PROGRESS

 I've been busy enjoying the company of my long time friend and roommate in the 60's.  We attended the same WI high school and both worked in the airline business at O'Hare.  Our husband's were both WI natives who lived in Chicago and were also roommates.  Amazing.....  All 4 of us vowed that CA would be the last place on earth we'd ever live.  Joke is on us....they moved to Clovis 10 years ago and we relocated to Roseville 2 years ago. Offsprings are very good magnets and we old dogs have now learned new tricks!!

Work continues on my current project.....still a few more design elements may be added.  Perhaps these photos will show the direction this art quilt is headed.

A FAVORITE THEME

 Sunrise & sunset themes, along with trees are subjects that seems to resonate with me.  Creating gel printed fabrics that are featured in these art quilts is....well.....FUN!!  Utilizing my stash of ice-dyed fabrics and commercial batiks completes the palette. 

Often these fabrics end up looking like Swiss Cheese as I "fussy cut" sections to better coordinate with the surrounding fabrics. Photo #1

With the aid of my walking foot, my favorite appliqué stitch is the blanket stitch.  As seen in photo #2.  A simple slightly curvy straight stitch with variegated threads coordinates the various fabric patterns and colors as well as adding texture. Photo #3 & #4.

To prevent the fabrics from distortion/buckling I always use a stabilizer as a foundation for nearly all of my art quilts. Photo #5

HERE I GO AGAIN....

A new project is underway.......surely you are not surprised!?! My first step generally is to gather fabric possibilities. Of course that may be repeated numerous times as selections are eliminated while more are added.

Gelli printing has become a favorite activity, playing to creating the 'grunge' look is challenging, but I'm loving the results. The resists used on the gelli plate (one at a time) were baby oil, baby power, mineral oil, and rubbing alcohol. Acrylic paint in several colors react to the resist, providing mono prints featuring unique design & textures.

Cut and reassembled it's now the lower section of my 'in progress' art quilt. Come back and see how it's shaping up.

GRATEFUL

It's always so rewarding when work is sold.  Not to mention making room in my physical inventory for new pieces.  I tend to conjure up ideas to explore even before the current in-progress work is completed.  

Having a passion that keeps one active, engaged, and challenged makes me a very fortunate person.  What's your passion??

Tweet, Tweet -  SOLD

Sunny Side Up - SOLD

A 90TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

 My good pal, the one, the only Quilter's Hall of Fame recipient Georgia Bonesteel will be celebrating her 90th birthday next week.  She continues to have more energy than most 50 year olds.  You may recall the impact she had on the quilt world in 1978 when she began her long running PBS TV series 'Lap Quilting With Georgia Bonesteel', along with her many published books.

Though we now live 3,000 miles apart we communicate regularly. I wanted to mark this occasion with a small fabric birthday card that featured her newly designed Western North Carolina fabric.  Naturally, the piece grew as there were so many accompaniments I wanted to highlight.  She has received the gift so I can now share it.

CELEBRATING 90!!!

 23” x 15.25”     July 2026

Celebrating Quilt Legend Georgia Bonesteel’s

90th Birthday!!!

This piece highlights some of her vast accomplishments:

 Georgia’s newly designed WNC motif fabric, a riot of colorful flowers to represent her Master Gardener status, as well as a 

nod to her dedication to the Flat Rock Playhouse.

Original design - made by Mary Stori - Roseville, CA

Artist hand painted, gel printed, Prisma Pencil enhanced cottons, 

hand embroidered, & machine quilted.

HARMONY

 Finally, the reveal of my newest project is here.  It's interesting how only one of the original selected elements remained. The area I had the most difficulty with was the left side.  It needed a vertical design but none of the fabrics I had quite allowed me to say 'YES...this is it.'

So more pondering took place.  Finally I came up with the idea of  using the Japanese calligraphy symbol for 'Harmony'.  After finding one online, I was able to stretch the motifs to the length desired and chose to use red fabric.

                                      HARMONY -  20” x 17.5”

                                                                                $165

      Japanese & ice-dyed cottons, 

    raw edge fused appliqué, metallic thread, 

machine quilted. Double fold binding with fabric hanging sleeve. 

TIME HAS FLOWN

 Digging through a bin of red fabrics I came across a piece purchased in 1987.....at the beginning of my quilting career.  Heck, I blinked and nearly 40 years have passed!!

