Working In A Series

"The Listening Eye #1", Dorothea Rockburne, 2001

"The Listening Eye #2", Dorothea Rockburne, 2001

"The Listening Eye #3" , Dorothea Rockburne, 2001

"The Listening Eye #4", Dorothea Rockburne, 2001

I loved this series, so I thought I would share. I also liked the way copper was incorporated into each piece.

The artist's statement:

"Personally, as part of the creative process, I always title a work before I make it. In that way, from the outset, I know exactly what it is. I try to work with inspiration, intuition, knowledge and magic. It is a journey, inward and outward, deeply personal and yet having a commonality. And when I am through there is a painting, an object with dimension, and yet the real object exists as the experience I have gained in making the painting. The painting itself then contains everything I know and am at that moment and since I am always changing, the paintings are always changing."© Dorothea Rockburne 1989

This artist's statement interested me. How many of you start with the title before you even begin the work? For me it is entirely the other way around.

Spring

I stepped outside and took these pictures day before yesterday. I love spring here in Southern Califoria. Notice that right behind that magnificent cactus, the mulberry tree is leafing out. Pines and palms and citrus don't lose their leaves, but the ones that do are coming back to life. Our citrus trees are blooming, and the fragrance is amazing.

If you don't have spring in your part of the world yet, hang in there. It's coming.

More quilts

Here I am, up in the middle of the night and still struggling with crummy cold symptoms. Not that I feel sorry for myself or anything :) Thanks for your get well wishes, I do appreciate the positive thoughts.

Here, to change the subject, are a few more quilty projects.


Here my friend Cindy shows her "big giant star", always a favorite fast gift quilt to make. You can make it even easier by using huge half square triangles. The second quilt is from a "Buggy Barn" pattern, Hearts and Stars.
Here is the same quilt pattern done in brighter colors and shared by our friend Kathy at the Jan meeting. You can guess which ones I like the best.

Traditional Quilt Content

Here are a few pictures from my little quilt group's last get together.

Here is Jerry's quilt, finished except for the binding, which is still in progress.

And here is the back. I particularly like the scuba "photo" fabric I found to use for it. You probably can't see the quilting, but it is done in blue waves.

Here is my friend Pam T's basket quilt.

Joan shows off her wool applique.

This is Pam B.'s lovely bright quilt, started in a Road to California workshop. (Sorry, I don't remember the instructor's name.) Lots of paper piecing. Naturally I love the bright colors. We talked quite a bit about some of the quilting possibilities for this one.

That's it for me today. I am home with the flu/cold thing I have been fighting so it's back to bed for me.

New Design Wall

Here is my finished "kid's quilt" for the 40 quilt service project. I will be mailing this out to Amy some time this week. Keeping the pattern simple helped me to complete the quilt and enjoy the project. I love the cheerful brights, they are so uplifting.

The little quilt is attached to my new portable design wall. Assembling it by myself was a little like making a bed with an old fashioned sheet that has shrunk slightly. Get one side on, the other pops off etc. Still, I finally got it together and I'm sure it will go more easily next time. The little poles reminded me of my old camping days when we used to put together our North Face tents. I remember when these light weight poles were quite the innovation for backpackers. Yes, this was long ago, and the memories are fun but they do make me feel older than dirt. My days of willingly sleeping outdoors on the ground are long gone.

Back to the design wall, I'm still deciding, but I think I like it. I love the portability aspect, and expect to get a lot of use out of it.

Wool

These beautiful artworks are by Ramona Sakiestewa, done in wool. See more amazing work here. This artist also does beautiful works on paper, but I thought some of you, especially those who have fallen in love with wool, would be interested in these. After all, we're all about the fiber.

I feel like such a neglectful blogger, but things have just been crazy busy. I had good intentions to show a little piece on Quilt Studio, but didn't get it photographed in time. I also wanted to share a little about my quilt group gathering, but didn't get those photos together either. I DID manage to get together some photo CDs done as gifts for all my quilt group friends. I take pictures at every gathering, so I had something from every meeting over the past year. I used a mounted photo of each person as the cover for their CD case, and I put one at each place at the table. Kind of a party gift and place card in one. It took a lot of time, but it was worth it. Everyone loved their gift.

Quilt group was fun, and I was really happy with how the food turned out. I found gorgeous flowers, including tulips, at Costco, so that saved me a trip when I was running around getting ready. We had some very summer like weather last weekend, so eating on the deck in the shade was lovely and relaxing.

I'm mostly finished with binding my donation "kid's quilt". I bound by machine this time, attaching the binding to the back and folding it around to the front. I used a zig-zag stitch and rainbow thread on the top, and monopoly in the bobbin. I usually don't like machine bindings, but this one looks pretty good. The monopoly is light years better than the old nylon stuff, and it really doesn't show. I hate binding by hand (impatience talking), so I may try this again.

A Family Quilt

Things have been busy since I last checked in here at the blog, and since I don't have any new pictures to show you right now, here is our Christmas quilt presentation to our neice Janet (lower left, second one in). In our family, we do "group" projects to make quilts. We have a variety of skill levels, but a great deal of enthusiasm. I have learned to pick easy "forgiving" patterns, so the projects turn out well and we have a blast making them. My sister in law just sent me these pictures last week.

Since I last blogged, I have participated in a quilt "shop hop" as well as a group sewing day. (I will share after I can get some pictures made.) I finished piecing the "diver's" quilt front and back and am having it quilted in blue waves. The bright "kid's quilt" is also coming back to me this weekend and will receive its binding in time to make the deadline.

This weekend I am hostess for my small quilt group, so I will be busy on Saturday cleaning and decorating. I've alread found some great spring tablecloths at Linens and Things, and I plan to pick up some tulips at Trader Joe's. Lunch will be lettuce wraps and fruit skewers, maybe vegetable rice. Someone else is bringing dessert, but the rumor is that it will be chocolate cheesecake. No calories in that, right?

A very big thank you to Dee for her generosity is sending me the book "Fried Eggs With Chopsticks". It looks like a fun and relaxing read, upbeat and funny (kind of like Dee's blog sometimes :)