I Caught my Rainbow!

It has been three weeks since my last post. My husband and I took a short trip to Florida and I have been busy catching up since. I hope this weekend will allow me to spend some time in my studio!

I was honoured to be invited to speak to the Edmonton and District Quilt Guild on February 17th. This was my first public speaking event. I was asked to share how my career as a graphic artist has influenced my quilting. I thought I might be nervous, but not so... I was very excited to talk about something I am so passionate about. What a great opportunity AND what a great bunch of people. I was warmly welcomed and I appreciate all the kind and supportive comments made to me after the talk. Thank you!

On my way home to Grande Prairie the next day, I stopped at Pam's Wooly Shop in Stony Plain. I found this lovely wool batt, which is about 1.5 feet square(ish). I have no idea what I am going to do with it, but the colours are gorgeous and the batt itself is so inviting to touch. It is meant to be spun, but of course this won't happen in my studio. I will incorporate it into a project eventually... or maybe just enjoy it as the rainbow that I caught :-)

Merlot and other great volcanoes :-)

This quilt was finished last Friday, but I had to wait for weather to cooperate for a photo opportunity. I am submitting the quilt to be included in an exhibition called GeoPhysical held in May as part of Quilt Canada. The Fibre Art Network (FAN) of which I am a member, is putting together this particular exhibition. It is great to have it finished. I really enjoyed machine quilting this one... a more manageable size and maybe some of my practising is paying off.

Friends

Penguin has a new friend. King Penguin that is... or mini-Giraffe. I made this Giraffe over the weekend with instruction from Wool Pets by Laurie Sharp. Turned out kind of hairy. Maybe in the olden days, giraffes were hairier? Or maybe this is a Northern Alberta Giraffe. And must admit Giraffe is kind of buff... more like horse muscles than giraffe :-)

My quilt is now listed on CraftHope for Haiti... http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38828647 hopefully it will sell and the money can go to help people. CraftHope is close to raising $10,000 in three days for Doctors without Borders. Kind of exciting to help by sharing a skill.

Craft Hope for Haiti

A little post :-)

Craft Hope for Haiti is an Etsy Site that is selling handmade items to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. If you would like to donate some handmade items, please visit this site and learn how. There are some excellent items for sale, so if you don't have anything to sell, you may find something to buy!!

If you have a blog, put up the Craft Hope for Haiti Button to help generate traffic to the site.

I have donated my little snowflake quilt... Snowflakes for Haiti.

Wild Roses

Here are a couple of photos that I took near my home in the forest. I edited them in Photoshop. Possible quilt ideas??? Maybe.

One of my goals for this year is to create a body of work. A series. I've never done this before. My theme is going to be Wild Roses, which I have been photographing since last May. I have a LOT of reference material now...

January - I'm Back

It's mid-January almost and I've decided to come back to blogging. I needed a break from the electronic world for a few weeks... and I now I'm re-energized.
I've joined Creative Every Day 2010 to keep focussed on creating. I will share a lot of my work during the year, but I won't be able to share everything! I'm looking forward to being part of the Creative Every Day community of artists and seeing their creations during the year as well.
I'm starting today with my little felting penguin. This little guy is not my original idea... I made him after reading Laurie Sharp's Wool Pets. Making him was fun and not so hard. He went together quite quickly once I got the hang of needle felting with one needle. And I only poked my finger ten or fifteen times, so the pain was minimal :-) I am a slow learner!

I'm also sharing my GeoPhysical Exhibition Quilt that is almost finished.

The quilting is done, the binding is on, the hanging sleeve is on and I am adding beads. I don't really know if I like the beads yet, but I'm not nearly finished with that part. The beads are all made from real stones, shells and gems... obsidian, pumice, shells, garnet, jasper, etc. I am using beads that would be part of a real volcano landscape process. The machine quilting went very well. It is the first time EVER that I have been satisfied with and enjoyed machine quilting. I think partly it was because the quilt was a manageable size, and partly because my confidence level got a little better.

Enjoy!

Frosty Day

I'm a typical Canadian obssessing about the weather... only -10 today! It was -44 on Monday, so I am glad to get outdoors again.

I am posting Trevor's quilt today. I have been working on the quilting of it. I traced some music into the panels and will begin quilting and painting it this weekend. I'm excited to see the results. I think Trevor will like it no matter what happens. The music idea was suggested during a critiquing session at the Fibre Art Network retreat I attended in October. As did a suggestion of music... Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. I found a few bars that appealed visually and in they went.

The rest of the photos are from a walk this morning. What a great day!

And these are some Angel Prints I found...

Brrrr

It is early afternoon and has warmed up ten degrees to -20 Celcius. Rosie and I are cheered by this and went for a wander through the forest to take pictures of the frost. It was not long before Rosie was lifting her little paws and heading back down the trail toward home. Short walk!

Sunflowers - Sunshine

It is a sunny winter day today and makes me think of summer. I made some sunflowers this week and here they are to share with you.

I've been using grosgrain ribbon as binding and it is working like a charm! I've also been tackling some machine quilting and having a little success at that... pictures coming soon.

Busy Week

I have been busy creating this week! I just haven't blogged for a few days. I will put some pictures up on the weekend. I've been working very hard on thinking that machine quilting larger quilts is fun... but really it isn't. I almost started having fun... but then my thread kept breaking. I changed my needle to a larger one, but that only delayed the thread breaking by a few stitches. Back to reading up on machine quilting...

On a whim, I made more sunflower quilts tonight. I will take pictures of them tomorrow and list them on Etsy. And I think it is time for more snowflakes out of wool... can't get enough of that needle punching, even though I've given myself tennis elbow!

Exciting news about Inchies! I participated in the Inchie Exchange and today I received some Inchies in the mail. They are absolutely beautiful... Christmas red with beads and sparkle. They came all the way from South Australia! I'll take photos of those tomorrow too.

Hope everyone is taking time to relax during the rush of Christmas. Creativity is a great way to take time out for yourself.