some new stuff, in no particular order

All of these but the first one with the outline of the guitar player are ready to be quilted. He should be ready, but the fabric I had for the border (which is now the background for the horn players) was NOT the same color it looked like in the store. I got it home, pulled it out to do the borders and BLECCCHHHHH. Not even close to what I wanted. I'm sure some black will show up somewhere on either that one or the horns before all is said and done, either as a border or as binding. A little glitch in my plans for this week and it doesn't look like I'll be getting much done at all, so I'm glad to have these this far along. Takes a little of the pressure off for getting enough work done.

Panic sets in

I'm almost scared to publish it, but it looks like I'm lined up for a show for the entire month of February at ARTichoke. (http://artichokecottage.blogspot.com/) Of course, I don't have nearly enough finished work for the space they have so graciously allowed me to use, but that will be remedied in the next few weeks. Things just popped over a 24-hour period and I don't even know where to start. HUGE thanks to Gerard for taking me by the hand and making me follow though on pitching to them. Huge thanks to Anne and Carmen for not making me "pitch" a damn thing, since they pretty much started nodding shortly after I walked in the door. If things work as planned, they'll be borrowing the "Bird" Parker piece that Isaac Byrd bought at the Tougaloo auction too. That dovetails nicely since he also owns the 930 Blues Club and it will make a nice tie-in with the musical theme.

I've had more support and encouragement this year than I can even give credit for, starting with Dorinda and the local quilt guilds, the new shop and the owners of it, Gwen Magee, Sonji Hunt, my sweet hub who never complains about living in a 4 br/2 bath storage closet, and everyone else who has looked at (and bought) my work.

I'm also very excited to have met and gotten a chance to spend some time visiting with Dr. Marvin Haire, Assoc. Dir of the Delta Research and Cultural Institute and Chairman of the Mississippi Blues Commission. I was SO intimidated to find out who he was and that he's an absolute expert on Robert Johnson, and there I stood with 2 of my RJ quilts hanging. Maybe I'm doing something right though, since he liked them. He liked my other stuff too, but it really meant something to me to know I had "captured" RJ well enough to pass muster with Dr. Haire. It was also a treat to be able to discuss music, pretty much uninterrupted, with Gerard Howard, the other artist who was there. The seminar participants sort of came and went, so we had a lot of down time to just visit. He has a vast knowledge of music and it was great to be able to pick his brain. He's also an incredible photographer, and I want to buy one copy of everything he had on display!

Christmas is looking very good this year!

This one has everything!

Piecing! Applique! Drafted pattern! Matching points! Borders! Sashing! Cornerstones! The Grinch! Everything but Little Cindy Lou Who, that is.

I could get used to this insomnia stuff if it means I'm cranking out a quilt top a day. I love the Grinch and I've had this fabric hanging around for several years and never did anything with it. At 3:30 this morning I decided I needed to clear my brain by working on something traditional and mindless. Lots of straight stitching and nothing that stains clothes. I drafted out a quick pattern for the size of the Grinch motifs (they aren't exactly square so I had to do a pattern first) and started cutting. I also had to figure out how wide to make the borders and sashing since I had a limited amount of the green print. Thank heaven for the graph paper generator at http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/ or I'd have woken the hub up rooting around for my pad of pre-printed stuff. Some good murder mysteries on tv and zombie-like piecing and pressing, and voila! 6.5 hours later I had a finished quilt top. Now my brain and creativity has had a chance to rest and sort itself out so I can get back to doing the stuff I love to do. It seems like if I don't throw in some simple stuff once in a while my brain just gets heavier and heavier with ideas and they get all jumbled up together. I think the mindless sewing sort of lets the bad ones go and the good ones float to the top. I get my sewing fix in and I come out of it with clearer ideas of what I want to do for myself. Commercial cotton prints, 46"x54".

I'm thinking some more silk screening or gel printing is next in line this week.

