Baby Quilt

It's been a long time since I've made a baby quilt, but when my son's best friend, Will and his wife Emily, had a baby a couple of weeks ago I had this one already made.  Several years ago the Bethany Reynolds Stack and Whack quilts were all the rage and I think I even taught a class in it.  I made this quilt and just loved it, but it never seemed to be the right color for any ensuing babies.  Either they were boys  and I thought that this coral was too feminine or the parents had a specific color request.  This baby is a girl and the nursery has teal carpet, so I though this would be a good fit.  The colors in these pictures  are a little off and are more like the colors in the last picture.

To make the quilt you start with a cute all overprint like this one, and fussy cut it to make kaleidoscopes.   You can see an excellent tutorial online here.

 You end up with some interesting patterns.  The coral fabric with the white dots was a companion print and I added gold and teal borders.

This is more like the real color.  I remember being so pleased to find the flannel for the backing in the perfect color. I always make a label that gives the baby's name and birth-date and my name.

So a big welcome to Molly, as her nickname will be.  I hope you and Mom and Dad like the quilt.

PS.
 In the box where this quilt was stored I had another partially made quilt.  Six blocks, out of eight, are already pieced and the triangles are all cut out, but I don't have any of that cute backing fabric.

Kimono

I've been trying to tick off the projects that are due for different groups of which I am a member.
My FANE group had an exhibit in a separate room at my guild's quilt show last year titled, Totems. They were 8 feet by 18 inches and hung from the ceiling. The exhibit was a huge success so Jane Davila, our fearless leader, came up with the idea of kimono shaped art.  She is making T-shaped stands on which they will be draped.  They don't have to be quilted and can even be just surface design cloth.

I immediately thought of shibori, thinking that I would make something new, but I got out all the blue and white shibori that I had done on my own, way before the Jan Meyers-Newbury class that I took last fall.  I played around with a lot of different patterns and designs and this is what I came up with. This is the piece open with the center section being 16" x 54"and the side panels 9" x 22".  The circles are stitched shibori that are pieced in. The center panel will make a great table runner and is just the right size.

This is how it will look draped over the T-shaped stand.  I am in the process of hand stitching circles in a running stitch in white thread, sashiko style, around the shibori circles on the side panels. I am not going to quilt it, but will just line it with dark blue on the sides and white in the center.

Gallery Show, part 2

 Last night was the opening of the show, Close Knit--A Group fiber Art Show, that I blogged about yesterday.  I was so pleased for several reasons.  I thought the show was well hung with excellent lighting, there was an array of diversity, the show was well attended,  the wine and food were delicious, and the live music was terrific (and they played nonstop for the whole two hours).

Be sure to click on any picture to see a bigger view of all.

Me standing next to "Houston Reflections"

And me with Fern Dance II, Of Cabbages andKings, and City Lights. I had another quilt that was mounted on canvas and that was hung in the window.

Paula Renee's beautiful tapestry.

Also by Paula. Gorgeous!

Ellen Schiffman's incredible  framed felted sculptures

Arle Sklar-Weinstein's fiber montages on layered printed organza over cotton.  She was not at the reception.  I would have liked talking to her about her process.

June Myles' hooked creations.  She also had some pillows on the couch and her book to peruse.

Liz Alpert Fay's stunning large piece made of hand stitched wool circles.

Joy Wofse with her interesting woven and macrame jewelry.

Lisa Furman and her group with their hauntingly beautiful Celtic and American folk music.

Part of the crowd

Pat, Claire , and Nike

I have put links to the artist's websites when available.  Be sure to check them out to see more of their work.

I was enjoying myself so much, chatting with friends and new acquaintances, sipping wine, and listening to the music that I didn't want to leave, but I was meeting friends at the movies to see the new "Quartet" with Maggie Smith.  It was the perfect ending to a great evening.  

