The World

In my quilt, The World, fabric paint and pens create the moon and stars.

The tree and snake are constructed of one piece of commercial batik with the snake materializing by the magic of paint and pens. Ditto for the cat's eye and nose.

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.

Baby Quilt

It's not every day one becomes a great grandmother. No, not me! But my mom had her first great grandchild today. My niece and her husband welcomed Wesley to the world today.


Baby quilts come in all styles, colors and sizes. The one I made for little Wesley is scrappy, bright and little like him. I enjoyed bringing together as many stimulating colors as possible in this quilt.

My scrapbox is stuffed with extra blocks from other projects, and a jumble of smaller pieces of fabric.


Whenever you need to make something but don't have a grand plan, head for your scrapbox and play away.

King Eternal

Sacred Threads is an exhibition of quilts exploring themes of spirituality, joy, inspiration, peace/brotherhood, grief and healing. The biennial exhibition opens June 22 and runs through July 4 in the Washington DC area including the work of nearly 140 artists. This year there is a liturgical category. I made King Eternal for this exhibit.
Thread can be used in quilting for different effects. In this detail image thread used on the red and yellow fabrics matches the fabric to blend rather than stand out. However, I sewed a line of dark thread between the yellow and red fabrics to create a more distinct separation of color. Red thead is used on the purple fabric to call attention to the angular design. Brown thread is used (pre-quilting) to make thorns on the crown of thorns.

This quilt is a re-work of the center image in Arms of Love.

Fandango (see below) will be displayed in the Joy Category. The inspiration for this design was a painted Italian terracotta plaque circa 4th century BC.

Yellow Stuff

Well, it continues to be a wet year here in the Chicagoland area. We were swamped last night again and more on the way tonight. At least I don't have to water my newly planted annuals. I've been wearing my wow-that's-yellow raincoat a lot lately.

Speaking of water, on a recent trip to North Carolina, I snapped this photo of a water lily. They're considered a perennial freshwater herb. The leaves and flowers of the water lily float on the surface of water, but the rhizomes are rooted in soil below the water's surface. All water lilies have a singular bloom. And yes, they have a bit of yellow at the center.

grAy or grEy?

How do you spell that color ranging from black to white? Here's a general explanation.

grAy is how it's spelled in America
grEy is how it's spelled in England

Since I live in America I'll stick with grAy. But either way, gray is one of those almost non-colors. Unless I need it for a specific design purpose it's not too high on my "gotta have" list. Reminds me of winter.

Nature displays gray in a wide range of textures and intensities. I can almost feel the grain on the crosscut timber and the smooth or rough bark of these two tree close-ups taken on a recent trip to North Carolina.




Gray is found in all five of my quilts about our five senses. For full images of these quilts see the Gallery of Quilts/Simply Sensational(series) or type a quilt title in the search box at the top left of home page.

Delicious, detail:

Fragrant Memories, detail:

In the Quiet, detail:

Breeze, detail:

Photogenic, detail:

Turning Point

This quilt dates from my pre-machine quilting days. It's the last large quilt I quilted by hand. The basic design came from a stained glass window in a door at the Wentworth Mansion in Charleston SC.

It was assembled in two layers. The background was pieced together first. That odd "three legged" shape is the second layer and was fused over the intersections of the pieced background, hiding the seams. The fused edges are finished with satin stitching. Four of the shapes combine to create the edges of circular unit.

Encouragement

My posts titled "Yellow Stuff" are limited to yellow images. In the interest of expanding the scope of some, hopefully, inspirational visuals and thoughts I'm adding a new posting category: Encouragement.

Encouragement's definition: To inspire with hope, courage, or confidence; to hearten.

It's a broad topic so anything goes. Today I'm reflecting on our recent vacation to North Carolina. Vacations have a way of infusing encouragement just by the change of scenery and schedule. These images "hearten" me.

Connemara Farms, Flat Rock, NC. Home of Carl Sandburg and his wife from 1945 until Mr. Sandburg’s death in 1967. Mrs. Sandburg owned and operated the Chikaming Goat Dairy. This little guy is a direct descendant of her champion goats.


Sandhills Botanical Gardens, Pinehurst, NC

Sculpture in the Sandhills Botanical Gardens, Pinehurst, NC

Yellow Stuff

My trusty log cabin chicken pincushion. Here's a similar chicken pattern.
Perhaps you're not into chickens. How about mice, strawberries or toadstools? Checks Tipnut for free patterns/tutorials: pincushion patterns

Yellow Stuff

Notice the amount of yellow in this "green" foliage. I just returned from vacation where I took these photos at the Sandhills Horticulture Gardens in Pinehurst,NC.

A Matter of Perspective

As my first attempt at paper piecing, this original design consists of one block. The variation in color and value choices creates the movement and depth.

The detail below illustrates the way fabric choices can emphasize or de-emphasize the shapes in a block.

This quilt could be made with fewer blocks for an entirely different quilt:

Yellow Stuff

The past two days I've been digging up these uninvited guests:

Hate them in my yard but how about in a quilt?


Here's the free pattern from Robert Kaufman fabrics.
http://www.robertkaufman.com/quilting/quilts_patterns/dandelion_quilt/

Yellow Stuff

Every spring my yard comes alive with a "host of golden daffodils." The phrase comes from the poem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth 1770–1850

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Arms of Love

Another detail image of Arms of Love. Here, the focus is on the crucifixion. Note the thorns on the crown of thorns are done with a satin stitch--the left hand guiding the quilt in the machine and the right hand adjusting the width to achieve the sharp points.


The elements of communion are shown as wheat and grapes representing Christ's names as Bread of Life and Fruit of the Vine. Wings represent resurrection. The candle means Light of the World. The crown stands for King of Kings with five jewels on the band depicting Christ's five flesh wounds.