Two down

This is the second one finished! The same black cotton fabric with the the gelatin prints, but this one has stamps, stencils, and hand painting. The same paints used for the other one plus some oil pastels and fabric paints. Commercial print piping and border. The bamboo on the sides really doesn't look that light in real life. It's stenciled in layers of 4 different colors and then hand detailed with an olive Lumiere metallic which is catching the light. The contrast in the picture is definitely starker than the contrast when it's hanging on the wall. The Chinese characters mean "Love" and "Energy" according to the stencil.

"Hey Miss Dragonfly"

One down, one to go. This one is finished and I'm happy with it. Black cotton fabric with acrylics. Gelatin plate monoprinted, stamped, hand painted with craft acrylics, Lumiere metallics and pearls, Jacquard StarBrite and Setacolor. Pieced and flanged with commercial print cottons, thread painted shading and details. 11"x17".

Insomnia

This is what happens when I can't sleep and need something quiet to do at 3 am. This is a little 8" strip of fabric that I bought sort of by accident and decided it wasn't big enough to do anything else with so I might as well play. Out comes the last gelatin plate from the refrigerator (maybe now we'll have room for actual food!) and the only chunky stamp I could lay my hands on in the dark (the hub was still sleeping like a normal person) and off I went! A few pulls on the gel plate with gold metallic and then some experimenting from then on. I used the bottom of the gel plate and accidentally got some really cool grooves from where the plastic wrap was wrinkled when I poured it and a very subtle concentric rectangle pattern from the shape of the disposable tin pan I poured it into. I cut about 1/3 of the thing off at the bottom to play with 2 different pieces that had the original gold prints. A couple of additional stamps and stencils on the long piece including over-stamping the dragonfly, stenciling the bamboo around the edges and the 2 Chinese characters. Those will be highlighted eventually. I'm thinking either a bamboo print fabric for the border or something metallic as a flange and then something else. It'll tell me what it needs.

The smaller piece has a bunch of direct printing with wadded up foil, a piece of drawer liner and some other stuff. I also used one of those campaign signs from the front yard as a monoprint surface for the vegetation at the bottom. Lots of hand-painting for the cattails and some other "experimentation" on the whole thing. It still needs some work, but I'm extremely happy with the progress so far. I have part of a bamboo placemat that I take apart to use the bamboo pieces and I think these might both be just the right width to use those for a hanging mechanism.

Queen of the unfinished "finished" quilts

I literally get down to attaching the label and tacking the bottom of the sleeve down and hit a wall. That's usually when my brain thinks "finished" and I start on a new piece. I have a stack of quilts to put labels on and a bunch that need the sleeve sewn down, so what do I do but drag out a piece of rust-stained fabric to make another whole quilt from. This crap has GOT to stop since they all have to be HANGING this coming Friday. No way I can charge big prices for them with the current safety pin hanging system I'm using to get the pictures. I also have several straps to attach to the beaded purses that have been just sitting there staring at me too. Oh yeah....and three 8x8 foot hanging systems to build by Friday. Nothing SuperWoman can't handle!



And a question for you quilt binders....just how the hell wide do you cut your binding strips anyway? I've always cut mine 2" because that's the number I've had in my head for however long. I also tend to cut borders and stuff either 2", 3" or 5" because I have rulers that wide, but I'm pretty sure at some point in the past someone said 2" for a binding strip. I know all the quilting books (and magazines too, probably) give the measurement but I don't ever read that section. I don't read the section on how to make the quilt sandwich or how to use a rotary cutter either. At any rate, what brought all that up is I was listening to another quilter the other day and she commented on "...and then cut your binding strip the standard 2.5" or whatever width you use." It never even OCCURRED to me to make the damn thing any wider. I like the narrow, tight look of the 2" strip but I spend as much time wrestling with turning the binding as I do on making some of my quilts! I could add 1/2 inch and have room room to maneuver without adding a whole lot of width to the finished thing. But that would mean actually using the ruler to measure with, and not just using the width of the ruler to go by.



So anyhow....we had a great holiday. All the kids were home and in and out with their friends. I got a little work done, but truly I'm looking forward to them all heading back to school so I can have some peace and get back to my routine. A couple of days of non-stop sleeve tacking and label applying and strap assembling staring me in the face. The cats will try to help, but at least they don't ask for money or call me on the phone.