Gallery Show

I have five quilts in this show which opens this Saturday.  There will be a reception with wine, yummies, and live music so if you are in  the area, please stop by.  There are a total of seven artists in the show with a wide array of fiber art, including weaving, hooking, fiber sculpture, and art quilts.  I've only seen a sneak preview and what I saw was terrific.  I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

The address is:  60 Newtown Road, Rt. 6 Plaza,Danbury, CT 06810

Wordless Wednesday

To help me forget that it's 10 degrees outside.

Sneak Peek

Just a peek at my current project.  These are all Dupioni silks, in shades of reds and purple. I will keep piecing until it gets to be about 14" x 18".  Then all sorts of interesting things will be done to it. I hope to finish it this week, so please check back.

The colors are even more knock-your-socks-off in person. It's hard to beat Dupioni for vibrancy.

Wordless Wednesday

Opened today.

Productive Weekend

At the beginning of last week when  I looked ahead to the weekend, I gave a silent cheer when I saw that Saturday and Sunday were blank, as in no appointments and no social commitments.  My friends who are not involved in art find it hard to understand how I could like this, but I saw it as free time to spend in the studio.  I turned down an opportunity to go out to dinner Friday night, go the movies on Saturday night and go to a film festival and dinner on Sunday afternoon/evening.  Other than my morning walk, Church on Sunday morning followed by a brief trip to the grocery store, I stayed in all weekend and I did accomplish a lot.

I made this pretty little evening bag out of silk dupioni, one more entry for the Woman's Club Arts and Crafts competition. It measures about ten inches long, including the leaves on the bottom, by eight inches wide.

It was rather simple construction, being just one quilted piece thats wraps over onto itself.  The pokey parts were making all those little leaves (double sided, seamed and turned) and sewing the bottom together by hand through all those layers. And it took me three tries to get the handle right.  It's a good thing that I had a lot of that blue.  Isn't this magenta a pretty color? I considered having that on the outside, but went with my original plan of having the periwinkle blue be the focus. 

I dyed the fabric for the binding for my big Itajime shibori quilt and got that sewed on. I should tell you that after I had dyed the fabric, I didn't think it was a good match, even though it was the same black that had been used in the shibori, so I dyed two more pieces using two different blacks.  I ended up using the first one anyway. I started the hand sewing last night while watching TV and it's about half done.

I also finally wrote my letters asking for better gun control to my Senators and Congresswoman, paid my estimated taxes and did some other paper work.  I even found time to do some reading and made some headway on The Round House by Louise Erdrich.  I have a lot going on this week, but I also have more things on my list to check off.

Kumihimo

 My weekly fiber art group usually meets at members' home, but since we have several links to the Brookfield Craft Center, we decided to hold our meetings on the second Friday of the month there with one member giving some sort of demonstration or tutorial.

Barbara, our Kumihimo expert, kindly offered to lead the first session.   Kumihimo is a Japanese form of thread braiding.  You can watch a terrific tutorial that I found on U-tube here.  This is the little foam disk that is necessary.

Barbara helping Susie.

                                            

Gwen and Nike trying to figure it out.

Margaret and I hard at work.

                                                 

My finished braid

Detail, showing the pattern.

Once you got the hang of it, it was quite easy. I forgot to take my camera (Paula took the first four pictures with her iPhone) or I would have been able to show you the many beautiful things that Barbara has made......bracelets, necklaces, key chains, belts, etc. We used a thin rat's tail cording, but you can use all sort of ribbons, cords or yarns.  Barbara had bracelet findings for all of us and some of the gals finished their bracelets, but I just kept on braiding.  I can always cut it to length later. The braid is good for hanging a pendant, too.  I like to make purses and this would be a good way to make purse straps.

You can also use beads and that's what Barbara is going to show us next month.  I'm really looking forward to that!

Great job, Barbara! Thank you so much!

Finished!

It is quilted and faced and measures 17" x 16 1/2".

Fractured II

I toyed with different quilting motifs and decided to just go with straight line quilting with white thread.  I tried not to quilt on the red lines, but just crossed them. From two feet away, you can't even see it.  I debated doing a cross grid, but for the same reason, I did not. I also debated binding it with red, but went with the facing instead.

Now on to the next project.