Days of Whine and Comfort

If I were a braver woman (or more shameless perhaps) I would show you a picture of my working surfaces at the moment. Let me instead simply tell you that even if I were to take that picture you wouldn't be able to see my work surfaces. They have somehow become buried under studio journals, piles of fabric scraps, piles of paper, including pictures ripped out of magazines, and a whole bunch of embroidery threads.

I filled up the journal I was using during the Studio Journal class. Before that class began I had two other sketchbooks going. Since the class I've been trying to use them up, and I've been referring back to my class journal while doing so. Not being able to pass up a sale, I just picked up a new sketchbook too, to use when I have finally filled the others. Too many books!

The magazine clippings will eventually end up in one or more studio journals. I've run out of scotch tape (I thought I had at least one more refill in my drawer) and can't use glue or glue sticks so they have to wait until someone runs to the store for me. The rest of the papers need to be filed in the appropriate places. What I wouldn't give for a secretary who dusts.

The fabric scraps are the leftovers from my Fungly quilt. How insane is that?! I wanted to use them up, not just put them away, but that hasn't happened. So there they sit. And now I have ideas for new quilts I want to make that don't call for those kinds of prints. Of course.

The embroidery threads are for my current project, the monochromatic postcard I'm stitching as part of the Sumptuous Surfaces class. I want to get my band sampler set up so I can practice stitches I once knew and try out others. That would be much easier to accomplish if I had a little more room in which to work! But I'm just not feeling all that well today. Some days I can work in spite of how I feel, other days it's better to simply give in and be a vegetable. I think I may need to be a vegetable for a day or two.

To tide you over I thought I would share a little quilt I made back when I first read Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking. I don't think I've shown it before. I call it "Comfort" because it's made of what I think of as comfort fibers: soft wools and flannel. They were all scraps given to me by a dollmaker friend. I carried out the comfort theme (in my mind at least) by tying it with a red crochet thread and adding a few buttons I had inherited from my mother's button tin. It's about 14" x 18".

And now I'm going to go comfort myself under a slightly larger quilt... ;- )

Playtime!

A post or two ago I mentioned that I was not in the mood to bind or otherwise finish off my Gemini journal quilt or my TIF postcard quilt. I wasn't even interested in starting the beading on my journal quilt for February (or finishing the beading on October's for that matter!). No, I wanted something new and different.

I got into my bright scraps again and started piecing bits together with no preconceived plan in mind. Then I thought of Bonnie's tutorial for maverick stars. Hmmm. Put on my mask and got down Gwen Marsten's book, Liberated Quiltmaking. These are the result:


Yesterday I actually sewed the parts together so I have complete stars now. And I did some additional random piecing of half-square triangles and strips. I don't have pictures of the rest of it yet, but you'll get to see it eventually.

Later that day my friend C~ stopped by to give me a gift. Woohoo! She's teaching a make-it and take-it sort of class a couple times a month. This week she taught her class members how to make a tissue box cover. Her class sample featured a Halloween print:

How cute is that! And it's MINE! It doesn't look too fiddly to make, takes less than a fat quarter's worth of fabric... I may have to make some myself and give them as gifts too!

Ta Da!

My first picture uploaded! Hurray for me!

This is a detail shot of a preemie quilt I made recently. As soon as I learn how to fine tune the image of the whole quilt I'll share that with you.

I think this preemie quilt turned out pretty cool. It moves from a crazy patch block to one giant Log Cabin-type block with every strip being a different color/print. I'd been wanting to try this particular design style for a long time. It was fun to actually do it and have it turn out so well (in my eyes at least!). It may be hard to part with this one ;- )

Yesterday I went to the La Conner Quilt Museum to see the exhibit of Gwen Marsten and Freddy Moran's collaborative quilts. I lucked out in that there were only a handful of other people there and no-one was wearing toxic fragrance. The color in those quilts sure brightened up the place! Lots of gorgeous reds (Freddy uses red as a neutral; works for me!) and tons of fun prints. There was actually one quilt that hurt my eyes to look at. Those who know me well will be surprised to learn this because I love bright saturated colors. The truly odd thing about this is that it was one of the calmer quilts. I think what was happening was the juxtaposition of red and yellow was aggravating my astigmatism. Other than that I can't account for it. Suffice to say that I thoroughly enjoyed being able to see these quilts by two of my favorite quilters/artists in person. If only I'd been able to go on opening day when both Freddy and Gwen were there!!! {sigh}

On my way home I still felt well enough (in spite of the absence of obvious toxins, something in that building makes me ill; that's why I had to quit working there) to stop in at my LQS where they are celebrating their anniversary with a sale (fancy that!). I was able to buy Gwen and Freddy's book, Collaborative Quilting, and a few pieces of fabrics at 20% off. Let's see... I bought a red batik, a funky stripe of red and orange and green and black, a yellow/orange batik, and a multi-color on black print in Robert Kaufman's "Color Quake" line. All very bright and happy :- )