You Can Blow Out A Candle, But You Cannot Blow Out A Fire

Is the title of of the latest piece, which is coming along. It's finally moving ahead because I decided to try to sneak in a small piece to finish and mail out before christmas. So, of course, this piece that I had been working on over the last many many months starts YELLING at me to work on it, ONLY it. Silly, eh? Even sillier is that I feel grateful that it's finally talking to me. Do I show you a picture? It is far from finished, definitely in an awkward stage. ok, here's a bad snapshot from the webcam:

It did give me a chance to realize that the small piece is not the right piece for the person it was intended for, so there's that.

Yesterday I had a lovely day with my WOW group of women. We mostly chit chat and do our own little show and tell - I spent most of the day cutting papers for a Judy Neiemeyer quilt - not really artsy. But they helped me with fabric choices and how to deal with one fabric that stood out from the rest. It's a safe place to bounce ideas off of each other and show off works-in-progress. I am ever so grateful to be part of this group!

It's December?!!

 yeah, um, that was more than a week, wasn't it?

I have been working on some Quilty stuff - playing with paint and color (the green wrinkly stuff is tape). This one is coming along slowly, but it's getting there.

I'm also working on a traditional quilt, well 4 of them actually, for use on beds (imagine that). It's not like riding a bicycle - there's lots of stuff I've forgotten - so those are also going slowly and not always in the forward direction.  

After Thanksgiving, I brought my daughter back to school and on the way home I stopped at two Art Quilt exhibits. One in Clifton Springs, NY at Main Street Arts which was lovely - lots of bright colors and sparkly bits... I would feel very much at home with that group! And I also stopped at the Schweinfurth Art Center for the Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibit. Gorgeous. Plus, there were quilts by people I had taken classes with: Carol Trice and Maria Shell; one i had taken classes from: Wen Redmond and a friend who dyes gorgeous fabric, Mary Ann Gallaher, her fabric was used in one of the pieces! Sadly, no pictures were allowed, but there are photos on each website. Go if you can!!!

My husband, son and I went to London for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who convention! 

 We met up with Alex and Kevan and were lucky enough to have dinner with them even! (If you find yourself in need of Who memorabilia, THIS is the place to find it)

I so want to make a copy of Idris's dress - I took a lot of close up pictures. One of the costume designers was nice enough to turn it around for me so i could get a good look at the back. All of the Who people were super nice and generous with their time and talent. They seemed to love showing off their work to the audience and being appreciated and adored for their work!

 We sat in on a panel with 5 of the original Doctors, !!!TOM BAKER!!!, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. It was fun to listen to them reminisce. 

Vermont Quilt Festival

Yesterday, I kidnapped two of my friends and we headed up to Burlington for the Vermont Quilt Festival. My friends aren't quilters, but they are still lovely people. They do a lot of other fiber arts, so they do appreciate quilting and seemed to enjoy the show! Hannah's attention was caught by the embroidery machines and she doodled with a Gammil. They took home some Tsukineko inks and stencils - Hannah has some plans to update some jean shorts. I found some geeky fabrics for bow ties and a beautiful Indian scarf, ok, and I also got some Tsukineko goodies!

Oh, yeah, and there was a quilt show! A few highlights for me:

 I love how Angela made the pieced sky, and the colors are perfect.

 The teachers at VQF had some of their work displayed and this piece, with the BLACK-ON-BLACK quilting made my jaw drop!

Katie Pasquini Masopust's interpretation of a painting into fabric is a wonderful explosion of color. There are so many little pieces in there that make this all work!

 This next piece is by Georgia Spalding Pierce, who sadly seems to not have a website. I would love to see more of her work. I love this style of art and she does a fantastic job putting it into fabric.

 

The above piece is by Jodi Scaltreto who is doing amazing thread paintings. That dog looks like he is going to come right out of that quilt!

 Mara's quilt got a blue ribbon and TWO special awards!!

Megan Farkas hand appliqued and hand quilted this gorgeous scene based on a woodblock print by Kikukawa Eizan.

 After we left the show we went to Dobra Tea in downtown Burlington, then walked around for a bit. Burlington has always been a favorite place to hang out, lots of good restaurants and interesting stores. The chain stores haven't overtaken Church Street yet!

This was not at VQF. This is Eyes which I said I would show you this week. It's still in it's awkward stage. I really like the background, which was not entirely captured in the photo, but there's a nice green patina happening, with some gold highlights.

Summer is here!

