Lots of news...

...and a bit of shameless self-promotion, as my friend Marilyn says. First up, my entry to the Hoffman challenge was juried in for their traveling show. It's in Quilt Trunk B, so if you're close to any of the shows, check it out! I had a lot of fun with this but only decided at the VERY LAST minute to even do a submission, so I'm amazed it was accepted. Her face is dupioni, the mask is velvet, pink lame' lips, some sort of green sequin stuff for the hat and of course, the challenge fabric for the headpiece. The large mums around her face are 3-D, first mounted to Peltex and quilted, then fussy cut and only stitched to the quilt in the centers of the flowers. The edges are finished/sealed with gold metallic paint. Lots and LOTS of free-motion thread painting on the wisteria, leaves and flowers. Most of it was done with metallic Sulky in a variety of colors. Some beading and sequins on the smaller flowers and across the top of the mask. I drew off a sort of Art Deco looking feather to use for the background quilting. Little puffs of some kind of weird gold metallic mesh, and finished off with the gold ribbons in 3 different widths.

GSQA had their quarterly meeting in Lafayette yesterday and they introduced the new group of circuit teachers. I am one of them so I got to get up on stage and talk to a captive audience. One of my favorite things to do! Everyone was very polite and acted like they didn't even mind me showing a huge stack of work and talking and talking. I'm really looking forward to seeing what opportunities come from this. One thing I noticed yesterday from the comments was sort of a surprise to me also. Because this is what I do, and I partly do it because it's SOOOO easy, and I'm used to doing it, it sort of took me by surprise at the complete lack of knowledge of the techniques and supplies I use. Of course, I'm basing that observation on the questions I got after the program, and obviously, the people who are already familiar with the process wouldn't be asking questions. Still, the number and type of questions struck me. Maybe that will translate into some classes! One can hope....

These are a couple of the pieces I showed. Painted, stitched, stamped, resisted, etc.

One fat, and one skinny envelope from MAC (MS Arts Commission) last week from my grant applications. I was accepted again for the Master/Apprentice program, and will begin working with my new apprentice Gwen next month. I am really looking forward to working with her. She has her traditional skills well in hand and is a very open-minded and enthusiastic explorer of quilting. Can't wait to see what she comes up with to work on! A little background on how it works: We start off by designing a quilt, go from there to choosing our fabrics (Yay! Fabric shopping!) then the construction, quilting and finishing. So we basically go from a piece of graph paper to a finished quilt in 2-3 months. Marie Yonko (last year's apprentice) and I have pieces hanging at the MAC office in the Sillers Building until the end of Aug if anyone has a reason to go by there.

Marie Hull Gallery in Raymond contacted me a couple of months ago about doing a show down there in Mar 2012. My mind is racing with all the work I have to do between now and then, and coming up with enough interesting stuff in the same style, but I'm very happy to have that kind of worrying to do. And I always laugh when they start the conversation by saying "Would you be interested..." like they expect you to say anything but "YES! YES! A thousand times YES!"

Leslie Silver, over at the Attic Gallery in Vicksburg, has asked me to do a piece for their 40th anniversary invitational show. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to be asked to do this, although I won't even be able to make the opening reception! She is assigning each artist a specific number as their inspiration, and the rest of it is up to us. The best part about it to me is that as soon as she explained the concept, I had instant inspiration for what I wanted to do. Every other time that's ever happened, I wound up with a piece that I was extremely happy with. No reason to think this time will be any different.

What I'm working on...

Periodically, the topic of what we're currently working on comes up on the QuiltArt list so I'm jumping in. We have some shows coming up so I'm trying to get ahead, instead of behind, on producing some work. I have a few pieces in exhibits and galleries right now that can be used for the shows, but not nearly enough. The upcoming event I'm most excited about is the Blues and Barbecue festival in New Orleans later this year so I'm sort of stressing the Blues aspect. The funny thing is, as I'm thinking of the Blues stuff designs, I'm getting flooded with ideas for other projects too. I have little design lists jotted down and scattered around my studio so I can come back to them when the time is right to put fabric to batting for them.

All three of these pieces use Lesley Riley's TAP for the faces. The transfers work beautifully on the burlap. I love working on burlap and I'm a recent convert to TAP, which I now love also. I've never been able to successfully transfer to burlap in any way that satisfied me before now, but this stuff is perfect for it. I did a quick and dirty demo of it at the June gathering of MQA after getting a ton of questions about it when I showed one of the pieces that I used it on. Thank goodness I bought the huge pack when she put it on sale.

Honeyboy Edwards, batik, burlap, cotton and upholstery fabric. TAP transfer and stamping. "The Blues is not going to never die."

Muddy Waters, batik, burlap and cotton, with TAP transfer and stencil. "That Mississippi sound, that Delta sound, is in them old records."

Robert Johnson, batik, burlap, cotton and upholstery fabric. TAP transfer and stamping. "Don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand."

High Cotton

This is a piece I did yesterday. I wish all my quilts were this fast from original design idea to finished piece. Raw silk, painted, dyed, stamped, stencilled. I first painted the sky with thinned latex, then moved on to the cotton field. Procion and Dylon dye powders sifted onto the wet fabric, a torn strip of paper for a resist to make the furrows, then stamping green dye on with a nylon bath scrubbie. The cotton is white Scribbles fabric paint stamped with a piece of bubble wrap. Crayons, markers and some dye for the tree line then a little thread painting to define the trees. Mounted on an old window frame. The bottom two center panes are gone, but the rest of the panes of glass are intact, including a BB hole in one of them. Total size 36"x32". If this doesn't sell by then it will be going to the Juke Joint Festival with me in Clarksdale in April.