So here's the piece I did yesterday and today. It's a piece of rust-stained muslin with Katrina treasures rusted onto it. They came from one of the first trips down there and I used a Fleur de Lis finial from a wrought iron fence, a railroad spike, nails, washers, a key and the crosses are formed with the little slats from an air conditioning vent cover (look up to your ceiling....see the little thin strips on the vent?) The cross is layers of silk fibers and the key (very bottom right corner) is tied with silk fibers. The dark edge between the blue border and the outer border is a 1/4" flange. The blue is a commercial batik. 25"x40" total size.

Final shots

"Flight" with the additional quilting and binding done, and a small one that as yet remains unnamed.

New-ish stuff

Two pieces that I'm finally finishing up after letting them languish (ferment, age, settle?) a while. The first is a piece I started over a year ago and ran out of steam on (as I so often do after the design is done) when it was half quilted. The second started out as a teach-myself-a-technique-from-instructions-on-the-web piece using a gelatin plate for monoprinting.

"Beautiful Noise" 36x36 is cotton fabric, painted, woven, and appliqued with painted window screening. The woven areas are simply slits cut into the background fabric and woven with contrasting fabrics. Micro stippling with copper metallic threads on the woven areas.




"Flight" 30x42 is gel plate printed on muslin, stamped, silkscreened (actually, tulle and Elmer's glue) word "flight" and a bit of metallic thread painting and beading for the dragonfly. So far, I've only free-motioned around the stamped dragonflies but will be adding some more quilting to the whole thing, including around the word to give it a tiny bit more contrast. I don't really want it to stand out too much, but I do want to highlight it a little.

You Make Me Smile Award

I've been tagged with the "You Make Me Smile" thing, so I'll play along and tag 10 others, although Rissa beat me to tagging Jen.

1. Sonji not only makes me smile, she makes me laugh out loud at times.

2. Michelle makes me smile with her beautiful work, and the flat-out cool name of her blog.

3. Tanya, for her great outlook on the most mundane things.

4. Sandy for her hysterical, always entertaining, links.

5. Kathy for the sheer joy of her art.

6. Gwen because learning new stuff ALWAYS makes me smile.

7. Joyce's free-form piecing is always good for a smile.

8. Sion because I wish I could do what she does as well as she does it.

9. Terry for his creative genius.

10. Post Secret This one isn't actually a tag, but it does make me smile. And cry.

My son is such a sweetie....I think

At least he's thoughtful....I think. The phone rang at 4:17 this morning (yes, I was awake, but it's still jarring when you have 3 kids who don't live at home.) He was calling to wish me happy birthday since he won't be home this weekend. At least this time it didn't involve him bringing a cat home. And I have him well trained for the first words out of his mouth to be "I'm ok" (usually followed by "....but," in his case) when he calls between midnight and dawn. Too many middle-of-the-night calls about who the Braves played against in the first home game at Turner Field, and when was Picasso alive and painting, and how do you spell .......? Does anyone else have grown boys who play full-contact Scrabble until the wee hours? One time too many of that can't-catch-your-breath feeling when the phone rings and you're expecting "This is officer Obie and we need you to come down" and you get "what's that old saying about beating your wife with a stick and where did it come from?" instead. (BTW, every single one of those are actual questions that I've gotten from him at some point between 1:00 and 5:00 am) I have a lot of friends who think I'm insane for not putting a stop to him calling for trivial stuff like that, but I'd rather keep the lines with him open and deal with the late calls that shut him down and risk all the other calls he makes at "normal" hours. It's never a bad thing to have kids who feel free to talk to you at ANY time for ANY reason.

My youngest daughter came by last night and dropped off a Hobby Lobby gift certificate for me since she was headed out to MS State for the weekend and wouldn't be around today. My oldest daughter (who actually attends State) is coming home this morning for a much-needed break. I'm heading out about noon to visit a friend of mine in New Orleans. I don't get many chances to have time with just the 2 of us so I'm really looking forward to it. Her husband travels and is gone this weekend and she just got one of her girls married off so we'll have a lot of re-connect time. Missy is "The Keeper of All Things Yat" and knows more New Orleans and cajun tradition and lore and history than anyone I know. She's also one of the sweetest and smartest and funniest women I've ever met, and drop-dead beautiful. This will be the 4th or 5th year in a row I've been out of town on my birthday and my husband claims the birthday doesn't count if I'm not here, so I guess in his time I'm actually about 43. I tell people I'm 61 though. That way, they're amazed at how good I look for my age rather than thinking I look rode hard and put up wet. I never understood lying young about your age. Lie old, very old, is my theory.