How old is some of your fabric?

FINISHING UP

 A follow up on my recent post..... It seems there are decisions to make from the beginning of a project to the end. I'm now at the quilting phase and thought I'd share one of my approaches.

I do not FMQ, instead quilt with the aid of my walking foot. For my designs, generally simple background stitching works best to add motion, sometimes color, not overpower, and of course to hold the layers together.

Since my Asian inspired pieces feature scattered motif placement plus background open spaces, I've found it best to outline each motif first. (See photo #1 - backing). Next background quilting is addressed. For this piece I wanted some "cloud" lines....not necessarily connected, rather keeping it sparse and simple.

One trick I use is to audition quilt designs by drawing them onto clear plastic laid over the top of the quilt. Then, with an erasable pen I try out design options. (photo #2). In the end I decided not to use the idea shown. A more continuous design would be better to prevent random puffy pockets of the fabric developing on the unstitched areas around the isolated stitching.

Selecting the thread comes next. (Photos #3 & 4, 5) A variegated darker blue on top and invisible in the bobbin were the final choices.

The binding, sleeve & label are next......I'll be back soon.

RAMBLING

**This is long......grab some coffee or take my preferred "bubbly" hydration break while reading.

Several recent comments I've received have generated this post. I'm so thankful for the loyal and growing readership on both my Facebook and Blog accounts which amazes me since I do very little in the way of growing my social media presence. I'd rather be sewing!

Followers are either quilters themselves or simply interested in art quilts and hopefully they are collectors too. It's necessary to sell work in order to keep producing (and avoid having our offspring figure out what to do with them when the time comes. Haha)

So, let's get to it. I'm guessing most of you are well aware that creating one-of-a-kind art quilts is a different process than following a published pattern or making a quilt from a kit. Selecting fabric doesn't take a short period of time. At least for me it can take not just hours but sometimes several days to hit the right combo of design, color, scale etc. Where do my ideas come from? In short, everywhere. Visual surroundings, a comment or phrase, striking color combinations, and most often the fabric itself. I 'shop' for fabric in my own stash.

My style has changed a lot over my career. From whimsical, highly embellished, & whole cloth hand quilted creations, then morphing into nature inspired after our move from WI to the mountains of NC. Asian themed pieces have popped up fairly frequently too after inheriting a very large stash of fabric from a dear friend.

The later has been my biggest challenge and happily often those smaller pieces sell the quickest. With age I've noticed my art reflects a preference for living with simplicity, focusing on minimalism, using earthy but not totally muted palettes, and leaving unadorned spaces.

I've had a preference for working with whole-cloth (rather than pieced backgrounds). In fact one of my books was titled "The Whole Cloth Garment Stori". I began making traditional patchwork quilts in the mid 80's, but VERY soon tired of repeatedly sewing identical blocks. My pieces are always original designs, never duplicated. That takes time!! I may start with an idea, in this case a piece of fabric for the background and some 'fussy cut' circular motifs from another piece. These fabrics are 'auditioned' on my large flannel wall. They are added, subtracted, perhaps added again until the right combination comes together. This could mean hours of pulling piles of fabrics from shelves, standing and staring at them on the wall, sometimes knowing it's not right, but not how to fix it. Time...it takes time, experience and a stick-to-it attitude.

Okay enough...you get the idea. Here are just a few of the many design options I tried while creating my current small art quilt. I'm so fortunate to wake up every day excited to CREATE art quilts! Perhaps this explanation will shine light on my process; creating work to sell. I encourage you to follow your passion, whatever that may be. The finished piece is coming soon..... quilt motif decisions are still being made.

Circles are too big and overpower the design.

I knew I needed a vertical element, yet hadn't hit on just what that was yet.

Back to those darn circles.

Notice, I keep wanting to use those circular motifs......sometimes it's very hard to give up on an idea, even when it's not working!!!

The shifts in design may be small....like the placement of the birds....but necessary to obtain the right balance.

FLIRTING WITH JAPANESE FABRIC

Yup.....another blank fabric slate has pulled me in............

2:00 AM thoughts will be bombarding me in the coming nights. NOT complaining.....I live to create!! And that means pulling out bins and fabric stacks from closest, under bed storage, ETC. .........you get the idea. Stay tuned won't you??