The Making of River Bend Lady

This is how our neighborhood must have looked before the tree cutting began..this is the island across from our neighborhood..unbuildable because it floods...lovely trees everywhere

This is a shot of our neighborhood denuded of its trees...

well finally i can blog her and show her off.....shes part of an invitational exhibit at the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center in Tillamook Oregon curated by Larkin Van Horn. The show is called "Its Good to be Green" and the only requirements where that we could NOT send a frog quilt in and it had to be 18x45" long...

I stewed over this one a long time mostly because of the size of the quilt. I wanted to do something about the fabulous trees in our neighborhood...they are soo awesome and people buy lots here just to live among them and then they CHOP them down when they are in thier way...which just kills me...NO one is allowed to prune ours let alone chop them down...all 58 in the front yard and the sycamores along the river...WHY would you buy a heavily wooded lot covered with old growth trees to chop them down so you can have a lawn? I just dont understand...

ANYWAY this is my interpretation of one of the gorgeous sycamores that line the river bank here....a lovely red headed lady with green velvet skirts....and beads and vines curling around her hair and her waist and nestled in her scarf....she is of course bare footed! and tossing her skirts in the wind...

i dyed the silk velvet the cheese cloth and the trees across the river...and the water...and her hair...i guess it would be easier to say that the only thing i didnt dye was the sky and the fore ground...her face is drawn with gel pens, pigma pens, prismacolor pencils...my usual stuff...the hair is hand dyed bias cut silk ruched and couched down ..same thing with the skirt...

And you thought i wuz not sewing

BUT i fooled you...i have started piecing a quilt...I quilted most of my girl in the rocker...she still needs some more geegaws and maybe a wild pieced border....

I am quilting this dragaround quilt for my Major dad a retired Marine who is 85 with all of his duty stations and his quote from fox hill at Toktong Pass in Choinsin Reservoir that is on the wall of the new Marine Corp Museum in Quantico...a kind of memory quilt that he wont mind using and that he can read as he takes a nap or two under...he went to lots of interesting places Honolulu(shipping out just before Pearl Harbor) the Great wall of China, Okinawa, Singapore and as far as we are concerned Notre Dame in South Bend Indiana where he met my mom:>

These two sections say Choisin Reservoir Korea 1950

I quilted his name and rank as well as his wife and family...my name and my friends names that pinned it not once but twice!..fun stuff but taking a while...

This quilt...i think its my friend kays quilt...is the only quilt i got a decent picture of at our quilt retreat at in Jan...I kept either NOT having a battery or having it notcharged or no camera...it was one thing or another the whole weekend and i finally just QUIT...

BUT I did read this fascinating book that my friend Judy had One Block Wonders...and had to make one...i dug thru the closet looking for something to whack up...its made similar to a stack and whack BUT none of the background pieces are added to it...you just use the one fabric for a totally really neat look..this is my start on mine...ALOT Of sewing...about 2/3 of the way done...had company the last two weekends or it would have....THE BOOK -all of these pinwheels are from one fabric...and no other is added The fabric Kaffe Fassett Kimono Print

Some of the pinwheels-piles of them everywhere..last i counted there were close to one hundred of them

THE swan song

This is my swan song journal quilt. I journaled about memories of participating in the quilt journal project ...random thoughts along with random techniques...it was done with pen, ink, paint, colored pencil, thread painting, hand sewn quilting with pearl cotton...and wonky borders...and i just sewed on wild threads for the binding...
This is the original of the sketch that i used for my journal quilt ...same lady...she does look like a quilter doesnt she??? NOW WHERE did the finished product? Cant seem to find it where it should be in iphoto...darn it...

I also have three or four...no wait...up to eight journals in the traveling show from the book Creative Quilting published last year by Karey Bresnehan and Pokey Bolton at Quilting Arts. This is the one from last years string of journals. She was also in the IQF ad in Cloth Paper Scissors which tickled me to NO end. Will see if i can dig up pictures of the others...they are on my website under Journals if you cant stand to wait!!:> Pete is supposed to be there as well as several of the ones from the first journal string in was it 2001 or 2002. They were featured in Quilting Arts Magazine when the first show was over and where bought by Karey for the International Quilts Festival collection. They also were hung in the IQF Favorites Show three years ago or was it four? MY how time flies and muddles together!!

Modular Knitting

I have been madly knitting all weekend...and NOT getting much accomplished...

Trying to knit a sweater from the Koigu book Knits from a Painters Pallette - modular knitting...combining a variety of squares.

I LOVE THESE COLORS TOGETHER

I started with thin yarn knitted on a size 3 needle SOOO tiny using some handdyed shawl yarn and some left over sock yarn...but my needles were not sharp...had three different ones and only one had a point on it...the others have disappeared over the years

...so i went to the yarn store to buy some POINTIER ones...I bought a pair but they told me what i really needed was LACE needles...did they have any??? NOPE...so i bought a regular pair

and OMG i bought a bunch of NORO to try to knit a modular sweater out of...all different colors... a dozen or so skeins to add to the five that i already had...I mean you can knit NORO on larger needles ...it should go faster right??? NOT:>

SIX or SEVEN hours later this is all I have done...

