Yellow Stuff

This birdhouse welcomes me to Kuipers Family Farm, where they sell apples, cider and warm apple cider doughnuts.

Don't forget a jar of honey.

Encouragement

These tranquil images were taken at the Anderson Japanese Garden in Rockford, Illinois. They breathe life into me!

Footloose

Footloose means "free to do as one pleases."

This whimsical sheep is constructed of leftover shapes from Fandango (pictured below). All the curly wool and border waves came from my scrap box.

Here's to red shoes.

Yellow Stuff

It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn.
--B. C. Forbes

Tropical Radiance in Quilter's Newsletter

Tropical Radiance is a cover girl on the Oct/Nov issue of Quilter's Newsletter!


Check out the article starting on page 58.

See my July 29, 2010 post for other photos and comments.

Adventures in Design

Adventures in Design is Joen Wolfrom's lastest, greatest quilt design book. I have several of Joen's informative, colorful quilt design books. And now I'm pleased to say that several of my own quilts are featured in Adventures in Design. Joen does a masterful job of combining the visual and verbal to instruct and inspire us to grow in our design concepts.

Joen has a delightful "Playing With Color" blog. I guarantee you will learn a lot and be mesmerized by her luscious photography.

For a review of the book (and a shameless plug for my featured quilt "A Matter of Perspective") click on this link: seehowwesew

Here are some quick shots of the pages in Adventures in Design that include my quilts:

FOOTLOOSE
FANDANGO
FRAGRANT MEMORIES
TROPICAL RADIANCE
A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

Yellow Stuff

Gorgeous. But who says color in the garden must be limited to blooms?



OK, this is a bit extreme . . .

Yellow Stuff

Every year the Concours d'Elegance comes to Third Street in Geneva, IL. This year Lincoln and Brass Era Fords were featured, although numerous other makes and models are included. My husband and I are partial to Packards (next year's feature).



Quilt color schemes can come from anywhere. How about yellow, blue and red?


Great lines on this car:

Fandango

A painted Italian terracotta plaque circa 4th century BC inspired Fandango. One of the oldest ornamental motifs is the palmette—also known as a fan. Interpreted in lively colors, the fan shapes prompted the name Fandango meaning “go & dance”.

The quilt is made of 16 blocks with fan & scroll shapes surrounded by a scroll border. Although each block construction is identical, the placement of color determines the overall design.

Encouragement

When just about everything is uncertain, I look to the predictability of God's magnificence in nature for a dose of stability. This plum tree produces fruit every summer like clockwork.

When it flowers in the early spring, a plum tree will be covered in blossoms. In a good year approximately 50% of the flowers will be pollinated and become plums. Flowering starts after 80 growing degree days.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. Abraham Lincoln

The World

A giraffe, elephant, mouse and snail camouflage transitions between air, water and land.
The butterfly is inked and painted on white fabric and appliqued with fusible web.

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.