I'm working small now

One of the larger items completed this season was the little quilt for my

newest grandaughter, Elizabeth. Here she is in her first holloween costume:

and here's her quilt:

Twelve Connected

Our web-group continues (www.twelveconnected.com). Every two months, one of us is assigned the task of posting the new topic, told in just one word, and we have the next two months to finish it. We all work in the same 11 x 17 format. I'll show you some of my recent posts, in case you missed them.

"Reminiscence" was the challenge, and I found my brain searching for childhood images. What popped up was the memory of sitting under my favorite tree -- a little weeping mulberry bush, that sat on the corner of our property -- and reading and eating ripe mulberries. I had Dave take a picture of me in the pose so I could see how to do the limbs, but I didn't know how to do the tree's limbs. Finally, I decided to just suggest them by attaching small strips of green/yellow batik sewn only to the top of the quilt; they float in front and cast just a little shadow.

The next challenge was "ebullient".... hmmm, when did I feel ebullient? Aha, dancing! I was a dance addict some years ago. Squares, Contras, International folk dance, Swing, Ballroom...basically anything that I could do with a partner. I loved dancing!!! So, here's the quilt for ebullient, altho' my dancers did get a little out of hand:

The most recent challenge is a tough one; the word is "idol." I knew what my idol would be immediately, and I'll bet you've never seen a quilt about my idol, but I can't show you my response to this challenge till after Dec. 1st, when we post our images on the site. How would YOU respond to the challenge "IDOL"?

My iPad!

The best birthday present ever (70th). I looooove my iPad.

But I thought it needed a cover, and what better

use for those things in the stash that have been neglected.

Here's my first attempt:

It's Ikea fabric, kinda tough, lined with a black/white fabric, which sandwiches some thick felted batting, and has a velcro closure. I went on a several-day spree of making different designs in different fabrics, and am happy to give them away. Want one? Drop me a line.

Small Works:

I've been slowly making blocks for my oldest grandchild, Ana

(whom we fondly call AnaBanana). Yes, of course, it's a Banana Quilt, and the blocks will have Banana jokes,

Banana Recipes, and a wi-i-i-de variety of Banana images. Here are a few:

a banana outfit

... a pieced banana

...a cubist banana

an abstract banana:

a low-contrast banana:

and...well, you know who...

Falling in Love with an Artist!

Yes, I recently finished a lovely book I'd picked up at the Tate

Modern in London on Modigliani. I love his work, the numerous

portraits, his colors, his composition, his uniqueness in that

time....all this in the context of his tragic health history

and foreshortened life. And then I saw a few photographs of him...and that's when I fell in love. I kept studying

this one photo of him, drawing it and re-drawing it, and realizing I was beginning to

abstract it in the manner in which he worked.

So, here's my little portrait of Modigliani in fabric:

You may notice some heavier outlining of the face; that's because I experimented with a funky

stitch on my old Bernina. It goes two steps forward and one step back; I kinda like the little

jagged edge it creates.

Odds 'n Ends

I have a number of files of images (e.g., hands, faces, children

playing, and dancers). I thought it was time to try a miniature

"dancer", so here she is:

I have a lot more stitching to do, and I'm replacing her lifted leg (I don't like the proportions), but it was fun creating the scene, and playing with layers of thin silk for her

ballet skirt.

I'll say "so long" with two tiny stitchings made after an evening workshop with Lee

Porter on Kantha embroidery (straight stitching). I've lots to learn about this, and plan

to do more, but here's a sample: a shoe and two flowers....

February to the First Days of Summer

Well, I ended my last post in February with a mention of the blizzard, and as is usually the case, there's something positive in every negative. In our case, the blizzard froze us out of our house, but we managed to make it to a motel, where we spent four happy days watching movies, playing gin rummy, and reading. Here's a shot of the comfy chairs on my patio, when we got home:

I -- like every quilter I knew-- tried my hand at

snow dyeing that week. Here's one piece I

photographed:

I have no idea how this and its sibs will ever find

a way into a quilt....but what the heck...that's what

building a stash is all about, right?

