Time for Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour to BEGIN!!

Well the day before has arrived and I am shockingly relaxed.  Indeed.  I guess all my list making and preparation worked. 
The quilts and butterflies and whirligigs are hung in the garage, the supplies to wrap the quilts are ready, and I am ready too.

My favorite part of tour is meeting the people who drive around on tour to meet the artists and see where they work and what magical things they produce.  It does my heart and soul good to be able to interact with people as they look at my quilts.

And I love love love to answer questions and tell stories about my creations.  It is a truly wonderful experience.

Tomorrow morning I will take some photos before anyone arrives so that you can see just what it looks like.  I am very curious to see who arrives.......

Butterflies Flying All Over the Place

And yes these butterflies are attached to the same fishing lure thingies that allow them to fly freely.  Well not QUITE freely because if that was true they would probably fly away..... but you know what I mean!!  I will take a picture of them flying as soon as I figure out a way to secure a line between the trees.....

More whirly things

Did you wonder why I posted pictures of the TOP of the other whirly thing?  Because I also want to show you the tops of the other ones.  And I figured it would make more sense.....
Here they are....

Whirly Things that need a better name!

My latest desire with quilting is to use lots of color and to make things that freely hang from the ceiling.  Eventually I think that I will be making hanging faces.  Is that toooooo weird to imagine?  Probably.  But I think it is where I am meant to go next.

Anyway.  In the meantime (and just because it is a lot of FUN) I am making smaller projects using the base product that will allow my creations to be solid enough to float in the air - but easy to cut and trim.  Uh huh.  That probably doesn't make a lot of sense to READ - but it is part of the learning process for me.

So I am making whirly things.  And YES I need a much more creative name for them.  Soon.....

In the meantime here as some photos to show you what they look like.



OK.  It is really hard to take a photo of the darn thing.  It keeps moving (which it is supposed to do) and I wanted a plain background so you could see it ---

But this should at least give you an idea of what it looks like hanging.

 And this is a picture of it on the floor so you can see how pretty the fabric looks

And this is what it looks like when it is folded up.
There are beads on the top and the bottom.
And the whole thing is attached to a Barrel Swivel Fishing Lure thingie so that it can twirl around and never get tangled.

I got VERY good at making those tricky little knots to secure the fishing line!  SOOO hard to tie something that is basically invisible!!
But it works!

Scurrying around getting ready for studio tour

Well just because I haven't posted for a while does not mean that I haven't been busy (VERY busy!!) getting ready for Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour.  It is two week away!!  TWO WEEKS!!  Yikes.....

Anyway -- I am making some very fun and colorful pieces because they will not only make the display great fun to look at .... they might be just the right size of a project for people to imagine in their own home.... or for a present.....  We will see if I am right.

So check out the next couple of posts and see the lovely new creations.

Collage Horses Transformed

Inspiration comes from such interesting places.  I frequently take on-line classes in drawing and painting.  One of the classes was about creating Imaginary Animals.  I love to do that anyway and it was a lovely class.

One of the lessons was painting blobs of paint on a large brown bag (grocery bag).  Then adding black and white and dots and squiggles and texture.  And then tearing the paper into shapes and making them into a picture of an animal.

This is what my collage looks like.  The horse has a peculiar set of legs but I like the overall design.




In fact I liked it so much I made it into a quilt.  I am particularly fond of the colors.  I revised the legs a bit - they are still strange but better.  And I added another butterfly and flowers.  But it is basically the same design.




I named this quilt Queen Wilhemenia.  Fancy name for a horse!!

Jackets can be quilts!

Friends give me things.  Lots of strange and interesting and pretty things..... things that I may be able to use in my quilts.  And I appreciate every single wonderful gift.  Some of them sit in my closet for a long time before they turn into a quilt - just waiting their turn.

My friend Kay gave me a jacket that she rescued from the closet of a friend.  It was very colorful, had padded shoulders, was polyester (not a normal fabric for quilting), and made me smile.

One day I was sort of drifting along wanting a challenge and thought of the fabric in that jacket.  I decided that it would be VERY challenging to make a Face using ONLY the fabric in that jacket.  Uh huh!!

I struggled a lot while making the quilt - but love the finished product.  Two birds also needed to be part of the quilt and these are also made with only the fabric from the jacket.  I haven't named this quilt yet.....

This is all that remains of the jacket!  It helps to see how the pattern looked before I moved the pieces around to make them into the face.

Old Wise Turtle

I am a member of the Hill 'n Hollow Quilters and they have a Challenge each year.  This year the theme was "turtle".  Any size, any style.

This is a great theme for me because it has virtually no rules or restrictions.  Hurrah!!

This is the turtle quilt that I made.  The most amazing thing is that ALL of the fabric was already in my stash.  And so much of it fit the turtle so well!  Great fun.

Can a Cow be Green?

Well of course a cow can be green - at least when he is becoming a quilt.

