A Great Surprise!

Remember my "The 60s - A Decade of Change"?  Well, it and "Reality"  were accepted into an exhibit to be held at Arts Visalia in March for Woman's History Month.  The exhibit is called "WomanFully".  I was not expecting to get accepted and was surprised when I received the email.  In fact, I almost deleted it.  I'm sure glad I opened it! What is even funnier is that "Reality" was donated to the Common Threads Little Quilt Sale and no one wanted it and it was returned.  How humiliating!  But now I know why.  It was meant for this show.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  We will be celebrating thru New Year's since Serena and Lexi arrive tomorrow.  It looks like the airport is now open in Norfolk so we are praying that all goes well.  Serena has never seen so much snow in Virgina Beach.  It just doesn't snow that much there. 

 I have been busy making things for Christmas, which I can't show you since we haven't celebrated our Christmas yet, but I can show you the baskets I have made.  They are made out of fabric wrapped cotton clothes line. They really are addicting.

I haven't done much quilting. Finished all my class samples and waiting to see when the classes will be. I will keep you posted. Thimble Towne's new website should be up soon. Check back.

Getting ready for classes

I worked on this quilt for 12 hours straight yesterday to finish the top so I could take it to Jeremy to quilt on Monday.  I am so excited about it.  This will be for my One Block Wonder class I am teaching sometime in the next few months.  I don't know what the schedule is yet but I will let you all know.  I go in to Thimble Town tomorrow to go over the class descriptions, class supply lists, two more projects that need to be made for classes and some skirts for store samples.  I am excited about all these new projects but as I sit here amongst the many boxes filled with Christmas decorations that need to be put up, I wonder where all the time will come from to finish everything.

The Common Threads Christmas party is now behind me and I have to say it was a great success.  I had a fantastic time and I think so did may others.  The Orange Blossom Christmas party is in less than two weeks and I just hope it goes as well.  I don't have many gift items for the silent auction yet but I have some people to call.

This Saturday is our Material Girls Christmas Party at Barbara Brown's house.  We always have a great time.  We were to how our friendship blocks put together and quilted.  Mine is together but not quilted.  I thought I had a picture but can't find it.  I'll take one this week and put it on the blog.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Time seems to go by so fast these days.  I can't even keep up with what day it is anymore.  I just recently tripled my work load by agreeing to teach at Thimble Town next quarter which means class samples are due and this is the busiest time of year.  The new owner, Jeremy, is a sweetheart but he can talk you into almost anything.  Actually, I'm loving it!  He has so many great ideas and I look forward to working with him.

Here is my latest art quilt.  This is entitled "Moonlight Sonata".  I made it while in Tahoe.  We had a great time.  It snowed!  So much fun for this Central Valley California girl!

The building to the left is where we were staying.  My sister took the picture from their building.

I have been very busy working on class samples, class descriptions, supply lists and just getting my head around the fact that I will be teaching again.  I will be teaching 5 different classes.  One of the classes is the Amy Butler Sweet Harmony handbag & tote.  Her patterns are not the easiest to follow.  I wish I had taken a class.  But I love the results.  I hope to show you more progress on other class quilts and I hope to keep up on the blog now that I am home for awhile.  Well, I'm off to do laundry and work on my Material Girls quilt blocks that I have not looked at since June and the quilt needs to be done next week.

Getting Ready for Christmas!

Can you believe Christmas is just around the corner and all the plans I had to have things done are going down the drain.  Where does the time go?  I have been working on some Christmas presents and donations for the guilds I am involved with.

 

The Christmas Tree is for a guild Christmas party raffle.  I made two but have to sew on the bells on the other one.  I think I am going to keep one for myself.  This will be great on a door.  It is 36 inches long.  It was fun to make but it took me almost two hours to sew on all the bells.

The snowman started out for myself but as I was making it I keep thinking how my sister would just love it.  We are leaving for Tahoe to spend a few days with her so I will give it to her then.

Off to the guild meeting.  I am teaching a class for the guild on Saturday.  We will be making cubes like the ones in the One Block Wonder quilts.

Foiled Pears

I was able to upload the photo that I mentioned in the previous post.  I really do need to get better at taking photos!  At least take them straight.

The results of the flour paste resist!

Here is the final result from the fabrics from the previous post.  I like it but had hoped it would be bigger.  I don't plan my quilts.  They just happen so the squares are 2 1/2" finished.  I have some plans to make this a series.  I think I am motivated again.  If I could just stay home.  Off this weekend to Shaver Lake for a retreat and then the next week we are going to Tahoe with my fantastic sister and brother-in-law for a week.  There is a great store there that has a good size quilting section and the greatest selection of paints and buttons, other decorator fabrics, silks, a art quilters dream.  I'm saving my money from the class I am teaching next week just to spend here!  I love shopping here with my sister.  There is also a bead store there that we go to.  My sister makes the most fantastic jewelery.  I can hardly wait.  I wait all year for this!

I had another photo to share but I can't seem to get the program to work.  Maybe later.  I am demonstrating foiling on fabric this evening at the guild and I have a quilt I made as an example.  It is amazing how whenever I am going to prepare for something like this I always find the ways not to do something!  It's like when I make a quilt from a pattern or book, I always find the mistakes.  Go figure!

I know I have not blogged much but to tell you the truth I just haven't been home.  This has been a year of traveling.  This year I went to Road 2 Ca (Ontario), Wonder Valley (twice), Virginia, Pacific Grove, Cambria, Pismo, Sacramento, Hollywood, Utah, Las Vegas, Best of the Valley took four days, Ripon, next Shaver lake and Tahoe.  I'm not complaining but it has been a busy year.  And we mustn't forget a new grandchild, Daniel, was born this year.  What a year!  Do you think next year will be less busy.  I doubt it.  I already have two classes I am teaching for guilds and a trunk show at another guild lined up next year.  I am just thankful that I am able to do all this.

Off to get my stuff ready for tonight.  I hope you are still out there even though I haven't been very good at posting.

The saga of the flour resist project!

This is the beginning of the story.  Our art group project for this month is to make a flour and water paste, apply it to fabric, let it dry, crunch it up and paint it.  Then clean it all off and make an art quilt using the theme "graffiti".
Three of use got together to start the process.  We stabilized our fabric to form core board and off we went.  We took our projects home to dry and I put mine in the backyard.  Little did I know it was going to rain.  It never rains here!  Of course it was under the patio that is not a solid cover and water, dirt and sap from the unsealed (new) cover got all over my projects (I had 3 started.)  Oh well, let them dry again and just think of it as developing art.
So some days later time to paint over the flour resist.  Then after it dries, wash it all off. These are my results.

The third one was done with potato flakes that Sara's dog kept licking while it was drying.

It really is not as yellow as it looks (photography).  I decided to use this one for my project since I was going to cover it with paint.  And in my usual style I went overboard with the paint.

Now this project has to be done by Wednesday and today is Monday and it has to dry.  I only came up with an idea yesterday.  I finished painting it and left it outside and guess what.  It started to rain yet again!  This project is just domed.  It has to dry so I can cut it up and sew it back together.

I hope to have the final results soon.