I'm hoping to get some strokes of genius for design ideas in New Orleans. She has always given me inspiration and motivation. I think my muse must live there or something. Probably in one of those apartments over the shops in the Quarter. With wrought iron and ferns. And hardwood floors that squeak. And peeling paint. I have to visit her every so often to recharge myself. New Orleans recharges my heart, the Gulf coast recharges my soul.

It's a good thing

I stayed home from Houston I think. I have 2 more quilts completely finished to go to Chimneyville with me. No labels, but that's par for the course for me anyway. I'll get them on there (probably at the last minute) before I actually sell them. Notice the sheer optimism of me saying "before I sell them?" Still no clue about how many quilts to take so I'll make/finish what I can and stop worrying about it. Not bloody likely, as my friend says, but it's something to shoot for anyway. I'll just keep gobbling the Tagamet and get done what I can. I could probably get more done if I'd stay home and work and not go to the stitch and bitch at the needlework shop in Canton (and I really didn't need to decide how to hook a rug and stop in the middle of everything else I'm doing to work on that) but at least I get some beading done up there. No phones, no lights, no motorcars.....at least no phones and no distractions beyond the snacks and chatting with the other women.

"Moonlit Swamp" is layers of appliqued trees and sparkle tulle. Starting from the back I did a layer of commercial cotton for the trees, covered them with tulle then added successive layers of trees and tulle. Total of either layers of tulle I think. Heavy free-motion quilting on the trees and reflections on the water, very minimal quilting on the rest of it. A weird tarnished looking blackish-green twisted bugle bead for the shimmer on the water and some furry yarn for the Spanish moss on the tree. 35x28, faced, machine quilted, hand beaded.

"Dropout" is a variety of commercial batiks, torn into strips and woven together. The fish are cut from one of the batiks used in the background, and sort of trapuntoed on with an extra layer of batting. Some detail added and emphasised with markers and stitching. The entire thing has been painted and stamped with swirls and squiggles in metallic paints. The wavy quilting lines are in a variegated King Tut, with the breaks at each fish left long. Each dangling quilting thread has a small glass bead on it. Opalescent sequins and silver beads make the bubbles for each fish. The quilted area is 15x25, 15x43 including torn fringe at the bottom.

Me on wine

Maybe that explains the confused look?

Staying Home From Houston challenge

A challenge was issued on the QuiltArt list for those of us not going to Houston to make something without buying any supplies. So I did. The blue is a piece of hand-dyed fabric that was a gift from Thelma Smith, the black is scraps from the burqa I made for my daughter for a sociology project, the rust stained keyboard fabric has been hanging around for months after I experimented with the rusting and darts on it, and I've had the skyline fabrics for several years. This is obviously still in the assembly stage, but it's pretty close to what the final piece will look like. I actually broke down and used Wonder Under on this one too. It's the easiest thing to use for small details in applique and I didn't want the horns to look out of whack without the stability of the WU on them. I've used a small piece of a weird silver mesh cut from a Dollar Tree table runner I got last year in the lamp and I think I'll overlay some of the windows in the buildings with it also. Black binding to finish it. 50x20.

For Shannon

A little bit more detailing around the edge and this one is done. The green(s) on the right side are a much deeper color, and variegated greens, than show in the photo. And my! What a big photo it is, my dear! The red twisted bugle beads are a bit darker too. Closer to Twizzlers in color than that ORANGE they look like here. The joys of bad lighting at night with the Boo Radley kitty trying to help. Oh well, you'll see it soon enough.
Pewter, crystal, bronze and copper beads to the left of the stone. Lined crystal cubes at the bottom.