* * * * * * *

Soon after, I started working on my SAQA

auction square, which I envisioned as a girl

sitting on a huge gnarly branch of an old tree,

looking at a beautiful sky. Here's my working

sketch:

Then I got "fancy"; looking at all those negative

spaces made by the crossing branches, I thought

it would be cool to put in a plaid sky...actually,

a multi-plaid sky.

It didn't work for me. In fact, it made me crazy just looking at it:

So, once again, I simplified. Zap go the plaids,

zap goes the brick wall, water, and far bank.

I lightened the tree limbs, laid them on a

piece of hand-dyed fabric, and moved the girl

to the edge of the image.

This is the design (before quilting) of the one I sent to SAQA. I think it's a little spooky, but

I like it.

Don't forget to check the SAQA website for the

fall auction. There are pages and pages of

amazing small works of art, and the proceeds

of the auction go to support the organization and students in the field of art quilting.

* * * * * *

In March, I took a course in fabric marbleing

with Elin Noble (look at her gorgeous marbled

t-shirt). We stirred huge tubs of goop, made

little brushes out of twigs of hay, tried to

"float" colors, learned about dispersants (way

before they showed up in the gulf disaster), and

laughed and ate popcorn for days.

We dipped little pieces of cloth, paper envelopes,

big hunks of cloth, and Elin even dipped a pair

of her panties. Here's a shot of one one hot

red pan of marble paint (not mine).

When I got home, having NOT read the full

set of instructions, I washed out my fabrics,
and guess what? They faded away to just about

nothing. I salvaged only a few snippets,

which I stitched onto card stock, and sent out

as greeting cards. sigh.

I want to try this again sometime!

* * * * * *

The most daunting project on which I've been working is my quilt on "overcoming racism." Many of the ObamaMama's from our show last year have joined with some new Mamas to dialogue on our Yahoo site, where the ugly spectre of racism is bemoaned and discussed. These are hard times for rational, liberal minds. What can we do? Let's put on a quilt show! What shall we call ourselves? Well, it's still being debated, but will likely be something like "Fiber Artists in Dialogue."

The image that came to mind immediately for me was based on a photograph I'd seen back in 1996, I think, on the back page of the New York Times, in an ad for the Fresh Air Fund. It showed a bunch of little girls of many colors lying happily on the grass together with their heads in the center of the circle. I tracked down the photographer (James Levine) and wrote to ask if I could have his permission to make a quilt from his photo image. He agreed, and wanted to see the final result.

So I slowly began making each face-- over and

over again -- learning many things each time.

In this iteration, you see shadows shown as patches of color; most of them don't work, especially on the face. Learning to build the mouth from the back to the front (first tongue, then teeth, then lips) was a big lesson. Making the face with as few lines as possible seemed to help preserve the look of a child. Capturing giggles on the faces was even harder. And I haven't even mentioned hair!

Here, the faces are a little better, and I'm beginning to experiment with hair and decoration, but -- horrors -- I don't have enough Grass fabric, and no one on the web has any more! so it's time to make templates of the spaces between the girls and patch the grass in.

oy.

And here's the final result. I'm calling it"Friends:

May our children do better than we did"

(James Levine likes it, and says he felt honored that his photo was its inspiration!)

There are some amazing quilts coming out of this group of passionate quilt artists (which include Susan Shie, Jeanette Thompson, Debra Gabel, Sherry Boram, Diana Bracy, Edna Patterson-Perry, and so many more).

Now we have to find a few good venues. If you've got any ideas, drop me a line and I'll pass them on to the group. Thanks.

In a related vein, another quilt show is being organized by Michelle Flamer, up in Pennsylvania. There's to be a celebration for the original White House, which was in Philadelphia, and where George Washington and his family moved, along with a number of their slaves. Ironically, Pa was a "free"state, in which slavery was not allowed. Were the slaves set free? Not a chance. Several did manage to escape, and one whose story touched my heart was Oney Judge Stains.

In the markets, Oney had met many free black

people who offerred her help if she wanted to flee.

As I learned it, one evening Oney set the food on the dinner table and immediately left by the kitchen door, heading north. Washington pursued the "return of his property" till he died, but Oney, hidden in the northern reaches of N.H. lived out her days, saying often that although her life was hard, nothing was harder than not having her freedom.