These are made from NORO a yummy hand dyed Japanese yarn that is available locally...we dont have Koigu here. The Koigu is MUCH thinner than the Noro that is sold locally but the colors are awesome. It is varigated but has LONG color runs which was driving me crazy when i made the first sample last nite. I was using the colors i wanted out of the skeins...you should see the mess of loose ends on the back...alot of weaving if I EVER finish this thing! I do like it better today than i did at 1 am yesterday:> things usually do look better in the morning right?!

Blogs and websites of the week

along time ago i was going to try to post weekly blogs and websites i visit during the week...LOVE the eyecandy of the net..lasted ONE week...

so in an effort to do it again...here are some i have visited and frequently forwarded to my friends...i get my own mailbox on alot of their computers so they can go back and check the links later!

Some art sites and blogs

awesome sketch by Kate Johnson author of many North Light books This is her blog

Trumpetvine sketchbook and how she does what she does...and she is really good...

Nina Johnson's terrific sketches from I think its Sweden!

Finally a post from the Danny Gregory - leader of the everydaymatters list...sketching group..and a link to samples of journalers who are going to be in his new book that hes working on...some great journals


Barry Gott's blog- his illos are a hoot...he does a lot of childrens book illos with photoshop..also going to be in Danny Gregory's new book

Laurel Burch's website She passed away this week from osteoporothis ....I have been in love with her art work for years now...since at least 1990 when i saw it at Macys...vivid paintings of animals reproduced on fabric, as earrings, purses, cups and my current fav SOCKS!!

Roger Finch - A local sculptor(Augusta GA) that teaches welding found objects together which is what he bases his art work on

QUILTY and FIBER THINGS

Anji Vissner's great pencil drawings and art quilts

an awesome art quilter Rosemary Claus-Gray

Random Arts STORE BLOG - a very cool mixed media store in the lovely tiny town of Saluda NC

THE original long arm quilting machine and its history...who knew they were so old?

Uncommon threads group - an interesting mixture of traditional and artsy quilts...and the darned cutest picture of a small baby sleeping on a quilt one of the group members made...

Stupid sock creatures website...just because they will make you laff!

I am a daffodil...what

do you think you are...I am a daffodil:> I always did like them....take the test at this garden is illegal
and did i say i have turned into something of a gardener...but then i do come from a long line of avid gardeners...got to get out and plant those lantana and ferns i bought sat...wont take a few minutes...

OH the quilt...she said?? I made it a couple of years ago just to see if i could piece all those wonky curves together....and of course its a daffodil...well three??? and i dyed most of the fabrics too...

I am a Daffodil What Flower Are You?

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!

So I promised i would blog our trip to Random

Arts in Saluda NC but darn it took me a while to get to it. We had a terrific time on our trip to Saluda NC to take a class with Kristi Steiner making an altered fabric book...


OK so one of the reasons it took so long was this journal page of our nite and day in the WNC(western North Carolina) mountains of Saluda NC....It takes you from the beginning of our trip to Saluda....if you follow the road.....it was a great trip with great company!!

We spent the nite at a great motel...The Saluda Mountain Lodge....all new, great beds...and an awesome view of the valley...

We went to a terrific little place called the Wildflower Bakery and Cafe for breakfast. The food was awesome....fresh baked breads, danish, a wide assortment of cookies and even fresh dog cookies....YES Kim of course I bought some for my furkids Charley and Jazz!


Then it was on to Random Arts on a lovely spring morning in tiny downtown Saluda NC....here are pics of the town ....Evidently Saluda used to be a booming railroad town with 37 hotels back before the railroad stopped and the depression began....Shots of Main Street...Saluda is now on the Historic Registry because of all the old buildings...down the street the other way...this is an old gas station remodeled into a neat little cafe...hear it has great breakfasts...
We parked in back of this suv advertising GS cookies...too funny....
Our fearless leader during this trip...Ille scoping out the store...and upcoming workshops are behind her ...alot of nationally known artists wander thru this shops doors...


Jan the owner of Random Arts chatting the crowd up! And it was very crowded....twenty or so people in this store...Randoms Art started life as a stamp store but evidently was quickly changed to an altered book and art store...the shop is crammed with all kinds of goodies to alter just about anything...and all kinds of neat things everywhere you look...they even have stuff hanging from the ceilings!!
Lots of goodies for the altered book fan...very interesting stamps...and different from the normal ones at Michaels or Hobby Lobby.....
Ille checking out the stamps...I wish i had gotten some of them...

Shot toward the front door...which
Still shopping
Ille and the owners partner in front of the store...evidently this used to be a movie theater and then a gym for the local highschool.
Kristi Steiner warming up to her subject matter teaching her students altered fabrics. The class project- an accordion book using 8 different fabric altering techniques...it was alot of fun...and I will blog the little i got done next...meant to work on it when i got home but you know how that is!!!


Ille really working on that piece of fabric. I think i killed at least one or two peic
It was a very busy day and every one was working hard....an awesome lunch was served from the Saluda Grade Restaurant...

These daffodils at the church kept guard over our altered fabrics as they dried....
Margaret and Sue with thier loot...there were two margarets on this trip...

Margaret heading down the block to the grocery store for snacks for the trip home...

Thompsons grocery store....