SLOW PROGRESS

I'm back in the studio working on my latest Asian fabric inspired wall art quilt.  Close inspection of the progress you'll see that it's only half stitched. 

 I hope it get the rest done today.  My approach is slower than most quilters who chain stitch.  Instead, I prefer to cut and layout the entire top (or the parts that I have decided on at that point) on my design wall...and work through the sewing, section by section.  Stay tuned....

MORE LUFT WASSER PHOTOS

Here are a few more photos from the Luft Wasser Porsche event held in Brevard, NC.  - not into cars??  Please ignore...

 Here's the elusive 'the husband' unfortunately, our car was parked next to the trash containers at the staging area......wish I knew how to photoshop them out.

 Impressive turn out!

I'm sure this group of men are plotting how to obtain another car for their collection!!

2nd ANNUAL LUFT WASSER

Warning...this is not fiber related.....so let your curiosity decide whether you want to read on.......

The 2nd Annual Luft Wasswer (Air and Water cooled engines) Porsche Parade took place with 170+ cars participating in downtown Brevard, NC.  It's organized by our local car club The Appalachian Porsche Club of America.

It was a beautiful spring day, georgous cars, friendly people, good food, and simply the best event our club has ever hosted.

 Safety is never overlooked, esp. with a caravan of approximately 12 cars from the Waynesville, NC area, driving to our staging area in Brevard.  All drivers were expected to attend the safety meeting before we headed off.  

Here's the Waynesville group just getting lined up.  We follow a lead car and have a sweeper at the rear who are both equipped with radios to keep all of us moving in the right direction as we wound our way through the National Parks and Forests to our destination.

After about an hours drive, we arrived at a school parking lot and lined up with other groups from outlining areas.  There were participants from 11 different states who joined us!!  Ultimately these lines were 4 cars wide and long....long...long.  We had a police escort with various streets blocked off as we made our way downtown.  The organization that went into this was clearly evident by the number of volunteers directing traffic.

 Three entire blocks of main street were used to display the cars which were parked near the curb on each side of the street and a line down the middle.

 There was a steady stream of folks using the opportunity to learn about Porsches and of course those of us who own one....walked around and were possibily displaying some Porsche envy over all the incredible models shown.

 I'll admit I'm disappointed more than not with restaurant meals.....I have to say this was one of the best lunches I've ever had anywhere.....devine.  Served quickly with smiles and at the foods' perfect temperature, despite hoards of Porshce enthusaists flooding the place.  It was actually more than I could eat.....but I will be back.  I ordered Chicken Curry....might sound boring but every aspect of this meal was seasoned and cooked perfectly.  So where was I??? The Squared Root, Brevard, NC.

'The husband' who doesn't get out much these days was also in his glory....he had fish tacos.....again, seasoned and presented perfectly.

 I'll spare you a ton of car photos.....but want to comment about the variety of cars on display, everything from this older rally car.....

 ....to a vintage Roadster.....yes this is the original color.  We smiled all the way home.

NEW ASIAN INSPIRED QUILT IN PROGRESS

Over the last couple of years I've made about a dozen patchwork quilts inspired by a large stash of Asian style fabrics gifted to me by a dear friend. Honestly, I never thought the pile would be reduced....instead it seemed to grow.  

That is no longer the case.  As I embark on another one, I found myself almost frantically searching the shrinking pile for just the right color/pattern combination.  Of course that's mainly because I'm not working with small patches which can be more forgiving during the selection process.  It's also because obviously I have a vision in my head and am not terribly flexible about substitutions at this point.

 As is my habit, I like to gather all possible fabric combinations, pair them, and move onto auditioning the choices on my design wall before I start cutting.

The work continues to cutting the backgrounds & focal circles, plus fusing.  I suspect there will still be a few blocks that will get rejected.....but that's normal when creating one-of-a-kind quilts.  Knowing when something is off comes from years of experience.

Stay tuned....

Linking to Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday & Sarah's Whoop, Whoop Friday.