I created my image of Oney simply staring at us and calmly asserting "Let Freedom Ring." Surrounding her are images of the Liberty Bell and Americana symbols, on which words were overlaid. These words were cut from a piece of "boy scout" fabric:

citizenship

courage

perseverance

resourcefulness

service

and so on, all of which spoke to me of Oney Stains.

* * * *

Remember my "12 connected" group? You mean you haven't googled that yet? Well, when you do, you'll see more of our challenge postings. Our second challenge was to work only in bright color. So, the next morning, I noticed that there was a LOT of bright color in my kitchen, and that became the inspiration for my piece: blue and white tiles, red kettle, tulips, and some fine fresh fruit.

Shortly thereafter, our Metro-Threads group got to see the SAQA traveling trunk show of small (8") art quilts, thanks to the help of Cathy Kleeman. They were fabulous, and inspired a number of us to begin making these small sized quilts, in which only 8 sq. in. show, but they are mounted in 10-inch frames. Here are several I've done:

a miniature of the above:and two self-portraits:

These little ones are FUN to do.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I've been working on drawing and sewing white lilies. They used to grow in a little shady patch in my back yard, but I think the ferns ate them up. They were so lovely, and I never quite figured out how to depict them. I began by choosing as a background a shiny piece of red fabric (probably dress lining material) which was pretty snazzy but not real sturdy. So I hand-quilted it to batting and a back fabric, and just loved the way the light caught it. Then I found some white satin (or faux satin, I guess), and I cut out the petals from that, made some raw-edge leaves and stems, and sliced up some lace from my old wedding gown (oh! that must be where I got the white satin too) to fashion a vase. I kind of liked the figure, but it was so flat-looking, especially the lily petals. This piece has been sitting in my UFO pile for quite some time.

One day, feeling brave, I decided to try thread-painting the flowers, after studying lots of photos of white lilies. That helped. But then I noticed that the lace vase wasn't staying put, so I went over the lace designs with free-motion quilting, and then discovered that I could cut away the "plain" parts of the lace material. Finally, to give the piece some sense of gravitas, I hand-stitched some black outlines around the flowers, and then folded the edges and stapled it to a ready-made canvas I had in the house. et voila:

And then, for dessert, I made one more. This lily was about 12" square, and was donated to the QSDS auction in Columbus, Ohio in June:

* * * * * * * *

I spent my QSDS week with teacher Sue Benner in a course called "Driven To Abstraction." Sue was charming, adorable (I couldn't wait to see what she was going to wear each day), and gave us some great handouts and slide and film lectures. I'm posting below a shot of my "design wall" at the end of the week. It shows a paper collage, several attempts at rapid abstractions, and a more labored attempt at a cottonwood tree (taken from the background of a painting by Georgia O'Keefe). I think I learned more about myself than anything else during this week. I learned that my ADD is worse as I grow older. Put me in a large class, with lots of noise, color, interruptions, conversations, and tension swirling around me and I go into brain-freeze. I simply couldn't concentrate in that (to me) chaotic setting. I plan to spend time over the next year studying more about abstraction, using Sue's materials and others, and playing in my quiet studio. That's more my style.* * * *

On a quiet note, I took a little workshop with Lee Porter this spring. Lee came to our PMPatchwork group and gave us a lovely evening workshop on Kantha embroidery. We made practice pieces on three-layer sandwiches of muslin, using only black embroidery floss, making single stitch motifs. Here's a few of mine, ending with a little face portrait of Georgie, who started all this stuff 7 years ago (see the beginning of this blog if you're curious).

It was a BIG fall....

One week after my last post (September), flush from finally learning to breathe AND swim, Dave and I decided to try to play a little tennis too. We dug out our rusty old racquets and headed for the Y. We tapped that little ball back and forth a few times, and then I turned to reach for a shot going past me, and --- next thing I knew, I was flat on my face on the concrete. I think my foot just got stuck, and when they scraped me off the cement and took me to the hospital I looked kinda like this:

So, not much happened this fall except wrist surgery, tooth surgery, nose surgery, PT, and another wrist surgery.

