Professional Art Quilter's Alliance-South spring exhibit

Yes, I've been a slackard this week. There has been so much going on that I haven't taken time to think to blog. I had to drive to Raleigh on Wednesday to set up a Heart Gallery in the Southern Women's Home Show. I had to have 2 fabric postcard classes this week, as one of the women couldn't make it on Thursday, so we finished hers up Wednesday. The other two we did last night. It's been a lot of fun, but I don't think they got as much out of it as I or they had hoped. They are traditional quilters and very good at it. I think they expected to sit down and make a really fabulous fabric postcard on the very first try, and neither of them do much zigzagging or any threadpainting. They were frustrated, but their pieces came out really really well. Hopefully, tomorrow we will move on to photos printed on fabric and threadpainted.

Tonight I am driving to Raleigh again straight from work. The PAQA-S ARTQUILTScultures show's opening reception is tonight. I wasn't thrilled with some of the choices the jurors made, but I think it will still be a good show. I want to see for myself. I will be staying with Keri and Sarah, so that will be fun. Steve has Operations duty tomorrow, so he can't come. Girls Night!

Selena Sullivan's "Guardian of Generations was chose by the ARTQUILTScultures committee (me, Ann Flaherty, and Jana Lankford, along with the PAQA-S President, Christine Hager-Braun) to be featured on the postcard. This piece also won Best of Show. Unfortunately, the postcard orientation is incorrect - it should be horizontal with the lady on the right hovering over the ones on the left.

I will go home early tomorrow morning. I have so much going on - I really need to work on my butterfly piece, I promised I would show the ladies how to threadpaint tomorrow afternoon, and I haven't started those pesky director's chair covers yet! Bah.

I was going to take my Lichen Tree piece to the PAQA-S show to be featured in the glass case at the entrance to the museum, but I cut the borders off and put it in a shadow box. That would be fine, except I did it very haphazardly and didn't realize how bad it looked. It's one of my favorite pieces and Steve told me to take it to a frame shop and have them do it right. I really should. Even if I keep it myself. This is the piece before I cut off the borders. I just didn't like them. This piece is a photograph I took in the Blue Ridge Mountains on one of Steve's and my Fall day trips a couple of years ago. It's printed on fabric and the background parts are highlighted with Water Soluble Oil Pastels to give it a bit more oomph. The lichen on the tree is entirely threadpainted by machine.

And what would a blog be without a Cutie Patootie picture?

Happy Dancing!

I just received a letter from the Rocky Mount Arts Center. "NC Forests - Under Fire" has been accepted in their 51st Annual Juried Art Exhibit. It runs from May 24-Sept. 14, 2008. Yippeee! I was contemplating making a new piece because I wasn't totally thrilled with the way the fire kind of "floats", but now I can wait awhile. I must say I'm surprised, because getting a decent photo has been a realy bear. The pine tree needles are rayon thread and really "shine" from the flash.

And there's another bad fire that started up in Haywood County yesterday and is already 200 acres. That's just the other side of Silva in the mountains. Pretty treacherous for the fire fighters to get to. So much wind and extremely low humidity.

So that's two quilts that will be shipped out in May. My Self-Portrait will be going to the I-4 Corridor show to Mary's portrait gallery. Pamela Allen also has a piece in that show. I feel so much better now.

I planted my garden this morning and I'm so looking forward to some fresh stuff. I put in 3 Romas (I roast them a lot and use them for fresh tomato, basil & mozzarella with pasta), 2 Best Boy, and 1 bush plant that isn't supposed to need staking. I'm really anxious to see how that does. I got my mother a tomato plant specifically for container gardening. I also put in 3 bell peppers - 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 green. And 2 containers of basil that split up into 8 separate plants.

In the photo above you can see the monster Rosemary bush. Steve had to but a bunch off that was hanging over into the garden.

Here is a view from the long end. The big pepper plant in front is blocking the basil plants.

Here are the herbs - they are perennial. The chives and marjoram are in far back corner, with the tarragon coming up in the center. My Gerbera Daisy on the left. Grass needs cutting, but it's been too dry. We have a slight chance to get some rain today, but doesn't look like it.


And here are Steve's cute little radishes. The carrots didn't come up. I guess the seeds must be too old or he planted too late. Maybe he'll get some good radishes, though.

Now I can go work on my butterflies!

Petting Lomsters - Guilty Daughters

Keri hasn't finished the quilt, but she finally sent me the "lomster" photos yesterday, but I told her I had already posted the blog. So - here is Grammy showing Sarah how to pet the lobster. (You can also see that she is already a flip flop baby with pretty painted piggies!)