Shamarr Allen

Finished! 35x29, commercial batiks, organza and rust-stained muslin. Photo printing (all photos and text used by permission) stenciled, stamped, pieced, appliqued, echo quilted and faced. Assorted ribbon and embellishments.

"The Storm"

It's been a week of unbelievable tragedy and crisis for someone I love very much, so my posting and working has suffered. I've done some mindless piecing on a quilt sort of loosely based on one I saw earlier in the week (thanks Rosemary!) that was loosely based on one she saw in a magazine. It is morphing from what I started with to something a little more involved, but the base idea is still there.

The only piece I have actually finished this week is the one I did for the Breaking Traditions show. It's another Katrina piece using some more of my debris, and it was another one that was hard to work through. The storm pieces are getting easier, but still not (maybe never) easy. And now we're all on edge with Gus wandering around. This piece is 12"x12" and constructed on a commercial print cotton base using blue tarp, a scrap of Army fatigue, reverse appliqued Red Cross, scraps and bits and orts of MRE packaging, nails, a chunk of roofing, and a bunch of other stuff. A paint-covered screwdriver, a beaded cross, and some Mardi Gras doubloons from the 70s. Between working on this piece, the personal crisis and the nerves from Gus, I'm about wiped out emotionally this week.

OK, enough whining and on to the picture!

Good vibrations

I sort of had a lapse there with the chronological steps on this one. It's ready for quilting now though. I added some notes, a black and white flange between the background and the narrow black inner border, and then finished off with a wider print border. The outside border is the same fabric as what's behind the notes, and the colors were perfect with the hand painted background, although I painted the background over a year ago and the fabric was a gift last month. Worked perfectly though. Not sure yet what the quilting pattern is going to be but I'm leaning towards some big sweeping curves sort of echoing the lines of the staff and the keyboard.

Oh! And one more

I completely forgot about adding the info on this one. It's going back to my original idea for the gold and black with the same horn pattern. (I really, really like that graphic.) I figured I better use it before I lost the already prepared pieces of the Liquid Gold fabric I'd originally started with. (Is "originally started" redundant? Probably is.) I grabbed this piece of Michael Miller fabric yesterday on my daily jaunt to the quilt shop, and it's working perfectly for the image in my head. I know it's sort of hard to see the effect in the picute since the gold has such a reflection and the little confetti pieces (in gold and copper) don't show well on the picture, but you can take my word for it that it really does look just like I wanted it to. Eventually it will involve narrow gold ribbons, gold mesh and probably gold sparkle organza.

...and then the staff

The lines for the staff have been making me crazy! The black lines are just under 1/4" wide, so it was a lot of little fiddly stuff to try to get it even and a soft curve and not fray into nothing. After several starts and stops and regrouping, I finally landed on a workable solution. The black is cut double width, as is the teal behind it. A line of liquid fusible (thanks, Terry Grant!) down the middle of the teal, fuse the black down the center, zig zag the outside edges of the black and THEN cut it apart! The black is already stitched to the teal and I'm not working with something so narrow it stretches out of shape. Another line of liquid fusible on the face of the quilt and fuse the strips down. All that's left is to do the narrow zig zags on the edges now, but at least it's secure while I'm stitching. And yes, the 'shadow' on the top line is intentionally wider than the others. The staff will ultimately have some music notes on it, probably with the multi-print from a previous pic. Again, subject to change!

Is anybody but Mary Ann even reading this? I've made more posts today than I usually do in a week. I'd like to get this one finished (at least the top finished) by Thursday since we're heading out Friday morning for the coast. Long weekend with my uncle in Biloxi and a side trip over to New Orleans just to play. My uncle has already laid in some shrimp and oysters (sto' bought since it's the wrong season) for us, and I'm planning on cooking stuff for him that he can freeze.

This is a test

Do you recognize this man? This is a quilt I'm submitting for an art show in New Orleans. Hopefully, I'll have the binding on this evening or tomorrow and then I'll get good pictures of it and off it goes for jurying. Think really good thoughts, really hard, for me to get in. I'll invite everyone to the reception if it's accepted! (Any excuse for a party in New Orleans!)

Another one bites the dust!

This time, it was a heavy duty Sunbeam, auto shut off, stainless steel sole plate, burst of steam. I'm reduced to using the light weight Proctor Silex that barely gets hot enough to melt fusible, but it has a purdy purple water tank! Be grateful for the small things.

OK....Anne is working on the postcards for the show and I get so excited every time I think of it I giggle. The little bit of it that I've seen looks great, and I am in extremely capable hands with her doing the graphics for it. Snap, snap, snap. Just like that she slaps something together that would take me months (if ever!) to do and it looks great!

I'm posting a few of the new quilts, in various stages of completion, just because that's what bloggers do. We post pictures. I have pictures of my cats and dogs and a couple of the snow we got the other day, but I figure the quilts are more appropriate for a QUILT blog. But maybe that's just me.

No particular order, and I'm leaving off all the usual info (size, techniques, etc) that I usually include because I'm just flat-out lazy today and figure I'll come back and put all that stuff in after I get final pictures when they're completed.

Dear Mr. Johnson,

Perhaps you can explain to me what my obsession is with you. This is probably my 4th or 5th Robert Johnson quilt, and the first I can actually exhibit and sell. The only two existing photos of him are both under copyright and I'm not going to pay a use fee, so that's out. I had it in the quilt shop yesterday looking for the background fabric and a woman from FL is already interested in buying it. Can't beat that for moving them out. It's going in the Jackson quilt show next month though, so if she's truly interested in it she'll have to wait. Commercial batiks and black cotton fabric, fiberglass window screen. 40x46. It will ultimately have a brick wall quilting pattern and probably black binding.