A Walk Down Memory Lane

On our recent trip to New York, one of the things we were determined to revisit was the place where we had our wedding reception.  Back then, it was a restaurant and wasn't sure if it would still be open; it was and is now just catering except for every wednesday in July and August when they open to the public for a buffet.

 We made reservations and were looking forward to having dinner but even more so, a trip down memory lane. Except for the sign, everything had changed, totally renovated.

 I remember it was on the water and had a pretty gazebo.

 The gardens were beautiful....

 and of course we had our picture taken in the gazebo.

 The buffet was an all you can eat - LOBSTER. It was Incredible....can you believe this? Piles and piles kept appearing all night.

 We took a walk down near the pier. I remember way back when, they had a boat that took the newly married couple away. I don't think we did that although at the time, it sounded like great fun.  Now I can't imagine climbing into a boat in heels and a gown.
Til next time...

PTA Continued

As always with our gatherings, we have wonderful show and tell time, leaving us very inspired and eager to get back to our studios. 

 Mary B was our unofficial queen for the day as we haven't seen her in a while and were so happy to have her with us. Mary had donated some blocks she had won in a block of the month.

 We assembled them, added borders, binding and quilting and then....gave it back to her finished. I think she was surprised.

Lynne showed us her latest piece using rusted fabric, all panels a little different. She gave it a cohesiveness by adding dye throughout.

 It's quite wonderful and a beautiful effect.

 Mary S brought 4 beautiful pieces. Mary makes her own felt as well as dyeing it and then if that wasn't enough, beads it like there's no tomorrow.

 This piece was also sunprinted which I loved with the subtle areas that were resisted out using coins and sticky squares.

 Janice made this quilt just for fun, this for me, not being a piecer looks mighty complicated.

 Dort brought 2 of her beautiful fish quilts.  I love the eyelash yarn couched on the surface to look like seaweed.

 And Gen - master knitter brought a vest she made for her husband Ralph.

 and these wonderful socks that belong in a museum.  I'm also not a knitter so these amaze me and if I had a pair, don't think I could wear them, think I would want to have them framed!

 Barbara showed us her newest work in progress - all silk.  The black is a shantung with that great nubby texture. She plans to hand quilt it which in and of itself is an accomplishment but on black...wow!
Til next time.

PTA - Fields of Fabric

I'm back from New York, exhausted but full of great memories...more on that later.  The first day home was filled with laundry, bills and other mundane chores.  The next day - Thursday,  was my reward with a monthly meeting of PTA. We met at the home of Barbara S, shared our latest works, news, ate lunch and had a yummy lemon cake for dessert made by our hostess. Barbara has a friend who has a friend kind of thing that gave her lots of outdated books of decorator fabric. 

We were told to bring our scissors and a very large bag to bring our samples home in. So let the cutting begin.

I need more fabric like I need a toothache but who can resist.  It was great fun, very social and very addictive.

Barbara showed us a piece she made using all silk samples - lovely in person.

Gen also shared a piece she made. The small squares in the center still have the heavy paper on back.  It's such a simple but elegant piece and a beautiful use of neutrals.

More to follow.....

Leftovers

I recently posted this quilt - "River's Edge"on my blog; - most of the fabric was made using the deconstructive screen printing technique. 

 I really liked the fabric and had little bits and pieces left over. It's a difficult fabric to use with other fabrics so I decided to make some smaller pieces.

 This piece was made for the Galleribba online gallery for small wall art. Quilts have to be 12" or less on all sides. "River Rocks" has only 3 pieces but I was happy to use them up.  The "rocks" in the one piece keep the ongoing theme.

And after all was said and done, there were still more leftovers so I made this very small piece - 8" x 10" and matted it making it an 11 x 14. I have a small series of works done in this format.

I have a few threads left....wonder what I can do with those  (-:

I'm leaving for New York tomorrow for my husband's high school reunion. We will also get to Ground Zero and a visit with my 2 best buddies from 5th grade...great fun.

Until next time.

Smash Cake

 Well I do like to focus on quilt and sewing related things, but once in a while I just have to stray.

 We had our granddaughter with us a couple of weeks ago while my daughter was still on summer break and we had the most fun.  While in my studio which is large, has lots of drawers, cabinets, boxes and things for any small child to get into, the first thing she went for was my fabric.  My heart be still...Am I being delusional or is there a chance she might love fabric and quilting?!  A grandmother can hope.

The next week, we were back in Atlanta for Audrey's first birthday.  Apparently this is the time a one year old tastes their first "sweets" and gets a "smash cake" - their very own cake to....you guessed it...Smash. This is all new to me.

Audrey loved it but honestly was more interested in the spoon that she used, trying to figure it out. I envy how uninhibited children are. I get the willies just looking at all that icing on her.
Til next time....

The Postcard

Another small piece recently finished is The Postcard. It will be going in the Galleribba Gallery - see the link on the left to get to this gallery of artists featuring small wall art. 

 I used lots of  leftovers which is always fun - feel like I'm making a dent in my stash although with pieces this small it's not even a drop in the bucket. I had some deconstructive screen printed fabric to start with which had somehow picked up a faint bit of yellow along the way.

