Challenge Quilt

Last night at Northern Star Quilter's Guild meeting our challenge quilts were displayed and voted upon. I was chairperson this year and the theme was Going Green. Each participant had to use some recycled material in their quilt. Ribbons were given (First, Second and Third) in three categories, Best Use of Recycled Material, Best Use of the Color Green and Best Environmental Message. I was so delighted to win a First prize and one of our fabulous ribbons for The Best Use of Recycled Materials.
My quilt was made entirely of recycled material. My water was made of painted dryer sheets, the sand---- used tea bag papers, crushed egg shells, and thread ravelings. The seaweed-----twist ties and raffia, and the cardboard core from paper towels.  The coral----Styrofoam fruit wrappers. The colored fish-----paper paint samples from Home Depot and buttons, the silver fish----soda cans.  It was a lot of fun to work on.
We had 26 entries and every year I am amazed at the creativity and imagination that go into these quilts. The exhibit will now travel to Lancaster to be displayed at the Quilter's Heritage show, April 4-5, then again at our guild's show, World of Quilts on May 2-3.





Here's a detail of the colored fish. If you click for a larger view, you can read the names of some of the paints.

Art Show

I belong to a group of art quilters, led by Jane Davila, that meets once a month at the Country Quilter in Somers, NY. We have discussed many different aspects of art quilting and decided several months ago to have an exhibit at the Mahopac Library to lead us through all that is involved with putting on a show, a new experience for some of the group. We had to make a piece that would fit on an eighteen inch stretched canvas, but be no larger that 14" on any side. Two meetings ago we looked at all the finished pieces to decide what should go on the postcard. We wanted ones that were bright, colorful and attention grabbing and complimented each other. I was pleased when mine, on the far left, was chosen to be part of this collage. You can see the whole piece here.  It's the second quilt down.

There will be 31 pieces on display. There is a lot of talent in this group, so the exhibit should be terrific. If you are going to be in the area, please stop in. 

Rabbit beads

I finally got around to stringing those rabbit beads I bought in Houston last November. I took them to a nice bead shop in Ridgefield, CT, Sugarbeads, and bought a lot of other beads to go with them. I restrung it four different ways before I came up with an arrangement I liked. It's about 20 inches long. Photographing it on black velvet did not work, for some reason. I could not get a clear shot no matter what I did. White paper worked the best. Click on each picture for a closer view.



My original plan was to have the necklace be symmetrical with these two big rabbits in the center, but I found out the hard way that the guy on the left is slightly larger than the other and that threw off the whole symmetry.



The two barrel bunny beads looked good together on the other side of the necklace.



This is the center of the necklace, a vanilla turquoise.

Necklace

I bought a lot of beads last year in Houston and this year, too, and thought it was time that I did something with them. All of the aqua colored beads and the center ceramic bead are from a Houston vendor and I bought the copper ones at a local bead shop. I strung these three different ways until I came up with a design I liked. It's about 16 inches long and looks rather nice on, I think. Jewelry is very hard to photograph. The colors are much stronger and prettier in person

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

I saw this on another blog and thought it would be fun to try. You just go to this website, upload your head shot, the computer scans it and gives you the results from the most to the least. My most was Michelle Pfeiffer. In my wildest dreams! I tried it with a different picture and got all different celebrities, except for Marcia Cross, dreaming there, too. For some reason Marcia got cut out of this picture, even though she was there when I wrote this. If you click on the top of the picture and drag it to the left, you will see her. You try it and see who you look like.