My Master Class with Lisa Call finishes up this month. It's been very challenging for me - in a lot of ways. The biggest thing I got out of the class, and it was one of my main goals, is that I now consider art-making part of my daily life. I don't have to walk down the hall past the art room to math class anymore. I have looked into the Art Room and the Art Room is me! (hehe... throwing a little geekery in) Anyhoo, if you can take a class with Lisa, please jump at the chance! 

So much has happened in the last couple of weeks, but not much quilty stuff. My daughter and her friends graduated from high school, birthdays, father's day, our anniversary, kids home for the summer... Upcoming is Sarah's 18th birthday (eeeek) and Solarfest. 

Quilty things I have been working on are getting the three new Hay Bales quilts mounted and ready to hang, but my stapler keeps jamming up. ergh. I have one called Eyes that I will show you next week. This the back of one will be in the Yellow Flower Thingie series - #3 to be specific.

That's about it, but I think we are settling into the summer routine, plus the weather is being hot and muggy. I should have more time and incentive to spend in my studio which is in the cool basement.

Dagger or Crucifix?

What do you see?

“Is it a dagger or a crucifix I see 

you hold so tightly in your hands?” 

Blood of Eden, by Peter Gabriel

“Dagger or Crucifix” is an interpretation of Gabriel's lyrics which gives us a very powerful statement on the abuse of power by any organized religion. There is a very prominent vertical slash through the left side of the painting which is rather ambiguous about whether this is a tool for causing injury and possibly death or whether it is a symbol of redemption and everlasting life. The aura surrounding this form glows with the colors that seem to suggest a holy artifact, but the stiletto tipped shaft terminates surrounded by a blood colored splash. The green background suggests there is life beyond either interpretation of the symbol, life after religion, recovery after abuse, healing after war.

Spinning Hay Into Yarn

These are closeups of the quilt that got put in the easel last week. I love the colors, and, so far, the different parts are coming out mostly the way I had envisioned. Maybe not as subtle or nuanced as what was in my head, but I am not a subtle person, so that is always a stretch anyways! I'm going to wait to show you the whole quilt till it's done. 

I turned my hay bales into yarn balls. Just temporarily ( I hope!), though, it's a thick medium that I'm using because of the lines that showed through the paint. I cut out the centers and frosted them with this stuff. When it's dry, I'll sand it and give it a light coat of white acrylic paint. Of course, seeing yarn balls appear on my quilt made me want to make a quilt with balls of yarn in it on purpose.

easel living

Yay! I have something on my windmill easel ready to paint! When I first got the easel, I had some ideas about how to make it work with quilted pieces, but they didn't work out so well. This piece is stretched on stretcher bars, so I am actually using the easel pretty much how it was designed to be used(!). 

The easel can spin and the canvas can lay flat, I can't wait to actually paint on it.

We picked up two sewing machines that we had brought to Michael Jarvis in Newport to have spruced up. This one was Steve's Great-Grandfather's, who was a tailor. It was rusted pretty badly, but Michael made it look beautiful and it purrs like a kitten. and it sews.

This one was my mom's, it was in better shape going in, but now it shines and sews beautifully! 

Haybales in Vermonts

Almost finished. I have to deal with the lines through the hay bales and then mount them, but I think the painting part is done. I would love to hear what you think!

Haybales in Vermont #3

Haybales in Vermont #4

Haybales in Vermont #2

This series of three pieces expands on my earlier piece entitled “Hay Bales in Vermont”. Again there is the bright green new hay growing and the clear blue sky, but this time the bales of hay are seen from different perspectives. First off, Haybales in Vermont #3, gives a closer look at the bales with a vertically cropped view of the grass and sky. The horizon line is level across the piece, in contrast with the hay field which appears to be swirled, as if a wind storm has just passed through. The sky is a nearly solid blue calmly looking over the scene. Next in line is “Haybales in Vermont #4”, in which we see the bales from more of a distance. The hay field looks freshly harvested with bright green gashes almost angrily protesting the havoc caused by reaping its bounty. Lastly, “Haybales in Vermont #2” focusses on the hay bales themselves, with just a peek at Vermont’s natural beauty above and below. This piece captures the rolling hills so prevalent in the Green Mountain State

(Haybales in Vermont #1 can be seen here) 

Blue Skies!

I don't have the right size stretcher bars for my new pieces, so I am painting on the floor again. But at least I am painting. I have three more Haybales in Vermont started, here are two. They are each from different perspectives and orientations. I used two different fabrics for all three, using an almost solid blue for the sky. That worked out better than the floral, but now there is a seam through each of the hay bales, which I don't like. I do have the grass mostly painted in, they just need a little touching up. 

