Change in renovation plans!

With the recent rains from Irene and Lee and the age (and permeability) of our foundation, we've decided that perhaps the basement is NOT the best place for my studio. We are now working on some other options for a creative space that will work for a longarm quilting machine, sewing and cutting tables, dyeing fabric, beading, garment design, and a few other things!
In the meantime, I spent this last Saturday at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake with my fellow ARTAA (Adirondack Regional Textile Artists' Alliance) members for the museum's annual festival celebrating the fiber arts. The theme for our display challenge was "Bugs" and my entry is below: The Renaissance Fly. As part of the curatorial staff working in a fine arts museum (The Hyde Collection), I thought I should add an art historical twist to my piece.

I used Bubble Jet to prep white Kona cotton to print the background (scans of Leonardo da Vinci's sketches) and the eyes of the fly. The eye sections have Mona standing by with a fly swatter (inserted with Adobe Photoshop) in case the pesky rascal bothers her during her portrait sitting! Had a great time adding details with thread painting, chenille and silk threads, and Derwent Inktense pencils. 

Working on a layout for my upcoming reno for a new studio/workspace

Working towards retirement, I'm pricing out a renovation to our basement, including digging out the south side and adding two nice windows there while keeping the old cast iron radiators that are there now. The space will be about 25' square with a few support columns in the center. (Nearly 4x the room I have now!)
Will start cleaning it up and post pics on the progress. Looking at a laminate floor, IKEA cabinets and computer station for the laptop & scanner, and cutting/ironing stations. A seating area for friends and family, bookshelves (for research and development days), and a long-arm quilting machine eventually. I've drawn out the floor plan and have Post-It note cutouts for the major pieces of furniture so they can be moved around.

Any and all suggestions are welcomed!

2012 Quilting Arts Calendar

Sorry to say that Katie-Klepto was not a finalist for the Quilting Arts 2012 Calendar...but I'll try again next year! This was my first attempt at this much thread painting on my own...and I learned a lot on this project. Here is the finished 12" x 12" wallhanging and a detail. I used hand-dyed fabrics and batiks from my stash, rayon threads in Katie colors, beads, scanned the notions and printed them on fabric treated with Bubble-Jet, and machine quilted. I have it hanging in my sewing room now...

How many projects can you work on at once?

Feeling a little splintered right about now with a number of projects I need to finish...and some more I want to start! Several quilts need to be quilted for our guild's quilt show in June, but there's also a smaller quilt - the one in the last post that needs a "granite" fabric. Collecting the materials for that has been fun - a friend even gave me a medium that has mica flakes in it to use as a top layer once the fabric is printed! Does anyone else have this problem...or is it just because I'm a Gemini? Having the Monday holiday off from work offers the possiblity of an extended period in the basement painting fabric on a plastic-covered pool table - here's to "play time!"

Rainy day - good for R & D

Another slushy day outside - a little snow and lots of wet rain means it's a good day for R & D (research & development). A nice hot cup of coffee and lots of articles on textile manipulation and printing techniques to go through. It looks like monoprinting with acrylics & acrylic medium on glass is the next technique to try. I need to make a granite fabric for a piece/project for which I've already digitally manipulated an image. I'm thinking a sea sponge for a nice mottled effect using the stone colors in layers. The granite had mica as well so that addition on the top layer will be fun as well. Will post photos as soon as I get everything set up next week some night.

Quilting Retreat

Back this weekend from a quilting retreat on Thursday and Friday in the western Adirondacks. Lots of funny friends, good food, and sewing until the wee hours of the morning. Only took two projects to work on for the two days...hand-quilting on the last border of a mystery quilt and sewing Sunflowers for a reproduction quilt. I'm finding that hand-quilting is becoming more difficult if I work for long periods of time as it aggravates some of my finger joints and definitely my carpal tunnel tendencies (numb fingers). It's a pain getting older.

The other quilters laughed at my rather unorthodox method of piecing the latticework for the Sunflower blocks first and then using applique to insert the round blocks.

The holes in the quilt look rather odd, I admit, but I only had a certain amount of the red fabric and wanted to make sure I had enough to make the framework! As it was, I had to piece some of it, but the curved arcs cover nearly all of the seams and the small dots on the fabric make the seams almost disappear. Here are some of the blocks I completed last Thursday to fill in some of the "holes!"

This pattern was from Nancy Martin's Pieces of the Past, but was one of the only quilts in the book that there was no pattern for - out came the graph paper and my pencils!

My Quilting Buddy Returns Home (For a Short While)

The younger of my two daughters (aka quilting buddy Lindsay) came home for the day from Pennsylvania. She was not able to come on my recent textile trips to NYC or Maine...so she received consolation prizes of fabric (in blues, one of her favorite colors). Also lasagna dinner with apple pie and lots of fun! I miss her a lot and hope she can come home a little more often...but with winter coming the drive is pretty long.

Back to the quilting room to quietly hand quilt tonight. It's very rhythmic and quite soothing. Warm, too and I have been caught trying to quilt with my eyes shut! Out to the last two borders of a mystery quilt I worked on in a class at the Vermont Quilt Festival. This is one of the dozen that will hopefully make it to our guild's quilt show in June.

Design for the 2012 Quilting Arts Calendar

Just got my photos of Katie Cat to use in my design for the 2012 Quilting Arts Calendar contest. The 12" x 12" quilt has to be finished to send in photos and entry at the beginning of January. This will include more thread painting than I've ever done before...but I like the threads and fabrics I've accumulated: silk dupioni, batiks, and my own dyed fabrics.

Here is the starting photo:

Purposeful repurposing?

Pulled out another container that had nearly all of the blocks completed..the remainder were all cut and ready to sew and were organized in bags...don't remember doing that, but appreciated it! Maybe the quilting fairy really wanted me to finish it.

The fabrics came from Adirondack Quilts and was a block-of-the-month for which there was no longer a pattern. The packages were on sale as-is..so I bought them not knowing what I would do with them and set them aside to "ferment" for awhile (about two years). The block pattern is on the cover of "Nickel Quilts" by Pat Speth and Charlene Thode. The fabrics worked up to only 46 blocks so the sketchpad came out:

 The bottom diagram won out as it used all 46 of the 8" (fin.) blocks and ended up 72" x 90." Laid it out on the bed and started piecing it together:

Will finish up the top tonight to baste sometime next week in preparation for machine quilting on my Bernina. Someday I hope to own a Gammill! The large areas should be fun to quilt...now what design would look good?





It's a start!

As a long-time quilter...I'm looking forward to blogging about current projects and would love to hear your comments!

I was a founding member in 1977 of our local guild, the Wings Falls Quilter's Guild, here in Glens Falls, New York and we are currently working on our upcoming show in June of 2011. I hope to have at least a dozen quilts finished for the show and will post pics and details as they are completed.

Here's to quilting time!

SueB