the ladies on the powch

so the quilting is almost done...now for the edge...its going to be pieced...well it is if it cooperates...so far it is NOT cooperating at all...

I uploaded both the original and how it looks now so you could see that the thread painting does change the color of the original picture...

so now what to do...

the quandry...how to thread paint this..i know what to do the wonky house, the chairs etc...but the ladies...do i thread paint their faces, legs and arms or do i leave them plain...just cant decide...what do you think...

It will get an wonky pieced edge on it...BUT I just cant decide what to do with the ladies....opinions please!

Quilting Mayhem or how to destroy all the downstairs

See the little bunnies in front of the pink tulip drawing...that was what we were going to do today till Jeff disrupted my well laid plans....so we had one day of massive quilting....HOW MANY YOU GOT??

Jeff had to get the eggs from the hens when he was a little boy and he was afraid too ...they would peck at him...so he didnt get very many eggs...THEN he would get in trouble with his grandma...All his pictures have stories attached to htem...

So we were sewing like maniacs today AND IT took SIX of us to get these done today...I have been sewing since 7 AM this morning....and I just quit at 7 PM tonite...but these are completely finished except for sewing down the sleeves and the whole where we turned them like pillows....Jeff Callaham, Connie Burleson, Ille Waters, Kim Massey and Sue Carrick oh yes and ME:> It took everyone of us to get these babies done...nothting but the blocks were sewn together this morning....and some strips...and it still took all day to finish them....heres what we did....this is our version of liberated quiltmaking with a small thanks to Gwen Marston and Freddie Moran....IMPROVISATIONAL PIECING....

NOT MY ROOSTER

Jeff was fearful his pet chicken was going on the chopping block for dinner

Jeff and Not My Rooster...do you think hes tired????:> Poor baby...didnt Kim feed you enough? Kim was in charge of the food and the dogs....

Jeff and Connie laboring over the decisions....i am a grab a strip and a block and sew them together kinda girl ESPECIALLY when you are trying to finish TWO quilts by 3 PM....we almost made it...they were done at 4....


THESE PICTURES ARE THANKS TO MY FRIEND KIM MASSEY WHO WAS RECORDING OUR INSANITY FOR POSTERITY....I DIDNT HAVE TIME TO....THANKS KIM!!!

Connie and I had been making "quilt parts" for three or four days, wonky log cabins, strip sets, chopped up and sewn together strips sets and half square triangles...so we all we had to do was sort thru the parts department and sew them to the pictures....BUT darn that was an all day job in itself...
OOPSSS wheres the picture??? So these are our production techniques...think about how do you organize SIX artists to get two art quilts done in one day??? it wasnt easy...they occasionally thought I was a meaning because they were off on several tangents...but i pulled them back down to earth...gave them thier marching orders and said we DONT have time if we are going to finish these today!!! STOPPPP go sew...I m sewing this toegethe likeJeff go lay out quilts....Connie go sew...sue go press...Kim go play with the dogs ....she took the pics too...and Ille sewed anything that had to be absolutely straight as an arrow....her forte...
Auditioning blocks and filling in the squares...yes the living room was covered with quilt fabric...
Almost there but it still needs that something special...

Jazz on dog patrol...anybody drop any food???
Ille came over expecting to make some Easter bunnies for her grandchildren but
Ille doing her fabulous precision sewing of the inner borders...they have to be square because the whole quilt is trimmed up based on the inside borders...and Ille is the best at that skill




Connie sewing edges together....i would cut and give the pieces to Connie to sew them together...its not easy getting a bunch of wonky off kilter blocks to be pieced together so they lay down flat...


Sue our pressing queen.....thank goodness she decided to help because we were getting exhausted at this point....pressing the back for the first quilt...and me thinking about lunch...


Me Pinning the edges...we are FINALLY done....the envelope is turned....


Ille and Jeff pinning top number two NOt My Rooster to the batting....




Jazz with her ear...she had a subdural hemotoma and had surgery on her ear last week....she now has lovely cheap plastic needlepoint canvas sewed to both sides of her little delicate ear so that it will heal flat...so far its been half the price of Charleys ear that did the same thing a couple of years ago...she is still hoping for a hand out...




Connie using the Janome to "quilt" the fake borders ...these were all turned envelope style....