Happy Earth Day!

Climate Change, 2012 42"x48"

This was made with Ugly Fabric (fabric really not suitable for, well, anything) and most of the paint was leftover wall paint. It symbolizes my frustration with "deniers". Please consider celebrating Earth Day by eating plant based meals whenever you can. It's the easiest way a single person can make a big impact. And now I will get off my soap box.

Our guild, Northern Lights Quilt Guild, held their biannual quilt show last weekend. We have such a talented group. The majority of them are traditional quilters, and wicked talented ones at that. Joanne Shapp was the featured quilter here, too. She also displayed her other work, ones not in the Crop Circle series. The contrast in styles was amazing - either wild, crazy and super colorful or very controlled, meticulously piece and monochromatic. However, they were all very much Joanne Shapp Quilts!

I'm sure more, and much better quality photos will be posted on our guild website, so please check there to see the work of our talented ladies. I'm just going to share one more because it was geeky! My husband amused himself by translating the binary and he's pretty sure it says "Invictus, I play the game". 

New England Quilt Festival

I'm at MQX or I guess it's the New England Quilt Festival, now. MQX has such a nice ring to it, so it's hard for me to make the switch to the new name.

I took classes on using Art and Stitch all day Wednesday and Thursday morning. It's a powerful program that you can use to digitize almost anything and then transfer it to your long-arm to stitch out. One class was digitizing TTF fonts. I am really excited to try that out.

The quilts on display are fabulous! There's everything from newbie machine stitchers to the OMG-How-Did-She(or he)-Do-That???? quilts. I love seeing them all!

Mara Novak won first place in her category. She did all of the machine stitching (again, these photos were taken with my iphone!). I should get some detail shots today, yes? It is really stunning how she used the threads to bring out the piecing. She made the star in the center appear bigger and the paisley motif in the border is all thread.

And Joanne Shapp is one of the featured quilters!!! She has done many quilts based on crop circles and they are gorgeous. meticulous. And she is so passionate about the subject. She is speaking at the dinner tonight and I'm really looking forward to it. I am so excited for her, she really deserves this attention.

This quilter, Melissa Sobotka, I don't know, but it blew my mind. Even looking at the photo it looks so three dimensional. There is some photo transfer, but most of it is applique.

a slightly out of focus close up:

I am having a lot of fun this week at the show... I might make reservations for next year before I leave if it hasn't sold out already :)

SAQA regional meeting

Margaret Sheehan, our local SAQA rep organized a meeting that was held yesterday for SAQA members in NH, VT, MA and ME. (and apologies for the quality of the pictures... these were taken with my cell phone which is much slower than what I'm used to! Timing is everything)

Judith Reilly gave a talk about how she frames her quilts. This photo shows Margaret holding one of her pieces framed in the same manner. It's a deep frame with the quilt mounted on two layers of foam core so that it loos like it is floating. 

Valarie Poitier gave a talk about becoming a PAM (a juried member of SAQA). One of the requirements to become a PAM is submitting 10 pieces that show a cohesive body of work. Valarie says you may need to have as many as 50 under your belt before you have your 10. (she didn't bring her show and tell, but she showed some of us a sneak peek of a work in progress with pictures from her phone. I am definitely going to keep an eye on her blog to see when she is exhibiting!) 

I have been a big fan of Michele O'Neil Kincaid's work for years, but I really love this one! 

And Maryann Gallaher, who is an up-and-coming fabric dyer! The green back ground of this piece is her hand dyed fabric and Jody Scaltreto thread painted Maryann's sweet kitty. Oh, how I wish I had a better picture, maybe Maryann will send me one??

There are more pictures here http://saqanhvtme.blogspot.com/2013/04/april-6th-meeting.html do have a peek!

Finished!

One quilt, ready to hang and go into the auction at the Northern Lights Quilt Guild Quilt Show. I like the look of the facing on this one... a border/binding would not have worked.

I wanted to cover the entire back of this one, as the paint seeped through... rusty orange and lavender - blech (for this anyways, I'm sure that combination would be perfect for something!). And it's going in the auction at a fairly traditional quilt show where people are still in the habit of looking at the back!

Anyways, I tried facing it with the pillowcase method, using a fusible to hold it down after turning. I would NOT do this if it were going anywhere else, but it was a good opportunity to see how it would, ehem, "turn out". The verdict is... not great, there is some wrinkling, but that could be fixed with practice. Again, i think it's ok for where it's headed - they're bidding on the front, not the back! I did sew my sleeve on the back before attaching it to the quilt. I'm not fond of utilitarian hand sewing.