Studio

The question of the week... Should I clean up my studio for pictures that I post on Saturday? Or should I just leave it messy like it usually is :-)

Have a look at some cool studios!

The theme of the Fall 2009 issue of Studios is Open Studios, so they're kicking it off with a virtual tour, and you're invited to participate!

Click the link below to take part of Open Studios on October 3rd, 2009! http://www.interweavestore.com/Mixed-Media/Magazines/Studios-Fall-2009.html.?a=qa090928

Sunday Evening

It is Sunday evening at the end of September. Winter is not anywhere near, which is unusual but welcome. We have not had frost yet, but the evenings are getting cooler. I went for a walk today in search of wild roses. I have been photographing Alberta Wild Roses each month to document their changes. I noticed today that although there has been no frost, the rose haws have started to turn a transparent red and have begun wrinkling up like their grape/raisin kin. They must be kin or they wouldn't have this similarity. I wonder if anyone has tried to make Rose Haw wine? It would have a pungent autumn taste I think and a lovely burgundy rose colour. I'll have to see what I can find for recipes on the net...

Summer is Still Here!

Back from two months of holidays and fence building. Not a lot of studio time (read none), but lots of time out for thinking and idea gathering. I'm off to a FAN (Fibre Art Network) quilt retreat at the end of October, so I will be busy preparing for this as well as working on my first quilt series.

For the retreat, I have to make a mask for the mask challenge, some art trading cards and create some kind of Halloween costume.

For the series, I need to create 10 to 15 quilts with a similar theme by January, so that I can start sending out packages to galleries.

I'm looking forward to both!

Keep you posted.











Summer Evening Storm

Voila

Today I finally finished Trevor's quilt top. I am very pleased with the quilt overall even though it did not turn out anything like I originally envisioned. That happens a lot.

It will be a lap quilt... 56" square.

The outside border is not black, but a dark, dark green. Nice and rich. Next step will be quilting, so I am off to get batting tomorrow. The binding will be the same brown stripe as in the two narrow borders.

I bought a new Husqvarna sewing machine on Thursday. It made the last few stages of this quilt much easier. I will be a more accurate sewer with the custom 1/4" stitch adjustor on the machine.

A blog for Sam

This post is for Sam.

I have been away on a wonderful visit to family and friends in the Kootenays. We began with a lovely family memorial for my Grandma who passed away in April. We went on to Nelson and stayed with my husband's brother and his wife... had a good visit with parents and nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles. We then spent three fun days with our good friends in Salmo. It was nice to get back to the mountains, but I did miss the big sky.

Now I am home again. Working on patterns, sewing, doing a little graphic design and planning for the next holiday to Vancouver Island.

Today I spent more time on Trevor's quilt top. I am pausing while I think of what to do with it next. So many possibilities, so hard to choose just one.

At Last

Dyes arrived! Play time.

Time is Flying

Good Morning,

I thought I would try to blog everyday, but time goes too quickly to keep track of my life that closely. Here it is Thursday and I haven't blogged since Sunday!

I have been writing out my pattern directions for my sheep quilts sporadically all week. They are coming along. The quilts themselves are completed and waiting to be photographed for the envelope of the pattern. I'm happy with how they turned out.

Last week I was going to start dying my center graphic from the "spring" quilt I designed. I was delayed by the fact that our town does not have any setacolour dyes... anywhere. I ordered the dyes from Maiwa Handprints on Granville Island inVancouver last Friday and found out yesterday they did not have record of my order. Now that is straightened out... my dyes are in the mail and I hope, hope, hope they will be here by Tuesday at the latest. Sometimes creativity has bumps along the way.

In the meantime I have been working on the rest of this spring quilt for my son Trevor. I took many of my green bali fat quarters and cut them up into 4.5" squares. I've cut and sewn and cut and sewn and now they are all 3.25" squares with triangles of four colours in each square. I'm trying to give a sense of leaves in sunlight and wind against a blue sky... I really like the results so far and can hardly wait to sew things together.

Father's Day

Today is Father's Day. Our children are young adults now and were in no hurry to get up and make their Dad breakfast. Russell and I enjoyed a breakfast out at Denny's all by ourselves... very nice at 8:30 in the morning.

I spent the rest of the morning taking photographs of the wild roses native to Alberta. I do have a project in mind, but for now I am just making photographic notes.

Of course, while on the photo hunt for roses, I found a plethora of other things. Ants, red-coloured bugs that looked like weevils, grasses, dandelion puffs and a beautiful moth I have chosen to name the "Solstice Moth" since it is the longest day of the year.

We celebrated Father's day with a crab feed. My beautiful, sensitive daughter is ruthless when it comes to boiling crabs. She had a bit of a fight on her hands when one of the crabs seem to wake up enough to grab her oven mit and try to escape. I'm sorry to say the crab lost and didn't last long in the hot tub (crab pot).

All in all a good day. Hope everyone else had a good solstice as well.

New Growth

This week I started designing my son's graduation quilt. He graduated in 2008, so I am a little behind. I will catch up quickly :-)

Trevor described to me the quilt he wanted... "I would like you to capture the first green of spring on the trees". This enticing (and overwhelming) description has been running through my mind for two springs now and I have a large stock of photographs I took in May and June 2008 and 2009. Finally I have decided on the basis of a design. The graphic I created in CorelDraw from a sketch of mine (above) is a tonal rendition... it will be bright greens when it is finished and will eventually morph into a full-size quilt.

I looked through my stash and just don't have quite the right colours... even though I've been collecting "Spring-like" green fabric for the past two years. After going on a search through our local quilt shop again today, I've decided it's time to dye the colours I want.

I've done this before for a polar bear quilt I made for a friend. It seems I know the colours in my head, but the fabric has not been made yet. All I can do is turn to my own resources for the fabric.

I'm excited to go buy the dyes today. I only need two or three colours and I will mix what I need from that. Art as science... here we come. I'll share the results soon.

The sheep quilts are almost done, only a binding to finish sewing on by hand and some directions for the pattern to write. Then put it in a package and away I go to market, to market!