Like I need another obsession

These are beaded purse medallions that I'm putting on quilted purses to (TRY!) to sell at Chimneyville at the end of November. I am having an absolute blast doing the beading and making the purses too. Something very soothing about it. The ones that are not actually purses yet are photographed on the fabric the purses will be made out of. Any feedback is welcome too, including what you might consider a fair price for them. The beaded part is on a pin/pendant back and is just pinned to the flap of the purse.

Contrary to popular belief....

I am NOT dead....just my blog is! Although I did spend about a week FEELING like I was dead...or wishing I was, from a brown recluse spider bite. Oddly enough, the bite was about 3 inches below the spider tattoo on my thigh but my husband swears there's no connection. The days I wasn't laid up feeling like a cement mixer ran over me I've been busy as a bee...or maybe an ant? Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Chimneyville Crafts Festival is coming up tooooo soon and I'm trying to get quilts and quilted, beaded purses finished to take with me. I'll get pictures of the purses posted soon. I went today and pitched my teaching and quilting skills to the owners of a new quilt shop opening up soon and I feel like it went well. As I told my friend last night, at the very worst I'll spend an hour or so with them ooohhhing and ahhhing over my work before they say thanks but no thanks. I got the ooohhhing and ahhhing but I also got a very positive response from them about the teaching. I'm mucho impressed with their organization and vison for what they want the shop to be also. About as far from the impersonal chock-full-o-crap Hancock's as you can imagine. And what a novel concept they have for the shop too....they're actually going to fill it with FABRIC! Real fabric! On bolts! And not a single one of their chairs or tables are going to have a price tag on them. There won't be an elephant sculpture in sight! Or a $29.95 Ming knock-off vase either! No inlaid wooden boxes or umbrella stands or plastic palm trees! It's like a fantasy dream come true! A fabric store with fabric! 3000 bolts of fabric! Batiks! Kaffe! Solids! Stripes! Prints! Well, you get the idea. I'm looking forward to it opening.

Pictures of the quilted purses with beaded medallions soon.

A post all their own

Because these quilts were so incredible, they get a post all to themselves. It's a series of 3 African Women quilts, by Belva Cauthen from Canton, and they took my breath away. I was drawn back over and over to examine them. I've probably looked at every stitch on them 20 times or more. Each time I would see a new piece of fabric, or a different quilting motif I didn't see before. I appreciated the fact that she didn't use only African motif fabrics (there was even some Chinese print stuff in there) but that everything worked together to give the overall effect she was going for. Belva (I was fortunate enough to catch her at the show and discuss the pieces in detail) designed her own icons and some of the little pieced parts. I adore the diamond in a square thing (the row below the houses in #2) and she came up with that herself. I love the way she carries the motifs from one quilt to the next, and the intuitive use of the icons. Sailboats! Who woulda thunk it? But it absolutely works in the context of the quilt. She also uses a VERY wide binding that adds almost an additional border. Very effective. I can't say enough about how much I love these quilts, and maybe she will take my suggestion and try to get them in a gallery somewhere to get her work "out there" for everyone to see.

Greater Jackson Quilt Celebration

Some random quilts from the show. Ignore the crappy photography and assume the quilts are absolutely wonderful, despite my tendency to make everything look like it measures 41x93 with an irregular edge. They're actually all pretty square, with straight edges and such. I'm beginning to think I accidentally bought the camera with the fun house mirror lens on it. A very well-deserved Best of Show, "A Walk in the Mountains and in the Valleys", by Lorene N. Paris of Brandon, MS.

Next up is Ann Fox's Judge's choice winner, "Peace and Joy" which is, as always, exquisite.

"Tropical Sunshine" by Jackie Watkins of Ridgeland just blew me away too. I LOVELOVELOVE that shot of yellow through the middle of it.

Another of my personal favorites is the fairly small "Ree's Rhapsody" by Sara Ridgeway Running of Jackson. She worked from a picture instead of a pattern for this one and I think it came out beautifully!

Marilyn Rose's "Southwestern Carpenter's Star" was hanging in front of a window and looked like stained glass with the sunlight flowing through it. Nancy McNally did an incredible job with the different quilting motifs in each panel.