This quilt is small but fun.

This is the initial look of Ms. Cow (need a name for her).  Note the mishmosh of color to the right of her face.  Not good.

The reason there is SO much color in this particular cow is that I had a certain piece of fabric and had the thought: "I wonder if I could convince this piece of fabric to  be manipulated to show enough light and dark areas and look like a cow?"

It was HARD.  I struggled.  A lot.

But I kept trying and eventually replaced that one piece of fabric that was too light and too pink and here is what cow looked like then. 

Better. 

So I quilted it and it looks even better now that the quilting is done and more stitching helps make the face and ears stand out.

Notice the binding that matches the fabric and isn't the same all the way around..... I know, I know.... only a quilter would care..... but it does make it look better!  Really!

Butterflies that Fly By Themselves

One of the problems (challenges) that I have been thinking about is how to make some of my serious face quilt designs that can hang as a simple face and not hang on the wall.... sort of hang from the ceiling..... I know.  Strange thought.  And who would want hanging faces in their house?

But - the idea has adopted me and I am nourishing it and loving it and trying to figure it out.

And I think that Betty's Butterfly combined with the project with Timbo School last Spring is the answer.  You don't know about the Timbo project but it involved some new ideas using a stiff fusible interfacing and making 18" squares of black fabric to use as a frame for smaller whimsy faces.

This is a picture of what that looked like

Back to the Butterflies....
In the middle of the night I had the idea of using the pattern of the butterfly and instead of making a quilt - putting the fabric on the black background squares and cutting out the shape to see if it would "float" if it was hung up....

I will take a photo of the butterflies in the trees soon.... 

More Butterflies....

Last time I visited Betty I told her that she had inspired me.  And it is true.  I enjoyed the Pink Butterfly SO much that I made more.  And keep this in mind.... I almost never make the same pattern more than one time.  Mostly because it is boring to repeat a pattern.  BUT - I am enjoying playing with color - and using some of my beautiful fabric.

It takes some real experimentation to find the right combination of colors and I am having the best time just listening to my music and PLAYING with color on these butterflies.

This is the Blue Butterfly quilt (I am SO inventive with quilt names HA!)

Betty's Butterfly

For the past couple of weeks I have been just FULL of overflowing WHIMSY.
It started with this butterfly.

Let me tell you the story.....

My dear friend Betty recently moved from another city into the local nursing home.  I am sort of scared of nursing homes because they are simply foreign to me.  But Betty is an old friend so I visited.

Betty is a quilter and has made beautiful quilts.  So we have a common interest.  I like Betty a lot and asked her if there was a way that I could help make her new room look more colorful and fun.  We decided that a colorful little quilt for the door would be perfect.  She likes the color PINK and she likes Butterflies.  So this is a picture of the quilt.

Here is the funny part.... I don't really like the color pink that much.  I have pink fabric and I use it in small quantities in my quilts for an accent - but I am less than comfortable using it on its own.  But Pink Butterflies demand (!!) the color pink.

Actually I learned a LOT making this quilt and had a great time.  My original plan was to use a thin strip of black fused between the wings to set them apart.  But I found that it was much (MUCH) easier to just separate them a bit and let the background show.

Wait to you see where this little quilt led me!!

August has arrived and I need to get BUSY

Wow has Summer ever zipped by!  I have been busy quilting and getting ready for Studio Tour in September but (I am blushing with embarrassment as I write this!!) I have been totally lazy about writing in my blog.  SO --- Today I am going to try to catch up with posts and pictures and stories.

I suspect that if you are reading this blog, you have either found the address in one of the Studio Tour booklets or found one of my business cards.  Send me a comment if you have one or if you have any questions.  I would love to hear from you.

How has my Quilting changed since 2008?

Wow.  What a question.  My quilts have always been focused on portraying faces and whimsical critters but they have definitely moved in new directions over the years....

One of the biggest changes is the more serious portraits that I make.  OK "serious" is a word that could probably be debated.  After all the faces are strange colors and the individuals often look like they are from outer space.  But they at least look sort of like humans.
The biggest change took place years ago when I had the great JOY of taking a three day class with Esterita Austin.  Her technique of constructing a face with fabric and paint changed my quilting.

Here is a photo of the first quilt that I made in her class.....

It is called Accidents Happen. 

Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour thoughts

My first blog post in a while... because I have exciting news!
I am going to participate in the Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour in September.  I has been 9 years since I have been "on tour".  I still remember the first time - a great and happy memory.
In 2006 I joined the tour but had no idea if anyone would be interested enough in my art quilts to drive all the way out to my house in the woods south of Calico Rock.  It was quite a drive from Mountain View.
But over 150 people came that weekend!!  I was thrilled and still smile at the memory.

We moved to town a year ago so it will be a lot easier for folks to visit and I hope that seeing a wild and crazy art quilter will tempt them to come see me - and my quilts.

The start of a Marvelous Adventure!!!!