Two quilts

This morning I posted my quilt of the month on Interpret This!  I think my piece is successful but not outstanding However some of the other interpretations are magnificent.  Check them out here.

Today I have sent in my two submissions for the SAQA show, No Holds Barred, held at the New England Quilt Museum.  Send me good thoughts, please!  This is my first attempt to get in a juried show.  I started to show you a peek at a detail from The Center of the Universe but I am afraid it will be disqualified if I do.  Sorry, no peek.

Goodwill Find

 Isn't she a beauty?  I found her for $7.99 in the Goodwill Halloween rack. 

And what do you think about the bow in the front about crotch level and just above the high slit opening?  

Is there a secret message there?

 

And a close up of all her glory.  I should be able to salvage beads and sequins and pearls off of her forever! 

How much rice is in your bowl?

Here is my entry for the Art for Hunger exhibition in Augusta, November 1-19.  All pieces are for sale for $50.   Size limit was 5 inch squares so the hand dyed black cotton is 5x5.  It has organza circles machine appliqued and hand embroidered "rice."  It is sewn to a mat of high rag content paper and is hung on two chop sticks.

Playing with Flowers

Yesterday I took a day off from work and joined Beth and Rosalita in their Thursday play date. They had invited two more eager experimenters to join them, Kathy and Charlene, so there were 5 of us around Rosalita's table.  One of the projects we tried was dyeing with flowers.  Beth had tried it the night before, carefully following the directions Yvonne gave in her post on Fibre Heart. Faint yellow cotton.  That is all that Beth got.

 I was undetered and wanted to try again, maybe playing with the directions a bit (Who?  ME?   Not follow directions?? LOL)  So, using more alum and wrapping the cloth tighter, here are the results of my two attempts. 

The roses gave me very faint leaves and color (thank you Beth and Rosalita for sacrificing your flowers).  Not unpleasant but a lot of work for little color and pattern.  If you look close you can see the leaves.

But the mums! (thank you for the sacrifice, Rosalita!) The dark red mums turned a surprising blue/purple.  I would love to try the mums again!

If one morning your mums are in full bloom but by evening, the bush is bare....I don't know what could have happened to them. Tee Hee

Friday Favorites

This is the last Friday to work on my Center of the Universe quilt if I am going to submit it to the SAQA show.  I need to write an artist statement to go with my submission.  I don't wanna... *** please hear that in your child's worse whiny voice***  I have been looking up instructions on how to write an artist statement.   I mean if I have to write one then I would prefer to have it make some type of sense.  I reviewed several sites for help and this one seemed to give the KISS instructions that I need.

As I have been looking for fiber artists that use hand stitching to create their art pieces I came across this one at Embroidery as Art.   Isn't this picture gorgeous!  Now this is the type of embroidery that I particularly like.  It is handwork but not just in-your-face (pun intended) embroidery but handwork with a larger message.  First you see the message and then you see the technique used.

And remember me telling you about The Art Quilt Blog?  Well Margeeth from the Netherlands introduced herself this week.  I have fallen deeply in love with the first quilt that she shows!  I too love scrap quilts and when there is an intersection between quilts that are large enough to be function-able, scraps, and art, then I am in hog heaven!

Please stop by Wen Redmond's blog (otherwise known as the Fiber Art Goddess) and congratulate her on have a piece accepted into the Quilt National and having the piece purchased by Marvin Fletcher, husband of the former Quilt National Director.

Gisela at Art ADD Works for Me is trying a new technique and I really want to see the results.  She is coating a fish with latex.  If it works out, I will be buying myself a fish for printing.

Laura at Periwinkle Art Quilts is taking a class on Darned quilts.  Check out the one she is working on. Isn't it exciting!  I love the movement in the piece!  Laura has agreed to join me and some other fabric artists in a new challenge blog for 2011 that features lots of different surface design techniques.  I will tell you more later when we've picked out a name for the blog.