And here is Sarah getting up the courage to pet him.




Sarah loves going into Grammy's studio and goes in there as often as she can. She's not supposed to go in without me because there is so much to get into, not to mention sharp objects. She is enthralled with all my colorful threads and loves to play with the different variegated spools. I keep most of my thread on those wooden spool thingies that look like bleachers with wooden pegs. My dear mil gave me a small metal version of the same thing that she used to keep her small wooden spools of thread on. I bought a Bobbin Buddy that I absolutely love, but I have too many bobbins and need more. In the meantime, I keep the rest of my bobbins on the small metal thingy, as I have a lot of them to match my top thread. Sarah was obviously fascinated with them all being on that metal thing, and picked it up and turned it upside down - I guess to see what would happen. We know what happened. 8>) Now I really have a reason to buy more Bobbin Buddies!

I am excited that tonight I get to teach my very first class at Quilter's Quest. It is a fabric postcard workshop. Fortunately, there are only 4 people signed up to take it. It's a pretty small shop, so we will have enough room and I get to practice on a small group. That's good for me!

Collages and Lobsters

I'm kind of late posting about this past weekend, but life gets in the way. And I was waiting for some photos that Keri took, but has yet to send me, so I'm going on without her.

We had a really fun weekend. The weather was pretty gloomy on Saturday, so we didn't play outside much. We visited Nana and Keri fixed a few things for her, including her cordless telephone. She does have a problem keeping her phones working.

We are moving back into spring and my plants are very appreciative. The Solomon's Seals are just exploding and the Lilies of the Valley are jumping for joy.

Keri noticed this little guy checking out the framed garden where Steve's radishes and carrots are growing. Fortunately, the carrot tops aren't up yet. I have often seen him hopping out of the rosemary bush, so maybe he sleeps there. Lord knows it's big enough.

We visited Lynne's shop - "Quilter's Quest" where I had to another thing to make for Sarah. I finally got the baby blanket done for a coworker, but haven't made the Strawberry Shortcake panel blanket for Sarah yet. Lynne had a "Curious George" fabric book panel to make for $2.00. How could I turn that down when Sarah adores the monkey? What kind of Grammy would I be?

We had a lot of spare time Saturday afternoon and Keri decided she wanted to make something. I told her she could choose whatever fabrics she wanted and layout whatever design she liked. She picked out earth-tone fabrics and said she didn't want to make "a picture." She just wanted to lay it out, kind of like a "quilt". I told her basically how to do a collage and she went to town cutting up pieces of beige, brown, green, and orange fabric. We put batting and backing under it and she stitched around the edges of her designs. She wasn't quite comfortable with just free motion stitching, but we'll get her there. Keri really enjoyed making it and took it home to finish the binding. Here she is at my sewing machine. She hasn't sent me a picture of the finished piece.

You can sort of see what she's making. I never cared much for collage because I didn't really understand it. Whenever I tried to make a collage piece, I got confused and didn't know how to put things together in a pleasing way. I was surprised then when I was giving Keri suggestions on what she could do to embellish her wall hanging. "Embellish"? Those words actually came out of my mouth? I don't embellish! Anything. Ever. So maybe I should reevaluate making a collage myself.

Steve and I went to Walmart early Saturday morning before the girls came and got 4 lobsters for my birthday dinner (Peter and Jill were coming, too). When Keri and Sarah got there, Grampa pulled one of the lobsters out of the fridge and put him on the floor. Sarah called it a bug until we told her it was a lobster and then she remembered seeing them "in the cage at Walmark!" She's right. We always stop by to see the lobsters at Walmart when we are in the seafood section. Here's where there's supposed to be a cute photo of Sarah and the lobster, but as I said, Keri hasn't sent it to me.

So Steve decided to grill the lobsters and cornish game hens. We are always having to warn Sarah about getting near the grills, so she had to stay in the house with the "women-folk." Steve got the fire going and when it was ready, pulled out the lobsters. Jill, who is just easing out of being a vegetarian, couldn't bear it and ran around to the front of the house. Sarah saw him and ran onto the back porch, yelling at Grampa not to put the lobsters on the grill because it was HOT! By the time they were done she'd forgotten about them and had no problem with seeing them on the table. She tried a bite, but didn't like the consistency. Okay. More for us!

