Textures

A few days ago I took some time to walk around the farm and capture some images of objects hopefully for some inspiration for a new body of work. Although these are not technically textures, I liked the idea of looking closely at some things and seeing them for what they are and how they interacted with light and shadow. Here's a few of my favorites...

February / March Challenge

I thought it would be good to put up this picture of my most recent challenge quilt. I belong to a group called Rogue Art Quilters who take on periodic challenges to use particular fabrics, fibers, and themes and then create a piece that reflects this. This particular one was for a candy-themed challenge to coincide with the Chocolate Festival in Ashland. Sandy Globus, owner of a very nice quilt shop called Fabric of Vision, initiated the challenge by passing around a basket of different candies. Each person was to choose a candy and then create a piece representing that candy. There was a particular Martha Negley brown bow fabric that had to be used and the quilt could not have a traditional binding. My chosen candy was Lifesavers. So I created this quilt. It uses several techniques including paper piecing, fusible applique, hand and machine quilting and trapunto. I enjoyed doing this challenge and am now working on the current one which I'll talk about later. You can see more of the candy quilts while they are hanging at Fabric of Vision until the end of March or online on Karen Bates blog.

In Process

Here is the wedding ring quilt I have been working on this week. It is made completely from batiks I've collected over the years. I've always wanted to make a quilt in this pattern but wasn't sure my piecing was up to snuff to do it. So I finally took a class with Veronica Nurmi and used her easy piecing method. Now if my machine quilting is just up to snuff....

Is It Spring Yet?

Well we have another beautiful day here in the Shasta Valley. We have been busy planning our vegetable garden and working on projects that have waited the whole winter to be done, such as pruning the fruit trees, preparing flower beds, cleaning the pool, etc. It's been nice to be able to get outside and get some things done.

Dave has been working diligently on getting the Jag running so we can take a little vacation to the coast when things warm up a bit more. Of course Spunky is always available to help out in his own special way.

I have been working on quilting a batik wedding ring quilt that I made in a class with Veronica Nurmi last fall. It is going slow as I am really out of practice with my machine quilting. Will try to snap some pics of it later today. I am using Superior Threads Rainbows on the top with their Bottom Line in the bobbin. So far I am really happy with this combination on the Juki. It seems to just flow really nicely.

OK, well I'd better get to work. Have a great day!

Welcome!

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! I decided that now was a good time to start this up to keep everyone in touch with what is going on here (Napua thinks so too--more lap time). So check back for new posts, or add me to your RSS feed to get notification when I update. (Don't ask me how to do this because I don't know....but I'm going to learn!)