The World

In my quilt, The World, thread plays a crucial part in fine, tiny details like the spider, fly and web. They are inked with Pigma pen and quilted with black thread.

Choice of thread weight and color contribute to the giraffe's realism. Her eyelashes use heavy (30wt) dark thread and the chin hairs are a fine (60wt) pale thread. Neither would work in the opposite application.

The World

Introducing my quilt, The World, which can be viewed in the judged show at Quilt Odyssey, 7/28-31, in Hershey, PA. Also, my critique group (Robbi Eklow, Ann Fahl, Beth Gilbert, Denise Havlan and Annette Hendricks) has a special exhibit called Fiberistic Journeys where you will find four of my quilts: Arms of Love, In the Quiet, Delicious and 24/7.

Antique maps intrigue me. Here's a fabulous example from 1626 by John Speed.
For years I toyed with the concept of a map quilt. Finally I settled on the idea of portraying the genesis of the world in the style of a double hemisphere map.

The hemispheres were traced from design to fabric with the aid of a large light box improvised from an expandable dining table, an old window and a lamp. Pigma pens and Inktense pencils brought the hemispheres to life.

The zebras are drawn and colored directly on the ground fabric. Cacti are appliqued; their flowers are painted.

Stay tuned for more posts on The World.

Yellow Stuff

male Black Swallowtail, Photo credit: D. Gordon E. Robertson, PhD, Fellow of Canadian Society for Biomechanics, Professor, School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

The (Eastern) Black Swallowtail is a butterfly found throughout much of North America. It has a wingspan of 3.1 to 4.3 iches. The upper surface of the wings is mostly black. On the inner edge of the hindwing is a black spot centered in larger orange spot. A male of this species has a yellow band near edge of wings; a female has row of yellow spots.

Here's a whimsical interpretation of the Black Swallowtail Caterpillar. I took this photo at the South Carolina Botanical Garden earlier this year.

Chromatic Transitions

Woohoo! Chromatic Transitions placed third in the Bed Quilts/Quilter's Choice category at the AQS Knoxville show, currently in progress.
Click here to see all the winning quilts.

Here she is in sketch/no color form:

For more views, enter "Chromatic" in the upper left search box.

Yellow Stuff

“But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Stop and consider the gift of friends in your life today.

Quilted Book Cover

Looking for a way to prolong the useful life of one of my favorite paperback books, I came across Lyric Kinard's Sketchbook Slipcover tutorial for easy-to-follow instructions on making an artistic cover for a sketchbook. Her hardcover sketchbook is slipped into a beautiful quilted jacket.

BTW: Lyric's website is a wealth of quilting information, education and entertainment.

For my purpose, I was seeking beauty plus practicality. The fabric cover would "beef up" the strength of the paperback and look great to boot.

Front Cover:
Back Cover:
Spine (already pieced from another project):
Had to make another one.
Front Cover:
Back Cover:
My scrapbox came to the rescue with bits of fabrics I first pieced together for a base before adding fused stars and shapes abandoned from other projects. The batting is also a recycling effort. I save all the skinny edges of batting trimmed from finished quilts. These are easily stitched together on the machine with a blind stitch foot. I used a universal stitch (#15 on a Bernina 170) or any stitch designed to flat join seams.

Be careful, these are addicting. For now, I've stopped with two.