This is just a cool photo of a rusted old truck near my friend, Lynne's, house. I love this truck and I definitely want to do something with it someday. Not sure what. Maybe use it as a base to collage? Why not?

Birthday!

Today is my birthday. I am 57 years along my life's path and feeling pretty darned good! I did tell my coworkers that sometimes you get older and wiser, and sometimes you just get older. I like to think that I do get wiser, but sometimes I wonder...

My cousing Richie called at 5:40 a.m. and sang Happy Birthday to me. (Yes, I was up). He's been doing that since my brother moved on to Heaven 10 years ago. Then Keri and Sarah called me on my way to work and Sarah sang "Happy Boofday Gwammy" - that's the only part she remembes - about six times. It was priceless. They will be down tomorrow to help Grammy celebrate and of course, I can't wait. We are having lobster for dinner tomorrow night! Yay!

My 3 days with Hollis and the workshop group was fantastic. We had a lot of fun, we worked really hard, and we learned a lot about drawing. Hollis is a very generous, but strict, taskmaster. She is an incredible teacher and she definitely makes sure you "get it" before moving on. She doesn't tell you to draw something and then show you how to do it right. She gives you direction and she tells you how to look at something to really "see it" from the beginning. This picture is the first morning.

After class Monday afternoon we car pooled to Duke Chapel to see Hollis' exhibit "Imagine Hope" is hanging. I have seen her work on her website and in magazines, but I was so eager and excited to see it in person. You can't imagine how incredible it really is. You swear it is just a painting until you get up very close and see the (over 200) thread colors completing it. Duke Chapel is so huge that her pieces, which are pretty large, are almost swallowed up. But they are still phenomenal. I don't have permission to put her work here, but you definitely need to check out her website, if you haven't already. http://www.hollisart.com/

The workshop was held at the Avila Retreat Center in Durham. It is owned by the Catholic Diocese in Raleigh and run by two nuns, Sister Damien and Sister Cam. They are the warmest, sweetest, and most fun nuns I have ever met. We sang our Wednesday morning blessing (optional) to the tune of the Superman theme. It was hilarious, but still warm and friendly.

In the evenings after dinner we did homework for an hour or two, then gathered in the social room. We had a circle of rocking chairs and had fun telling stories and showing and telling. There was lots of chat and even more laughter. What a great group of women. I am totally looking forward to seeing them all again next year.

After class on Tuesday we carpooled to Hollis' studio. That was wonderful. She showed us her phenomenal amount of fabric and thread. She didn't have any quilts on the walls, but she did have a working drawing up, so we didn't take any photos. Hollis was kind enough to show us how she works and she even gave us a demonstration of how she threadpaints. All I could do was shake my head in awe.

Mary Corcoran is one of the facilitators of the workshop. She is also a member of PAQA-South and I hope to see her at the Spring working retreat at Mary Beth Bellah's in Charlottesville, VA in May. Mary is also on the NC Symposium Board. The 2009 Symposium will be in Raleigh and Hollis will be teaching a class or two, so I will definitely be in on that. Life is good today. No - life is GREAT today!

Drawing with Hollis

I have been rushing around frantically trying to get everything ready for my 3 day drawing class with Hollis Chatelain. I am very excited about this class. She will be taking us to the exhibit at Duke Chapel with some of her incredible work, and she will also take us to her studio! I am thrilled to be able to see that. And she will have some of her hand-dyed fabric for sale, so I'll need to carry an extra bag, I'm sure.

The retreat is being held at the Avila Retreat Center in Durham, NC. It is run by nuns and owned by the Catholic diocese of Raleigh. It is said to be in a very peaceful and beautiful setting. The rooms are sparse - no TV or telephone, which is probably a very good thing. We are supposed to have an hour's worth of homework each night, so that will keep us pretty busy, I'm sure. I am also eager to meet the other 14 students.

If you are not familiar with her work, please check out her website. http://www.hollisart.com/gallery.php She paints on whole cloth silk and then threadpaints and quilts it.

It's been a very dreary week and weekend here in North Carolina. The dogwoods and azaleas are starting to pop out, but with no sunshine it's not very spring-y feeling. That's supposed to
change this afternoon, I think. Spring is my favorite time of year and I love wandering around the yard to see what's popping up. Like this - these are the Solomon's Seals that I posted last week as small buds. They're really taken off. My Lilies of the Valley are just starting to peek up through the mulch, so in another week they'll have grown a great deal, too.

Well - lots more to do before I take off this afternoon. Laundry, water plants, recheck my list of supplies, etc. I know I'll forget something!

Later!