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.

Season's Greetings

Time to catch up. Let's start with Houston International. This was the first time I was able to attend for more than one day. We started our adventure on Preview Night. The 'we' is my good friend Linda and her Mom who came down from Minnesota for the show. With the precision and focus of treasure hunters, we marked our map of vendors and took off with list in hand. I really should clarify this - I was the only one with a list, they were 'browsers', I was serious. In the end, of course I spent too much money but I had a blast. I attended a 'Make It, Take It' mini-workshop with Sue Bleiweiss and created a mini padfolio. Sue is the inspiration behind Fiber and Stitch . Fiber and Stitch has lots of good articles on mixed media techniques from artists around the world, worth taking a look at.

I met up with members of the African American Quilters yahoo group. We visited, took a group photo and did a show and tell.

Of course there were the quilts - the beautiful quilts. I will post just a few of the many photos I captured.

Here is the Grand Prize winner - a work by Hollis Chatelain.

Here are a couple of pieces created by two award winning artist friends of mine.

This piece is by Tonya Littman

This piece is by Barbara Barbara Oliver Hartman.

I participated in the final year of the Journal Quilt Project so of course I was happy to see my work hanging amongst the other inspired works. Here is a link to blogs from other participants: http://quiltart.com/JQ_links.html

To my surprise, there was an exhibit of the quilts published in Creative Quilting Journal Quilt Project and I was able to see another one of my little works.

Gotta run.

It's Been a While

Has it really been 3 months since my last entry? I guess I will just have to catch up. Let's see...
After the workshop at the end of July with Mary Ruth Smith, I decided to join the Dallas Area Fiber Artists and the Surface Design Association.
I committed to participating in the final year of the Journal Quilt Project and as usual, I was working up until the last minute completing my work. On this piece (17x22), I used techniques learned in the workshop with Mary Ruth Smith. There is stamping with hand made stamps, fabric painting, hand embellishing with metallic gold thread. I found this really beautiful thread that has a black wrap on it but also irridescent film that shows green and brown. I used it to sew a grid and I left lots of tails hanging. I even made my own sequin looking things out of metallic gold cardstock. The binding has seed beads all around and the skeleton leaves are metallic. This was fun. I even managed to get the sleeve and labels completed!

I took 2 more classes at Quilt University - People in Places taught by Linda Schmidt and Upside Down Applique, taught by Susan Brittingham. I completed much more of the work for the Upside Down Applique class than I did for People in Places. Another underwater scene but this time with sea horses. One day, I will complete the work for both classes and put them in the Finishing School Gallery.



I even managed to make a batch of hand dyed fabrics. I did the 24 color batch and there is still so much for me to learn. This time the colors were more even but it seemed to wash away during the last step. I will get it some day.

Lavender Fields Forever

I started work on another small piece. The inspiration came from a fellow student in my Quilt University Machine Embellishments class and my Quilting Arts calendar. It is a scene of lavender fields in France and I am able to use the needle lace technique to make the trees. I used Pellon Peltex as the interfacing so the piece is rather thick and firm. I found some really tiny seed beads and some leaf beads to embellish. It is still a work in progress.

Scrap Project

I decided to make a series of small works to represent the seasons. The inspiration came from an article in Quilting Arts magazine. The pieces are the size of a postcard and were made with the leftover scraps of fabric from the Habitat for Humanity quilt.

Spring

Summer

Fall

Winter

Maybe I will take them to work so I will have something colorful to look at. It has been grey and rainy this month.

I helped Rhea finish the Habitat quilt on Tuesday. In spite of her protests, I took a couple of pictures. She found an empty conference room and we sewed on the binding. I think the red really makes everything pop. All that is needed now is a label and Rhea will take care of it. The people that commissioned the quilt are thrilled with the results.

Machine Embellished Surfaces

I am taking another class at Quilt University , Machine Embellished Surfaces. The teacher is Susan Brittingham. The Discussion Forum is supportive and there is at least one person from the Filament Fantasy class taking this one also - Lilian. The class covers needle lace, adding texture using several techniques of scrunching fabric, manipulating sheer ribbon for different effects and a few other things. There is no real project in the class, just technique. Here are a few of the techniques I practiced and a couple of compositions:

needle lace dragonfly

tree canopy

sea kelp

mossSpanish mossnecklace using 'window' technique

auditioning layout for scrunched fabric

final layout

I received some very nice feedback on this piece. It looks very dimensional in the photo and this is what I was aiming for. I still have a couple of weeks to stitch everything down and quilt before the gallery closes. I have also signed up for a fabric dyeing class taught by Marjorie McWilliams and will probably take the People and Places class taught by Linda Schmidt.

Habitat for Humanity

My department at work is planning the logistics for a Habitat for Humanity home in Wylie, Texas. Part of the dedication is to present the new homeowner with several gifts, most with symbolic meaning. The program manager asked Rhea, a co-worker and fellow quilter, to make a quilt for the homeowner encorporating pictures taken during the build. Rhea, asked me me to help and of course I said yes. We discussed, more like sweated over what to do - a photo album? sashed photos in a row? and what size? This was exhausting. The turnaround was quick, less than a month and and we literally had hundreds of photos to choose from. We finally decided on something - because we had to, but neither of us was feeling good about the decision. We started looking through Rhea's stash of fabrics and both of us spotted a quilt Rhea completed a few years ago. Instantly we both had the same thought - what about this one!? The decision was made - circle or square within a square. The background in greys and the circle or square in a suede-like fabric. The photos were printed and cut to wallet size. It took one more get together and the top was 90% complete. We even found some fabric for the backing that looks like a computer motherboard. This is very appropriate because we work in the IT department. We got the final word on the dedication and the completed quilt will be ready. Here is a peek of the work in progress.
Rhea is great with color and loves to hand applique. Behind her is just one of her many creations.