And those of you who know of my obsession with Santa in all shapes and sizes will KNOW I went straight to this "Victoria Santas" by Nancie Jones of Madison. Perfect placement and use of the crystals too.

And no pictures from the show would be complete without at least one Of Dorinda Evans' Kaffe Fassett quilts. This is "Round Peg in a Square Hole" and it's one of my favorites. I get my Kaffe fix from watching Dorinda working with them, so I don't have to use any myself.

WHOOO HOOOO!

Look what turned up in today's paper! Page 2B of the Clarion Ledger, in State/Metro.

rust staining workshop

We had a BLAST yesterday, even taking into account a mis-count of the number of students. It was a perfect, beautiful Mississippi day for it too. Mid-80s and sunny as all get out. It was nice under the trees though. I did a little show and tell with different methods I've used on my own fabrics, then some technical information about different ways to make stuff rust and how to neutralize and process the fabric afterwards, how to get different effects and add more layers of design. Then the fun began! We got out the fabric and the rusty items. Lordie, Lordie did they bring some great rusty stuff to play with too! Some wonderfully intricate pieces and some really great things like drill bits and old garden tools, along with the requisite rusty nails and bolts. We didn't even have to get into the meager supply of my own in-case-of-emergency rust. We tried white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, a mixture of both, and some we weren't even sure what we were using. My motto was "try it!" so we did. It turned out that some of the pieces were the ones that stain immediately, so there was a lot of instant gratification as we laid the pieces out and wrapped them up. The timing was pretty good too since we finished wrapping the fabric and got it laid out in the sun to cook about the time we broke for lunch. It gave us a few minutes to sit down and visit (and cool off) before we ate. Lori laid out a veritable feast for us too. We did a little go-around during lunch introducing ourselves, and it turns out I was completely surrounded by "real" artists and BFAs and art professors! I spent about 5 minutes being really intimidated until it occurred to me that this is how they become real artists! By learning and sharing and doing and pushing the limits of technique and doing lots and lots of what-happens-if-I-do-this experimentation. It didn't matter if I have a BFA because I know how to do rust staining and I'm willing to teach them!

The afternoon was taken up with gelatin plate monoprinting. We did that inside and had more fun than should be legal on a Saturday. I demonstrated about three or four pulls and off they went! I wish I had been able to get pictures of us working and some of the final prints, but my camera would have wound up covered in paint if I had, so I'll have to just tell you how incredible some of the pieces were. Lots of foam stamps, leaves, a wooden cross, I don't even know what all, were used as imprints and resists. It took about 2 minutes for them to get REALLY creative with the positive/negative/direct methods too. We only had about 2.5 hours to work with the plates, but they all left saying they were making a stop at the grocery on the way home to buy gelatin. I just LOVE when students actually want to use the techniques more than just class samples.

The last item on the agenda was to go unwrap the rust and see how much progress it had made. A lot in some cases, very little in others. We corrected some problems and I gave some tips for finishing it up at home, but all in all, they looked good for the first 4 hours. Some looked absolutely incredible already, including Lori's curtains that were wrapped on the frames of old car seats. Those are going to be VERY impressive when finished.

A beautiful piece gifted to me by the hostess, Lori Felix http://www.lorifelix.com/ and trust me, the photography on her website is MUCH better than the shot I took of my own piece. Her colors are so rich and deep, and they don't show very well in my photo. Go look at her work if you get a chance. It's beautiful. Or buy some if the spirit moves you! http://www.cafepress.com/artwithpassion

"Special Judge's Recognition"

Gye Nyame has an extra blue ribbon on it! A big one! Made with real satin ribbon! Machine embroidered! I'm not sure exactly what defines it since it's sort of a made-up award as far as I can tell, but it's one of five "extra" ribbons. Best of show, best use of theme, 2 judge's choices and this one. However they decided on what it means and how to award it, it wound up on my quilt! Everything I entered took a ribbon (2 blue, 4 red) which truly surprised me. I'm not arguing, mind you, or offering to give them back, but there were some things I would have changed/fixed/improved if I'd had the time. The stuff I agonize over as important to me frequently doesn't hold as much weight with the judges. I was just happy to be able to hold my own with the quilting aspects of the judging though. I never really worried about the art aspects. Between the ribbons at the show and being accepted for the craft guild, I'm walking on air this week. Strangely enough, I'm excited about being asked to chair the Ed Committee for MQA too.