 So I though I would mix in yellow as an accent

 and combine it with some mushroom printed fabric - also a leftover. The yellow was stamped or screened with writing to give it some texture.

 I found an old piece of blue and white Shibori fabric and screened it with an image of an old postcard addressed to my grandmother - Cornelia Adams. The postcard is close to 100 years old, so it's a real treasure which I love to use.

And The Postcard - look for it on the Galleribba website.
Til next time.

Small Quilts - Aftermath Revisited

I've been working on small pieces for the Southern Highland Fair in October, pinning them up on my design wall as I go along. I'm a slow worker so seeing multiple pieces renews my sense of accomplishment. 

I love collecting sheers to use in my work; I sometimes paint a piece of organza

and stamp on top...on left.

I also love to rummage through the curtain department and bins of sewing stores. There are so many really great sheers with such interesting prints. So this one won out, with its many possibilities within the same piece and a good color for layering.

I actually started piece this a while back but it worked its way to the back burner for some reason. So I rediscovered this piece of fabric with an acrylic medium transfer of lichen on top which I quickly screened with a tree image.

And this great sheer, which I screened on top of using the same screen in reverse. 

The layered effect worked well with the sheer I used.

So then what to use along the side. I liked this color but thought the screened dragonflies might be too much so I flipped it over - easy to do when using batiks...

and screened another tree along the edge using black textile paint on the orange and discharge paste on the black areas.  To tone down the orangey area, black tulle was used. My son thought it looked like the remnants of a forest fire and named it "Aftermath".
I liked his way of thinking and made him go through some of my pieces and rename them.
Til next time.....

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative - AAQI has done wonderful work in raising funds for medical research for this dreaded disease. With the help of the quilting community and many wonderful volunteers, Ami Simms has raised over a million dollars. She has devoted much of her life to this cause and accomplished more than she ever dreamed possible. 

The AAQ Initiative is coming to an end. There are still many opportunities to purchase a small piece on line, bid on a quilt online at the monthly auction or if you're planning a trip to the International Quilt Festival in the fall,  buy one in person.

I am part of the $1,000 pledge; this is probably the last piece I'll be donating. "Buzzin'" is 9" x 12", hand dyed fabrics, machine appliqued with a buttonhole stitch and a beaded edge. The screened image of a dragonfly gives it the name - Buzzin'.
Hope you'll visit their website and consider buying one of these small pieces of art to help such a great cause....

And a Few More

And just a few more to share from our dyeing adventure last week. A couple of years ago a friend introduced me to Radiance by Kaufman Fabrics - a blend of 55% cotton and 45% silk.  I had forgotten I had it and came upon it while we were preparing our fabric for dyeing. This fabric had not been washed ahead of time like the instructions suggested so I had no idea how it would react.

I wrapped it around marbles, only doing a small piece.

The interesting thing about this fabric was the "halo" around the resisted areas......It was a grayish color, not a lighter blue like you would think - really pretty and a surprise.

And the big old fashioned pink plastic hair rollers were used to resist areas of this fabric.  Seeing these rollers brought back memories of living in a college dorm, going to dinner with my hair in curlers and wearing a big wooly hat to cover them up (we couldn't wear rollers in the dining hall).Why do I remember silly things like that?

Kate brought some vintage clothing as the textures were really nice.  She dipped them for a few seconds to get a paler color.

This was a favorite in my batch.  It was a blend as it didn't take a real deep color.  It was also a sheer and had been rusted so the combination made for pretty results.
Til next time....Have a great week.

Fiber Junkies at Play Pt. 2

The results are in from our play day with indigo and we all passed with flying colors. 

Using rusted fabrics with Indigo was a great idea. The one above was clamped with a square shaped resist; it might have been the old plastic slides. The one in the middle was dyed over a lightly colored fabric.

The piece in the middle is one of my favorites - think it belongs to Mary; she dyed over a deconstructed piece of fabric which needed some zing. I love the way it turned out.

This next piece was originally an old bed sheet dyed a bright orange-yellow and then wrapped on a pole and dipped in indigo. I love the results - dark on the right fading to almost nothing on the left. I will be anxious to see what is done with this.

To get a lighter value of indigo, fabric needs to be dipped for about 3 seconds.  We all thought it a good idea to have some lighter values to work with. The above piece was left in for 10 mins which created the dark lines.  There was too much white when all was said and done so back into the pot it went for 3 seconds to add more color to the white. One of the neat things about indigo - you can dip and re-dip.

This piece made by Kate was amazing; it was already hand stitched when she got here.  I imagine it took a lot of time to stitch and then to remove the stitching afterwards but worth the effort.

Kate also brought some vintage clothing to experiment with. This bodice and the piece to the left had some pretty lace on it all of which dyed well.  Kate gave the bodice to me and I'm anxious to take it apart to see how the darts and other stitched areas served as resists.

Val had a big piece of yellow-white silk which she over-dyed with indigo.  It came out beautiful.

and a view from my deck - they all looked so luscious. Even more to come.