MAKING GIFTS

My desire to make a few more bookcovers as gifts for the 2nd of two family events I'll be attending this summer moved me into a new direction.....by mistake!  Instead of purchasing 5" x 7" compostion books, I accidently ordered size 9.75" x 7.5.  DAH!!!

Coming up with closure ideas led me to an almost forgotten drawer of interesting buckles and closure gadgets.  Fortunately I have a fairly large collection of Ultra-suede but not many in the way of longer pieces.  Thank you to my pals Arlene and Judy for gifting me some of theirs!

 Marbled silk noil with Ultra-suede strap and vintage buckle.

 Mono-printed wool felt with Ultra-suede strap and recreational gear snap buckle.

 Mono-printed wool felt with Ultra-suede strap and vintage buckle.

Authentic Dutch Wax cotton fabric with leather tie closure.

"FISHING" - NEW WORK

It's enjoyable working in a smaller format for a change, plus it affords the opportunity to use some of the smaller pieces of my hand-dyed fabrics!

                                                     FISHING -  9" X 12" 

AVAILABLE HERE

Hand indigo-dyed wool, silk dyed in iron water, bamboo rayon felt, Ultra-suede, hand appliquéd & embroidered, machine stitched. Mounted on canvas covered frame, finished fabric back, prepared for hanging or display on a table top easel as shown.

My mounted pieces are always completely finished on the back as shown here.

Linking to:  Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday and Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday.

INDIGO-DYED WOOL PROJECT IN PROCESS

I'm crazy about dyeing with indigo and often hoard what comes out of the dye pots!  Silly me...why not use it?

This piece happens to be accordion folded wool, but just about any fabric yields fabulous results.  Because it's a dress weight wool, it didn't felt really well.  So it's being stabilized with a Pellon lightweight non-fusible that was marked with the outline of the desired size.

By thread basting along my marked line, the outline is visible on the right side as a working guide to its size.

This is a small design, to be mounted on a 9" x 12" canvas covered frame.....hand appliqueing is in progress.  The materials are bamboo rayon felt, Ultra-suede, and silk hand dyed in iron water.  Stay tuned ........

PTA APRIL MEETING

We had a ton of show and tell this month.....I guess everyone was still hibernating/recovering in their sewing rooms from our March PTA annual retreat!

 I had shared this link of instructions for the 'disapparing hourglass block" from Sarah's blog "Confessions of a Fabric Addict" with a couple of the more dedicated piecers in our PTA group.  Janice took up the challenge!  However she said she wasted more darn fabric because of her cutting mistakes and lots of unsewing too.....I say it was worth the effort!

 You can see, Janice is a piecer at heart.....this is another one of her new quilts.

 Marene will be an assistant at a Georgia Bonesteel workshop where students will be creating this pattern.  She's practicing with this section of the quilt that will finish at a whopping 72" square....

 Dort is an excellent illustrator with an eye for detail.  We are all enjoying how she's translated photos she took on a recent trip to France.

 These two pieces are small...less than 12"....amazing!

Georgia Bonesteel hosted our group this month. Usually we brown bag our lunch....but never at Georgia's!  She prepared a feast and provided the BEST coconut cake I've ever tasted.  And that's saying a lot...I love coconut cake which is readily available around here....apparently it's a 'southern thing'.

She's working on this "Trip Around The World" quilt which (if I got it right) will be displayed at a function at the Flat Rock, NC playhouse.

 Here's Kate's contribution (one of several she's donated) to the Carolina Hurricane Quilt Project  She pieced the top at our PTA retreat and quilted it on her long arm.  

Kate is a fan of the Accu Cut tool.....and often chooses the rectangle die when she wishes to show off the fabric!  These ethnic fabrics were from my friend Helen's stash.....and Kate did them justice!

 She also brought a couple of quilts she made using a men's ties from a family member.

 How clever is this....she allowed one of the ties ends to remain loose...and once opened....a pin up girl is revealed!!

