The Show has Closed

After a great month, my show at the gallery has closed.  Today I picked up all of the unsold work at the gallery.   This is one that sold.  I hope to see it "in the wild" as I know the lady who bought it.

Also this painting went to a new home. It is titled "In the Gloaming."   I was very happy to hear that one of the Art Council Board Members chose it to live with her.

There were two other small paintings sold.  I do not have a photo for one of them.  However, you can see this one.

Mount Shiomi

For now I have to get everything else back in storage until the next time I have a display.
Have a great weekend.
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Checking In and Quilting, too

The past four days I have not been overly productive.  The sun has been shining and the weather has been wonderful.  I took my car in to get a brake job knowing that I would have a couple of hours to pass.
I decided to walk around the old downtown where I live. Many of the shops I knew growing up are long gone.  (I should mention that I live in the town where I grew up.)  But I walked in shops that are open and looked. One was  furniture store where the proprietor was near my age.  We talked for a while as he wasn't busy - and I looked at furniture that I don't need at this point.  But I did see a recliner that I really like. When "old faithful" finally gives up, I will get one like that one.

I went in an antique store that had some lovely and expensive old pieces.  But in the "back room" I saw an antique wheelchair that I knew.  The shop owner had loaned it to the community theatre for a production I was in.  We chatted and I thanked him for having done that.

I got almost double my walking goal steps in (fitbit) so I was very happy.

I got part of the quilt I am working on layered, basted and ready to quilt.  Then I started quilting on it.  There was thread break after thread break.  So I said "Today is apparently not the day!"  Walking away from it, I decided to go walking again.  But I used my "indoor track" at the hardware superstore so it wasn't so much of an adventure.
Today, Thursday, I gave the quilting another go.  More thread breaks - so I put out a "help" to some of my quilting friends.  I got advice but nothing that helped. Or did it?   I remembered that a while back I had put a 75/11 in the machine for sewing.  But maybe the larger needles is better for free motion on this machine. Yes!  I put in an 80/12 and it solved the problem.
Look at the lovely texture:

 I finished the smaller "half" and need to layer the other part and quilt it. But now there is less worry about not getting it done in time. Whew!   At least the problem got me to clean out the machine and put in a new needle.  The boy's quilt should be finished before he graduates! Yaay!

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Weaving Demonstration at the Gallery

Yesterday I showed the photo of my youngest attendee (and weaver!)  I now have a few more photos from the demonstration on Saturday.  I am very grateful to the people who took photos and shared them with me.  The event was well attended and I hope everyone there had a good time.  As you can tell from the photos, the attendees were very interested in the process.

The demo started with a bit of explanation and a few questions. 

 I think at this point (below) I was asked a question that I did not 

know an answer for.  The question was about the wood the loom

is made from.  I just know it is nice and sturdy and I never 

worried about what the wood is.  The wood is actually birch.

Sandi and her husband came in from Chattanooga to see the loom. She is very interested in learning to weave. 

 Here I am showing some of the techniques I use when weaving.  

You can see that everyone was paying attention. 

 Patti and Sandi both took the challenge to sit at the loom and try it. 

Giving some instruction

Trying it out.

Sandi asked a question and I had to see what happened.
She did a great job. As we say in Saori,
 "There are no mistakes, just design changes. 

 They both found the process fun and exciting. 

I do believe that both of them will make great weavers with a bit of instruction. 

I certainly had a great time doing this demonstration.  There were others who came in at 

various times during the demo as it was a "come and go" event. 

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Weaving Demo

Saturday April 22nd -besides being Earth Day-was the day of my weaving demonstration at the MVAC Art Gallery.  A number of delightful people stopped by to watch, learn and try weaving.  For now, I only have this one picture --borrowed -- from Facebook to show.  The turnout was great. The photo is our youngest "new weaver" from the event.

(photos by her Mom.)
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Fast Becoming

While it isn't super fast, the Trip quilt is coming together quickly. I am still making design decisions.  At this point if appears that I will quilt it in just two sections  and then join the two into one quilt.
Here is how the top is looking.  I filled in some open places with strips that were already cut.

Just ignore the bright colored quilt on my bed beneath this top.  Once the three new sections are joined and outlined with strips similarly to the other section, I plan to make wide piano key borders for all four sides. I suspect it will look a bit wild.  But I think it will be perfect for the recipient.

Question:  Would it be too wild to add red or maybe burgundy into the piano key border?
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Another bit of "Trip Around the....Squirrel!"

After a nice weekend off, I am back at the Squirrel quilt.  I did two sections yesterday and joined them.  I have four more sections going today. I am chain piecing the strips.  You can see that under my presser foot and pulled out across the completed section.