The good news is that it seemed like a terrific time to have some work done on my basement studio! New lights, new floor, fresh paint, new IKEA cabinets for storage, new ironing table built by Dave, new design walls (one black, one white), and last, a new Horn quilting table. It's just so wonderful, and I'd show you a photo of it but it's a mess now.

I can, however, show you the finished piece sold at the SAQA auction -- The Marvelous Miss Josephine Baker.

She looks a hellova lot better than me, huh?

Well, later in the fall, Dave and I took our first trip to Israel. We went with a Hopkins Alumni Tour, and took along several professors as we raced from Tel Aviv to our kibbutz hotel, to the Galilee, to Haifa, to Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, the Judean Desert, and then to Jordan and Petra. If these names don't mean anything to you, you've gotta go yourself. Each is an incredible experience, even if your tour is a whirlwind. When you go, be sure to plant a tree, drink wine from the Golan Heights, and take lots of pictures. It would also be useful to take along Dr. Ted Lewis, one of our professors, who illuminated our evenings with lecture topics such as, "So What Is God's Name?" and "So, What Does God Look Like?" I won't bore you further with our travels except to show you shots of two quilts I came across, one in a Druze home and the other in an Arab market in Jerusalem (below), and I'll finish with a joke told by Linda Gradstein of NPR, who gave us a fabulous lecture: "Is It Finally Time for a Peace Deal?"

Here's the joke: Three men suddenly die and go to heaven: Achmadinejad, Osama Bin Ladin, and Netanyahu. God grants each of them ONE wish. Bin Ladin says, "That's easy; get rid of all the Shiites." Achmadinejad's wish was "Get rid of all the Sunnis!" God then turns to Netanyahu and asks, "Nu, what is your wish?" "Well," he replies, "if he gets what he wants, and he gets what he wants....I'll just have a diet Coke."

Now I still wasn't able to do much with my bum hand, but I did manage to make a bunch of little fabric "fortune cookies" for friends, each different, and each filled with sincere and meaningful messages, such as:

"Follow your dreams...except for the one where you fly."

"The decline of western civilization seems to leave you strangely unmoved."

"You like cats, but don't try to eat a whole one by yourself."

"You've been invited to join the National Sarcasm Society. Like we need your support."

....just sweet little sayings such as these that I've collected over the years.

* * * * * * * *

My e-friend, Maria Shell from Alaska, asked if I would contribute a block to a group quilt, this time on the theme of racism, which sent me to my pile of "skin-colored fabrics." I cut a number of strips from this pile and wove them onto a wonder-under base to form a background. While I did so, I would think of all the beautiful people I've seen in different shades of skin, so in the photo below, you'll see that my "lady" has wild hair which spells out the message.

TWELVE CONNECTED:

Another exciting group project is one I joined in a moment of madness. It's a challenge group of a dozen people from many different places on the globe, all committed to working together over the next two years! Every two months, one of us is responsible for describing a theme, and at the end of the period, on the same day, we post our quilts to our online site. Our first "reveal" was on Feb. 1st; the challenge topic was SANCTUARY.

Please google "twelve connected" and see all the different and interesting ways this theme was interpreted. Each artist posts photos and describes what the theme meant to them. I find it very moving. Here's my photo, but you'll have to go to our blog to read all about it..........

There are -- in my NEW studio -- a pile of OLD unfinished or unsatisfying quilts. I decided to tackle them before moving ahead. So far I've managed to complete two....both of which entailed some serious editing. Let's see if I can figure out how to post a Before and After of each. The first is one I've begun calling "Hello Kitty".... and here's the "before"

and.. here's the "after", although it's a crummy photo....

Just for fun, I bound a big hunk I cut off. I call it "Hi Kitty", and don't worry, I put her other eye back on!

Another one is my "Little Boy with a Tire"..... first, the large one, and then the finished, cropped one:

He's now in the Popcorn Gallery (don't you love that title?) at Glen Echo Park.

Finally, there was a rather "surgical" attack I made on a piece called "The Lovers"...still unfinished, but it's the next on the pile. It's based on a photo I took of two trees entwined around each other at the edge of a grove.

...........and then came the Blizzard of 2010. I think I'll write about that another day. We're both probably tired by now.