The reception went well and the quilts were gorgeous. The women who spent the last 2 days hanging (and un-hanging and re-hanging) all 200 quilts deserve a raise or a gold watch or something. The building is beautiful and showcases the quilts very well. I managed to only spend about $50 at the vendors too, and that included a book, so I did ok. I got some more pictures of other people's quilts too, but seeing as how this is my blog, I get to show and write about mine first. I'll post some of the other ones tonight when I get back from Magnolia, and of course I'll have pictures from that class to post later too. Pictures are always good on a blog!

YIPPEEE!!!

The "fat envelope" arrived from the MS Craftsmen's Guild (http://www.mscraftsmensguild.org/main.cfm) Wednesday and I'm now officially an exhibiting member! My friend Dorinda applied at the same time (she's the one who forced me into applying too) but since she lives on the back end of nowhere, her fat letter didn't arrive until yesterday. We've already informed the spouses that we WILL be celebrating, and it will probably include some fermented fruit. I know it's a lot to ask, but I wish there had been some sort of comment sheet attached after the jurying process for those. I also realize that comment sheets are a "quilt" thing, and not an art thing. It's hard to stand with one foot in each arena sometimes. I am consoling myself with the fact that the jurying was done by professional artists and crafts people, and they had my quilts for 3 weeks to poke and prod at as much as they liked, and STILL said "due to the excellent quality of your work" anyway!

Today, we're off to hang the remaining quilts for the show to open tomorrow and then the reception is this evening at 5:30. The workshop tomorrow in Magnolia and then back to the show Sunday to actually see it all set up and then help with the live auction at 2:00. I have a jury summons for next week so I have no idea what my schedule will look like.

The craft guild is having a reception for the new members on Oct 12, and the letter says we can show some of our work at that time. No idea how much we can show, but I probably have a few pieces small enough to use. Next month, I'm scheduled to do a lecture for a local stitchery guild and then the big Fall gathering of MQA (http://www.mississippiquilt.org/) in Oxford, where the quilts from the Quart Bag Quilt challenge will be debuted. And unbelievably, I already have 3 presentations scheduled in November.

I'll try to get pictures posted tonight or maybe tomorrow night of some of the quilts at the show. We had some incredibly beautiful pieces submitted this year. I was also amazed at the total and complete cooperation of all the volunteers who got it from the good idea stage to the final show! The days I was there to help, not only did everyone immediately do what was asked of them, but when they finished that task they came back and asked for more! There wasn't a lot of standing around chatting unless we were waiting for something specific. I have gotten to know some of the women better, and met some I didn't know before but want to get to know better. A sea change from 6 years ago, that's for sure. I think there are a few who have decided that maybe I do make 'real' quilts now. I'm also looking forward to the comment sheets from the judges. That will give me a little better idea of what needs work and what looks good. What would really look good is colorful ribbons hanging on the quilts! Wish me luck on that. I have confidence in most of the 6 I submitted, but a couple of them are not what I would have liked them to be. Hopefully, that's just my perfectionist gene kicking in and not something that is a glaring error to everyone else. We'll see.

pictures!

Until I actually have something to say, I'll just post a couple of pictures of framed minis I did for the 80/20 auction. These are completely finished small quilts, about 7x9, mounted without glass in frames. Any idea what to ask for as a minimum bid at the auction? Even if they don't sell, these are 2 I'd be happy to bring home.

The African piece is rust stained fabric with the African skyline cut from a piece of commercial fabric, a leftover flower from another African piece I did last year, and a mask cut from a commercial print with frayed burlap beard. The white elephants are beads and the whole thing is free-motion quilted.

The sax piece is a glittered sax Christmas tree ornament, the hands and face are black polymer clay and the background is a commercial print with music notes on it. Sheer metallic gold netting with an overlay of heavy black mesh. 'Liquid gold' applique notes and echo quilted lines.