They are fini....HALLELUJAH...and its only four o'clock..from 7 am to 4 am makes a LONGGGG day

Eight little bunnies......guess which one is yours...this is what we were originally going to do till Jeff said we needed to get these quilts done TODAY!!!! OK I have to admit...been watching the craft segment of OH NO dare I say it...Martha Stewart over Spring Break.......she has been doing the most cunning Easter decorations...and I fell in love with these....and then there are these cuteee felted booties....I have a friend who is getting her first granddaughter over the holidays...and I have a TON of wool flannel that i made last year from old clothes...BYTW the directions for the crafts are on Marthas website...very cool...and lets see there were these cute little cabbage easter baskets....too charming....and...wellll....wonder what shehas up her sleeve today....

so not to be out done...when everyone but Ille had left....we made Easter Bunnies for everyones daughters, grandchildren...anyone with kids...we made eight of them...pom pom bunnies that sell for $85 ....and arent they cute....I had enough old sculpey bunnies and carrots and eggs lying around and some of that silk ribbon that Connie and haley and i painted a couple of years ago to make pretty bows on them....I have a new motto ...its its been sitting around more than a year its fair game to get used....because the stores always have more dont they???:> HAPPY EASTER!!!!

Apparently this artist has become a

quilter too....this was made up quickly from the block heap that i had sewed up earlier this month...wild wonky log cabins...Jeff is racing it off to somewhere to see if it can get sold...evidently it wowed everybody that saw it...and i do have to say its pretty cool for an innovative quilt with handprints...not your average handprint quilt....

yes i know crass commercialism but lets face it....do we really like to be starving artists living in hovels???Not I nor Jeff....

These last i zapped together from a couple of prints that I took pics of and then I inserted them using paintshop pro into the quilts that we got ready for the show in Aiken...and it was MUCH faster:>

This was sooo quick that i am looking around to see what else I can zap together...my quilts, jeffs artwork....ez pz....

I also discovered how to turn out a dvd on this Mac and that was well just so time consuming NOT....amazing how quickly we turned these three quilts into a dvd that actually worked!

EDM Challenge 107 and more daily drawings....

I am definitely an NPR junkie. I have all the "talk" NPR programmed into my car radio so that I can drive across SC and never miss a lick of NPR...oddly enough you cannot do that in Georgia. My dh reads the paper cover to cover...I probably should have drawn his lips but this is our local paper thrown in our yard.
Just stuff to draw...have been buying way too many art supplies... When nothing else is holding still long enough to draw...the dogs are good for models:> I love daffodils...these are some in a pot I bought at Publix earlier this week to draw...they are going in the yard when they fade....more fast sketches of kids done thruout the week in spare moments frequently finished at home....especially the inked drawing...some look alot like the kids some dont....but they are all done in just a few seconds...under 5 minutes for the ones that are not just heads...I love all the heads...and the boy after it is probably my favorite.



and a haiku that i wrote....
fingers pointing
children's voices raised
blame is cast

Actually that is a reaction to Jeffs painting called WHO did this? which is on the cover of calendar from first citizen bank but will also be reproduced on tshirts for a hospital in Greenville...more about that later...

THEY ARE DONE!:>

As some of you may know I have been working away finishing up Jeff's , Connie and my collaborative quilts and I am thrilled to announce that they are done...next we are going to start a collaborative project...the whole thing from scratch AFTER jeff delivers the 25 pieces of art work this Saturday...

Reposting this one because the colors were soooo of in the last post of it...love the pink and black edges...and a couple of details of this quilt I love this one...I think it has my favorite patchwork on it...its a quilt I started in a class with Dianne Hires and was just hanging around not getting done so I gave it to Jeff and said slice it up...I could nt have done it but didnt it make a GREAT border for these powerful figures...DOING the Laundry...I also gave Jeff a piece of pick up sticks that I pieced at least a year ago...leftovers from a project or a reject from one ...he sliced it up..we added the strips donwn the middle and YOWSA this sketch quilt was singing...throw in that chartreuse stripey "sparkle" border and the wonky outside "binding" and this is one GREAT sketch quilt I think...I really like the droopy top edge on it...looks like a sheet hanging on the line to me....Details of this quilt...

Two Sketch Quilts approaching the finish line

Jeff and I worked all day Sunday and have two almost done...will finish the binding and the sleeves as soon as i post this blog...


This is the postcard for the show that our sketch quilts will hang at...the top painting is Jeffs...isnt it awesome. His grandfather and the next door neighbor used to have a race to see who could plow their adjoining fields the fastest. It is for sale if you are interested as are the other sketch quilts. The show as you can read will be at the Aiken Center for the Arts from February 15 - March 23.What I call The Leaving. This is small about 2'x20"
This is also on the small side ...about 2'x18". I love the wild patchwork edge on this one...its a picture of everyone trying to keep cool on a hot summers day...Jeffs grandmother and her grandchildren...more of them can be seen on Jeff's website

They are hard to photograph. The white canvas causes the colors in the patchwork to look darker even though I used the snow setting. I did play around with them in Paintshop pro trying to lighten the patchwork but it also lightened the sketches.