 Barbara stitched together one of the charity quilt kits our Asheville Quilt Guild supplies to members that are then donated to worthy organizations.

 Barbara is nearly finished with this beauty she had been working on at our PTA retreat.  Stunning!!!

PUZZLE FUN

I normally stick to fiber related posts but thought this might interest some of you that have grand kids.  We just returned from meeting our CA son/family at a resort in Hilton Head.  Fortunately the weather cooperated except for a couple of hours one morning.......

.....which was the perfect time to assemble a puzzle I had custom made to use as an activity in case of poor weather! The colorful areas were the most fun for the kiddos who had a little help. But everyone stuck with it and in about an hour+ it was assembled.

 'The husband'...who doesn't like to be featured in my blog is on the right.  From time to time some of you ask how he's doing after his two very difficult spinal surgeries...so here's an update.  He's wearing what looks like a 'horse collar' with a mini iPad like computer on the lower front.  It's a bone stimulator which is worn 4 hours each day.  That doesn't seem like it should be a hassle but oh my it is.  One certainly wouldn't want to go out in public with it.....I'm sure it would frighten folks.  I call it voo-doo medicine.....it's supposed to help stimulate bone growth in the areas of his 6 cervical disc fusion failure.  It's been a couple of months with 1 1/2 more to go.  Scans will be taken at the end of May to see if there are any positive results.  If so, that might lessen the chance of more spinal damage by strengthening this area, unfortunately he'll still be in pain 24-7 forever.

The puzzle was made by Shutterfly....ordered online with a photo I had of the boys being boys.  Highly recommended.....fast service at what I thought was a reasonable price.

EXPERIMENT FAILURE

A friend gave me a 3/4 yd. piece of what she thought was Ultra-suede. At first I thought it was velveteen....but after getting it home and examining it....I realized it was probably faux suede.

 Nice blue color...the purple is the result of light reflection from my camera.

 My in-laws spent a lot of time in Indonesia years ago - Father-in-law's duties were guiding the set up of graduate programs in their universities.  I got these metal batik printing plates from my MIL who used them as decor when they returned to the US and I have since done the same.

 I had the hare-brained idea to heat one up on my electric stove to emboss the fabric.

 What a stinky mess I made.  Clearly there was still some dye left on the stamps and yes it did melt the fibers but certainly not evenly...with blotches of whatever was loosened by the heat in the designs.

And now I have a mess on the stamp.....hoping I can get it off without too much work.  However, you should see my stove top.......geesh!!!

Time for plan B???

Linking to Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday and Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday.

FROM PHOTO TO WALL ART

                     

I've been inspired by the photos of a long time friend, Doris Kramer-Sager, specifically those of Wisconsin sunsets.  After promising myself for ages, this week I set about translating one into a small art quilt.

 The first step was to dye-paint a piece of sheer fabric.....

 ......and pair it with an ice-dyed cotton sateen.  (photo not true color....it's reads more red, rather than pinkish.)

 A non-fusible interfacing square was basted to the two fabrics to act as a stabilizer.

 All the layers are now prepared for stitching....with a wide border to accommodate mounting on a frame.

 I don't draw so this step took quite awhile....but with pencil and eraser in hand, I sketched out three trees on tracing paper.  It was pinned to the prepared fabric to act as a guide for the machine stitching.

 It took me one complete Netflix movie to remove & pick out all the paper pieces!  This could have been avoided if the stitching was done from the wrong side, with the heavier embroidery thread in the bobbin.  However, my brain doesn't work that way...preferring to see the stitching on the right side as I work instead.  

Next it was wrapped on a canvas covered wood frame.  I like to finish the back of these pieces with fabric. Hand stitching it in place is a killer task on the fingers since there is no give to manipulate the needle.  But, I feel the polished appearance of the piece is worth it.

SHEBOYGAN SUNSET

8" X 8"

Artist ice-dyed cotton sateen with hand dye-painted sheer overlay.  Machine stitched. Prepared for hanging.

Linking with:  Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday & Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday.