Back to Life

I had a breath of fresh air this week. I went to a meeting of the Twisted Stitchers, something I haven't done in months. It felt good to have people excited to see you and to be excited to see them. Tonya, Carol, Sharon and Judy were there working on projects for the upcoming Dallas Quilt Show. I brought a project from the Prayers and Squares Quilt Ministryt to work on. I managed to only sew parts of 3 blocks the wrong way.

The quilt store where we meet, Quilt Country, is sponsoring a cruise to Alaska next summer featuring Carol as the main instructor. I am giving this serious consideration... I left our meeting inspired to do something, anything creative. I decided to make a wall hanging of the Man in the Maze. My friend Lorraine bought me a bracelet while on vacation in Sedona. This was my inspiration for the quilt. I was hoping to make it for the 12X12 challenge but it is too big. I made two patterns so maybe I will make the smaller one for the challenge. We will see - there is a boatload of cutting that gives you something like this:

but then you can change this garbled bunch of fabric into a positive

and a negative. They are fused and waiting for finishing work.

Ahhh! Feels so good to blog...

Happy August!

Since my last post, I have been busy doing things I love to do. I spent a day at United Cerebral Palsy , helping the clients celebrate the Fourth of July. This is the second or third year we have done this at work. We started with a cookout, a craft project and ended with a parade around the facility. I made a few new friends that I look forward to seeing again. I also spent quite a bit of time and energy on team for another ACTS retreat. Most normal people would have been done after the retreat on Mother's Day weekend but I have never been considered normal, even on my best day. I promised my friend Jessica that I would assist on team when her church had their first retreat and I try to honor my promises when possible. And as if I hadn't had enough, I was asked to be a co-director for the next retreat given by my church - sigh. I'm going to take 2010 off.
I managed to make a couple of art pieces. One was rejected by the Texas Fiber Arts Federation for their annual show - phooey.

I made a couple of small pieces using techniques from Kelli Perkins Quilting Arts Workshop - Stitch Imagery. I don't have pics on this computer so I will post them later. I also decided to knit and felt a couple of purses. I was inspired by a simple, yet beautiful purse Suzanne Morgan brought to one of our DAFA Board meetings. True to my nature, I had to try making one for myself. Here is the felted purse. I will needle felt a design later. I was very happy with the results and was inspired to make a cell phone holder. I used a pattern from Pursenalities Plus. The amount of shrinkage amazes me:

Pre-felted piece, look at how much room there is.

After felting and with snap closure.

Pre-felted piece

Finished piece with heart shape covering the magnet snap.

Life's a journey....

Terri and Sue have a Summer Giveaway of some of their hand dyes, books and other great stuff. Check out Two Creative Studios to sign up for their newsletter and to read more about it.

Done!

Finished, Done, Finit!!! Last weekend I put the finishing touches on our Black History Month building presence displays for work. It is amazing what you can do when you don't think about being tired and you want to deliver something you feel is spectacular. The theme this year is Education = Inform, Improve, Inspire and it was my job to translate it into something visual.

This is what we came up with- 6.5 ft. tall by 2 ft. wide display cubes. The 'we' is me and Bill Wegener from Color Enlargement. Karen joined us and the three of us spent Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday building and assembling the boxes and the lobby display. Everything fell into place and come Monday morning, there were 9 display cubes strategically placed around the building. They are a big hit - our building needed something different and light to brighten it up. Here is a picture of the lobby display - the faces across the top are of our Quiet Historians. I missed a live viewing of the Super Bowl so I watched it in about 30 minutes Sunday night. Looks like it was a good game.

Before starting work on the display, I managed to complete a small piece for the 'Rock On' challenge sponsored by Quilting Arts. I've always thought the idea of stage diving was pretty cool, trusting all of those outstretched hands...

Is it December already?

A lot has happened since my last update. The event I am happiest about is our new President-elect - Mr. Barack Obama. I truly believe the team who will do the most to help our country won the election. I still have nightmares when Palin's name creeps into my head (shudder). Obama and Biden have a daunting task ahead of them but I believe they can handle it. During this time of instant gratification, I hope we, the American people, understand that it took eight years to get into this mess and it will take time to climb out.

I went to Boston to visit with my daughter. Here she is looking a little rumpled.
She actually lives in Brighton but if you cross a street, you are in Boston. I really like Boston/Brighton, or whatever - all except for the parking. It stinks big time. What is it with 'Resident Only' parking? There is 'Visitors Parking' but that's like 6 spaces (okay, maybe 10)for an entire neighborhood and between the hours of 8:00 am and 6:00 pm you can only park in the same spot for 2 hours. It is worse than New York City because I had to go out in the cold every 2 hours to move the damn car. Sucks big time and yes, I got a ticket (or 2). I suppose it could be worse (how you ask) - she could live in Brookline - they have NO overnight parking for visitors. I have no idea how it works and don't really even care. We found out too late that you can get a temporary 'Resident' sticker - next time...


I took an interesting Nuno Felting class from DAFA member Suzanne Morgan. Here she is showing us a couple of her pieces for inspiration.




I invited my friend Linda, who is waiting for the next instruction
and coworker Lorraine, whose passion is knitting and spinning. She is a member of the Dallas Hand Knitters Guild.
Along with the usual suspects - Deborah
and Lu



and Michelle
we had alot of fun embedding silk into prefelts, rubbing, rolling and beating the hell out of our pieces.

I finished the graduation quilt I was making for Tessa. It's made from feedsack fabrics and it's a great quilt to wrap up in while watching television on those cold Seattle nights.
I cooked an awesome Thanksgiving dinner. Ashley, a friend of my daughter, joined me and we had a great time. She brought me a beautiful bouquet that one day will end up in a quilt.



My brother celebrated a birthday on Dec. 5th so I made him a birthday postcard using Grungeboard. It's a pretty interesting material to work with as you can sew and paint it. I used copper and bronze paints and orange foil to add texture and glimmer. I love this card! Happy birthday Mike.



Guess I will go put up the tree...

Quick Update

I am really tired, drained and getting ready to hit the sack but wanted to update before I was too far behind.

Water Heater Woes: my neighbor got in touch with a friend of his who specializes in maintaining water heaters for the Garland ISD.

Frank came over, told me the obvious ' your heater is broken', took me to Home Depot and Lowes and showed me what to buy. Frank returned Sunday morning to install the heater - what a nice man. He saved me over $150 dollars - love him and my neighbor!

These are the hands of a hard working man.

Dallas Area Fiber Artist: April meeting featured Deanna Wood on Artist’s Books: Concept and Form.

She showed us many different types and forms of handmade books.

There was also a mini workshop where we made a concertina book. We learned how to cover a chipboard cover with flawless execution. Great workshop.

For the May meeting we had a potluck dinner and a fun 'art swap'. I made a 10 X 10 piece out of linen, transfer dyed panne velvet, beads and a little embossed metal piece. Deborah was the lucky person to pick my piece. I must say, this group is very talented and extremely supportive. I picked a couple of beautiful origami folded 'treasure boxes'. The workmanship is exquisite. I will have to find a creative was to display them.

New works: remember those repro fabrics I bought for the baby quilt I forgot to take a picture of? Well I had so much fabric left over, I had to buy some colorful fill-ins and I made a feed sack quilt. Here is a picture of it in progress.

It still needs its borders. I also made a magic wand and a second piece matching the 'art swap' piece. The bottom piece is the swap piece. I added a 'window' on the right hand side that looks pretty cool. I will keep the second piece for myself. I also have 2 pillows in progress using the same idea. I will display pictures as I develop them.

Here is a picture of my 'Magic Wand'. I needed something fun to do over the weekend, as I was stressed thinking about what I had in store for the rest of the week. It is pretty cool.

Here is an experimental piece featuring cowrie shells. I have had this cowrie shell thought for a few months and I decided to use a technique from Quilting Arts Magazine. This is a picture of the 'pieces'. It has since been developed a little more. I think it is a bit dark, so I will have to figure a way to lighten it up and the tea bag paper is more prominent than I hoped. The fabric is painted and the shells are drawn on tea bags and adhered with gel medium.


I have more pieces in work, just no pictures. - Yet.

Off topic: have you ever seen a purple yam? I have seen them in the Asian grocery stores and mentioned it to a coworker. Jane brought me 2 purple yams that she painstakingly picked from a stack of yams. They were perfectly pointed on one end and were the perfect size. They are not purple while raw, but after cooking them, they are purple! See...



They taste like sweet potatoes but the texture is denser. They are pretty good and are sweet so you do not need to add brown sugar.

Lastly... I finally met Linda's brother, Jeff Zachmann. We went to Fort Worth Main Street Art Festival and he had a booth with his kinetic sculptures. His work is amazing and I stood there with the children, mouth open and watched the little metal balls whirl around. I am going to start saving my money now cause I want one. I liked the one that is a sofa table - the sound of the balls traveling around has the same affect as a fountain. Here is Jeff and Linda - by the way - the Art Festival was awesome - I recommend attending next year.







Until next time....

Collage Mania

They are in the mail. Full Circle I was sent to Susan Kennedy in Sugar Land, Texas and Full Circle II was sent to Lynn Krawczyk in Plymouth, Michigan. These 2 ladies absolutely made my week.

Overall, the Collage Mania auction brought in $12,000+ for the American Cancer Society during the 2 days. I think this is a fantastic accomplishment and I applaud Virginia Spiegel for taking on this tremendous task.

I also want to thank my Twisted Stitchers sisters (try saying that 5 times) for their kind words of encouragement. They are an accomplished group of award winning quilt artists who waited patiently for me to loosen up enough to share my work.

Oh yeah, I gave in and bought a few more feed sack/30's fabrics so I can make this scrappy thing I saw in some junk mail ad that came to the house (damn that junk mail). I am still working on the baby quilt- it must be completed by Wednesday because the recipient will be leaving for her daughter's baby shower on Thursday. I am glad I am doing it as a quilt-as-you-go because everythin so far is quilted...I just need something for 2 or 3 blank block, maybe hearts because they are easy to do...should work with the bears...so much for keeping it simple--why did I forget to add the darn sashing BEFORE quilting??????? S#@*!

More tomorrow...

As Far As I Will Go

I am done! Done, done, done! The time between February and now is done, can't play catch-up any more.

There are a few things I would like to share. I had a couple of pieces accepted by Virginia Spiegel in her Fiber Arr For A Cause, Collage Mania 2008 . 100 percent of the proceeds benefits the American Cancer Society.

Full Circle 1

Full Circle 2

I was thrilled when I received an email from her telling me one of my pieces was featured on her April 9th Tuesday Blog. The preview starts Monday, April 28 and the auction starts Monday, May5.
I was looking at my copy of Quilting Arts, Studios, and on this pass, I was actually reading rather than staring at the pictures in awe. I love to see who is quoted and where they are from so it was no surprise when I saw a few comments from Texans. Oh look - someone from Garland - well maybe I know her - yep - it was me. I had to read it a few times to see what my quotable gem was because I answered the survey so long ago. Anyway, it was fun seeing my name in print.

On a recent trip to Boston to visit my daughter, I took a side trip to Stow, MA, home of Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper, Scissors. It was a 40 minute drive from my hotel through some beautiful countryside. The trees weren't green yet but I can just imagine during the spring, summer and fall, it's paradise.

Speaking of green - I entered the Quilting Arts Go Green! challenge. The challenge is to make a 5 X 5 piece using materials you already have. I used the tea bag packaging and fibers to weave a background and added flowers punched and cut from fabric scraps and a horribly, ugly silk flower I have. I stitched in the stems and leaves but ended up adding beads and sequins to make them stand out. I added a flower made of paper beads and added a bit of nylon netting. The background was colored using fabric crayons as transfer dyes. Whew! I put quite a bit of effort into a 5 X 5 square!

I have been up to my old, sad, pathetic behavior again. I bought fabric (that's not new) but it's repro fabric - what the hell was wrong with me? I am a weak woman when there is a 'going out of business' sale. I ended up with pink and yellow fabric, and everyone knows you cannot do anything with pink and yellow, so I was forced to buy blue, green and purple to round out the palette. I confess, I AM WEAK!!!!!! As a consequence for exercising no self control, I must make a baby quilt for a friend who is becoming a grandma. This is a high risk pregnancy and the mom is on total bed rest. Off to make pinwheels or something...

Catching Up

I started this entry in February (hence the date). It is now April and I am publishing. Atta girl Sherrie!

Happy April! I have quite a bit of catching up to do so let's get started.

December, 2007

I decided I needed a light box to photograph my etsy gems. Rather than spend the $100+ and buy one, I found directions on the internet for making my own light box. I purchased some pvc, various connectors, pvc glue, a white sheet and some colored poster board.I was rather pleased with the assembly and I am looking forward to using it.

I attended the Dallas Area Fiber Artists Christmas party and won the bid for some beautiful polymer clay beads and a composition by Flo Barry. I left the beads on their string and draped them over a mirror I have in the dining room. Will I be able to use them? Who knows.

I decided to make a project outlined in Quilting Arts Magazine. I made some amulet necklaces. They are made with acrylic felt that is embellished to look like leather on the outside. Foil has been added to the inside for some bling. These pictures show the outside and inside. The blue one is mostly completed with beads and cords.

outside of amulets

inside of amulets with foil applied

completed amulet

I also made a few check book covers using a free pattern from Fiber and Stitch.

And just for grins, I will show some of the loot I purchased at the International Quilt Show in November. This is a guilt thing since I exercised absolutely no self control:

here are some beautiful glass beads and buttons

here are my Artgirlz treasures.

some Stewart Gill Paints

silk fabric squares in various colors

variety pack of various silk odds and ends from Treenway Silks

Wonderfil Thread variety pack

During Christmas vacation, an old friend from my days at EDS was in town visiting. Reverend Carolyn Byars came by and we visited with another friend of hers. Carolyn is in the middle.

Final item to share for the month of December is a wall hanging I created. Here is a layout using some of the polymer clay masks I made. The masks leave much to be desired and haven't made it onto the quilt yet.

Okay, I will take a break now.