I am doing each section a bit differently to keep it "odd" and thus keep with the name it has been given.  Since several of the fabrics were fat quarters, in each section some of them are replaced with different fabrics.  I call it "controlled scrappy" quilting.  I am trying to keep the colors similar.

I got a great Happy email today from Melissa at "Happy Quilting."  I won last week's Terrific Tuesday prize.  The prize is six fat quarters of Bella Solids and five spools of Aurifil thread in matching colors.   My Tuesday is now officially Terrific!  (and there is a new giveaway today that you may want to go check out. I didn't enter this one since I just won.)
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Trip Around the .....SQUIRREL!!!!

Surely some of you think I have abandoned quilting for weaving - but that is not true.  I have a new project started.  It will be a quilt for my great-nephew's graduation.  (JT - don't look!)

I started with a plan.  I cut lots of fabric in the size I expected to use for the entire quilt.

 Then I started strip piecing sections to cut up and make a bargello/trip around the world type quilt. I had a few pieces that were pre-cut - and then after cutting LOTS of strips (and sewing some strip sets) there was a terrible discovery.  The pre-cut strips were not uniformly cut. ARRRGH.  Wait, no! I can deal with that - I don't have to have matching points. So the sections were completed.  Some match, some don't and some places I switched to a half drop method.

The decision made early on was to make and quilt the quilt in sections - even though that would interrupt the pattern, it would finish the quilt more rapidly.  We all know that there aren't enough hours in the day.

Then quilting was interrupted for a couple of days.  Somehow my plan didn't get written down and --well, I have slept since then (meaning I forgot.)

So I sewed more sections and made some mistakes, errrr, design changes.  Today while piecing and laughing at myself,  I started thinking of possible names for the quilt.  I laid it out on the bed to look at it.

I thought of names related to "trip." Since this trip was so lost, I thought "Do you know where you're going to?" aka theme from Mahogany.  Or maybe, I could call it "Life Makes a Sidetrip" but then I realized the perfect name is  "Trip around the .....SQUIRREL"  - I am sure my friend Kitty will laugh at that one as we say we are "chasing squirrels" when we switch back and forth from project to project.  Of course the "Squirrel" comes from one of my favorite movies, UP!  If you haven't seen it, you should definitely find it and watch it.  While it is a "kids movie" -- there is a strong theme about getting older too.  I consider it to be a real treasure.  

Now let me chase this squirrel for a while longer.....
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Some Professional Photos From the Gallery

Here are a few more photos from the Gallery.  These were done by my photographer friend.  I hope you enjoy them.
Please click to enlarge if you wish.

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Gallery Opening Take Two

The photographer gave me copies of some of the files - which I edited myself. He will edit his later and probably do a much better job.  But I needed them to get this post ready.

At the gallery each of the artists had people from the gallery wearing some of our work - and of course we each wore something of our own work.
First up is a picture of  The MVAC Treasurer, Artist Rita Winters, Artist Gene Black and MVAC Secretary.

The treasurer is wearing one of my creations and the Secretary is wearing one of Rita's creations.

Patti and Kim wore  some of my work and posed with one of my mannequins.  I love how Kim was rocking the No-Sew Hat. It looked elegant on her- when I wear it, I look like a clown.

These paintings were hanging in the front room near the liquid refreshments. 

The "Wild Abandon" wall hanging  which is over 9 feet long hung 

from near the ceiling to the top half of an unused door.

Here is a photo of me posing with some of my art quilt pieces.

And here is Rita posing with one of her Batwing Tops with a lovely woven scarf.

There are more photos but I will save those for later.  Have a wonderful weekend. 

Oh yes, perhaps all of this has inspired you to be more creative. I suggest taking a class from Craftsy as this weekend all the top classes are $19.99 each or less. 

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Gallery Opening -Take One

For the gallery opening, I had a friend who is a great photographer take some photos for me. Of course those are not ready yet.  So I am going to share some that I took with my phone while I walked thru prior to the opening.  All of the paintings, quilts and woven goods you see in these photos are my work.

You can click the photos to see them larger.

Art Quilts

Woven Vests and Painting "In Oberon's Palace"

Woven Vest, Two small Paintings
Square Neck Top and painting "Morning Magic"

Green Eyed Serena, That Look. Blue Eyed Susan

Tesseract,  Hibiscus, Wind in the Door

Mountain Blues and Ice Crystal Vest

Red Passion Vest and Cardinal Samba

Three Paintings, a Long Vest and a Top

Three more paintings. 

The opening was great fun.  I received many very nice comments.  Plus, interest was shown in many of the works.  Three people also acted as models for some other of my woven goods.  The photographer got pictures of some of them. I will be sharing those photos later.

P.S.  this Gallery is in a converted house.
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