all of them are good sized. The newest of the three is an appliqued quilt I call "Spring Flowers":
My quilt "Wake Up Call" is part of the window display:
Go see the show, but call first...just in case they haven't been able to find anyone to staff the place that day.
Included in the items donated for the upcoming "Boutique" at my guild's quilt show was a small quilt top. I finished it up with some machine quilting and button embellishment. If I had pieced the top, the buttons would be hiding missed intersections in the piecing.
Sadly, these buttons hide perfectly matched seams but they also do a good job of highlighting the quilting, I think.
This quilt will be in the guild's mini-quilt silent auction to raise funds for local, very worthy, non-profits.
Happy New Year to everyone! I wish good health, good times and good family interactions for all.
Here is a very pretty bird from one of my favorite designers:
Helen Dardik has a blog at Orange You Lucky that is packed with these great illustrations and a shop on Etsy as well.
I am participating in a fabric postcard swap this year. The theme for our group is "Flowers". The first set of cards was due before Christmas. I just made the deadline with these poinsettia cards:
Six years ago on Christmas day, I started blogging. Most days I feel like this is my private diary and just a way for me to look back at where I've been and what I've made. I'm always a little surprised when people mention something they have read here. I think.. What?! And then oh, yeah...the blog.
Time flies whether or not you are having fun. I would have guessed this to be the fourth birthday if I hadn't checked.
Happy Birthday Blog!
Here is a picture of a robot quilt I did for someone wanting to welcome a new baby grandson. The baby lives in Manhattan so the quilt will too, and that is a nice thought... my work residing in the Big Apple. It reminds me of a kimono I was given on a trip to Tokoyo. The owner of the garment said that even though she would never travel to the U.S., it was nice her kimono would be there. A moment of Zen via fabric.
Quite a while back I was given a hand carved wooden bird stamp. Someday I plan to print up some fabulous fabric, but in the mean time I did some single birds in a "soft black" acrylic paint (which turned out to be a dark brown) on canvas and filled in the spaces with free motion thread painting. Very much a coloring book type project in process and in result too, I think. Most of them have flown off as holiday presents.
