29 Years Ago Today

The final stocking version

After finding a tutorial on-line that showed a really easy way to make a lined stocking (w/minimal sewing!) I scrapped the older version, and made three new ones. I still have to draw on eyes and mouths with a Sharpie marker, but I think they look pretty good. (Hmm, I replaced the batteries in my camera, looks like I forgot to reset the date).

Here's a link to the tutorial: http://everydaycelebrate.blogspot.com/2008/11/tutorial-lined-stocking.html

One more time!

Here are the weekend's latest version of the stockings (for review, Erin!):

New Stocking Design

Here are two more designs for review:

Christmas Stockings

I cut out a couple of stockings over the weekend (for my daughter and her husband), but since I know her SO well, I decided to send her some pictures before investing any more time and energy. She didn't like the prints, and wanted a snowman, not a tree. Back to the drawing/cutting board for me.

Barnful of Quilts Show - Waxhaw NC

I drove down south of Charlotte on Saturday to the Barnful of Quilts Show in Waxhaw. It was a hot & humid day after the early morning rain shower that hit just as I arrived, driving everyone inside the crowded barn.













Some of my favorites:

My one complaint about the show

was the lack of restroom facilities.

After driving 1.5 hours and drinking

coffee on the way, the line to the bathroom was about 20 people deep.

Had to cut my visit short at the show for a bathroom break!

Quilting With Ghosts

A while ago I read a blog that mentioned how someone felt she was "cooking with ghosts" when she used different pans, bowls, and utensils that had belonged to various relatives and how using these things brought up feelings and memories of the past. I felt that way last week when I was working on a wall hanging made with a bunch of 1930's hexagons that I found in some of my mother's stuff when she died two years ago.

My grandmother had given her these hexagons way back in the 1970s, hexagons that had been made by one of my grandmother's aunt in the 1930s and were probably meant for a grandmother's flower garden quilt:

These are all hand sewn, and aren't in very good shape anymore. I don't think my mother really knew what to do with them, so they sat around in a bag for about 35 years. I sorted them and thought I might want to make some different little wall hangings and pillows.

First, I started with some in the brown/yellow/green color family. I zig-zagged the hexagons around the edges (for stability) and blocked some together.

Then some free motion quilting:

Here it is all finished:

H1N1 Quilt

I made this little (approx. 20"x24") wall hanging over the summer, after we had an incident at work with a student coming down with swine flu. The flu season is now in full swing here in NC, maybe this will keep me safe!

Surface Designs

Here is a quilt that has an autumn theme. As you can see, I really like playing around with surface design:

Architectural Glow wall hanging

Here's a quilted wall hanging I saw in one of the McCall's quilting magazines -- it's a pain in the butt to sew all the little 1.5" pieces, and I'm not the world's most patient sewer, but I've been plugging away on it since Saturday afternoon (had to go to pottery class in the morning). There are 42 or 43 separate rows, and I labeled the completed ones with pieces of masking tape to keep them straight--that's what those little pieces are with numbers on them, in case you were wondering.

Adirondack Mountain Sunrise

Here's a wall hanging that I've been working on, I really hope I can figure out how to bind the edges (since they're not going to be straight).

Watermelons -- the colors of summer

This is what's on my design wall today

Glue Resist Process

After drawing the circles, fill in parts you want to stay white with gel glue

Here's the finished fabric after painting with Setacolor paints:

And more

And here is one with some
Tina Givens Treetop Fancy
fabric -- love those colors.

Some new stuff

Here are some of the wall hanging quilts I've been working on

New York City Trip

Some pics from my weekend trip to NYC (visiting my daughter in Monroe, NY):

We went to Mood! But I forgot to take pictures inside--

New quilt pics

Here's a small wall quilt that's hanging up in my office at work:

Linoleum Prints

Made some linoleum carvings that are now becoming small wall quilts

My First Post!

I read so many wonderfully creative art quilt blogs and I'm so excited to finally decide to create my own. One of the main reasons is that I need to have feedback on the things I make, since I have no family near to me in Thomasville, NC who can give me their honest opinion. Yeah, sure, I can show things to my neighbors and they just don't "get it" -- in their minds, all quilts are patchwork and belong on a bed. God forbid that they're not hand-quilted!! They don't understand free motion quilting, being all excited about a new design idea, trying out a dyeing technique, etc.


Please, if you do visit, take a few moments to check out my pictures and provide feedback.

This is a quilt top I just started working on, tentatively called H1N1 (swine flu). I saw (on the CDC website) a picture of the swine flu virus and thought it was unusual enough to become an art quilt. I fused the larger circles on the background, then fused the smaller shapes onto them and zig-zagged around them. In the process of outlining the shapes, hope to finish it up quickly.

This is a gel resist technique I read about in Quilting Arts Magazine, where you outline the shapes on muslin, then color it, wash out the glue and you're set to go. Here are some of the pieces of fabric I created using this easy technique: