PTA GOES SCRAPPY

Our Professional Fiber Artist group (PTA) met at member Janice's house this month for our usual food and friendship fest.

 We began with show and tell......I tried using my iphone this time with pitiful results....so I'm only sharing two projects.  The first here is Gen's completed quilt which began at our March PTA retreat.  For the last couple of years, 3 of us have done 'planned' scrap quilts....precutting patches and all sharing to provide diversity in the quilts.  Gen made it 4 this year to this method and we all agree her quilt is fabulous.

 Judy Simmons continues to create the most charming small pieces with a variety of printing techniques.

This vintage photo(a family member of her husband) was featured on her piece.   

This month we decided to sew up some lap quilts to donate to our Asheville Quilt Guild. We all came to our meeting with 9 patch blocks which were divided into piles of 4.

 Each block contained 6" cut patches.....4 white/beige - 4 colorful patches - & a black print in the center.  They were then sliced down the center, vertically and horizontally.

 ......and arranged into 4 quilt tops (two of them are shown here)  We stitched them together.  Backs were made for each.  Several members volunteered to machine quilt them at home.  I gladly will do the bindings. 

It was a fun and productive day for a very good cause......

WHOLECLOTH QUILTS

I apologize for the poor photos......it's certainly not the way I wish to show off my work nor probably as easy to sell these pieces.....but after spending 2 hours trying to get better photos I simply had to select the best of the worst.  Hopefully, you will 'see' their merits anyway!

 Cattails  19" x 10.5"

Hand-dyed cotton by Primrose Gradations, hand stipple quilted, traputo and glass beads.  Original design by Mary Stori

$125

 Detail - color is more true in full size photo

Here's a view of all three whole-cloth quilts that are available....note this is the backside of Cattails.....the texture is even visible on this side!

Wild Flower   20" x 12"

Hand-dyed cotton by Primrose Gradations, hand stipple quilted, traputo, hand embroidery.  Original design by Mary Stori

$125

 Detail - color is more true in full size photo

ANOTHER COVER QUILT FOR SALE

Hand quilting....who doesn't love the look?  

I LOVE to hand quilt and have taught the techniques/tricks/and how-to's for 25 years.  Patiently creating hand stipple quilted and trapunto whole cloth wall quilts is my favorite style.  The results can be both simplistic and yet complex with the incredible texture that develops from these tiny stitches.

Since I'm in the 'move it out' phase of my quilt collection (and living in a home with very few walls to display).....I'll be posting several here and on my blogshop that are for sale.

I was honored that Spring Green 20" x 11" was selected as the cover quilt for Rodale's Hand Quilting Book.

....and featured in it as well.  I've showing several versions here since photographing whole cloth quilts without the proper equipment is nearly impossible.  This overview should be helpful to any collector who may be interested.

SPRING GREEN   20" X 11"  

The fern design was designed by Mary and was one of her many wholecloth stencils manufactured by Quilting Creations. 

$225 (shipping included)

The quilt features tiny quilt stitches, hand embroidery, and glass beads.

MEADOW FLOWERS

The last couple of weeks I've been spring cleaning/organizing/tackling projects I've put off....you get the picture.....

My travel teaching of 25+ years will be concluding at the end of 2014.....so if you have a group that might be interested in my presentations before then....do contact me.

Several especially important quilts have had a short list of interested buyers and I've been contacting them as I slowly reduce my inventory of quilts that have had many publication credits.

Author's are usually advised to retain their 'cover quilts'......and I've struggled with that decision for 'Meadow Flowers'. (Cover quilt for "Beading Basics".)  In the end however, I knew Olivia S. would cherish it as much as I do.  So, it will now be living in PA.

Watch for upcoming posts where I will be offering numerous other embellished pieces for the first time.

Another 'to-do' item, hopefully this week, will be to reorganize my blog shop  to enable viewers to visit the currently for sale items first, rather than having to scroll through both the for sale and sold work at once. Oh I do wish I had a teenager living in the house who could tackle this for me!!

In the meantime....I'm stitching away on the embellished wool wall piece that had me all in a twit about a week ago.  I believe the design problem has finally been solved.  Stay tuned.....and thanks for being a follower of this blog....it's good to know you are out there otherwise I'd be worried about talking to myself!

Meadow Flowers   © 2002 Mary Stori

18" x 15"

SERIOUSLY??

Oh honestly, just when you think you've seen it all here in rural mountain NC.......

I feared the truck was going to tip over any minute as it rounded each sharp turn, up and down our steep roads.....

FOLDING CHAIR TRAVEL POUCHES

This week has been full of household chores......so my sewing projects are taking a back seat!!  I spent an entire day shampooing our carpets but they still look terrible so I'm pretty bummed about that waste of time.  It's time for a professional.....dog = husband = more than I can clean!

Then our internet has been acting up.....I don't need to tell anyone with a computer how frustrating that can be....every provider blames the problem on someone else's equipment or service!!!!  Grrrrrr.....  So....another day was wasted.  And it turned costly too as we ended up having to purchase yet another piece of equipment for our already super complicated audio/video set up. Seriously the only thing I can do is turn on the TV......I have no clue how to watch a DVD, live stream, play a movie from the ipad, listen to music.....we have a universal remote but often need one of the other 12 remotes to make all these componets work.  To make things worse, quality/fast/reliable internet is NOT the norm here in the mountains....there's no cable here.

Then yesterday half my day was frittered away by attempting to refinish two small strips of hardwood flooring that were discolored from water damage due to leaky door trim...which is now fixed.  I've stripped tons of furniture in my day.....I was sure I could do this.....  I won't bore you with the gory details.....but will say...the flooring now looks worse and I scratched up the wood moulding in those areas and had to sand it and repaint......double grrrr!

Sorry...I'm venting.....I feel slightly better but perhaps you aren't now!!

I'm in the middle of another less than exciting project....and due to the lack of anything really inspiring to share.....I thought I'd give you another look at my life.  We ALL have these times when our creativity needs to take a side step and this is mine...so if you are going through this too.....know you aren't alone.

 We go to a lot car races throughout the year. (Frankly, even one is one too many for me.) Not NASCAR, rather we attend the LeMan's and the Grand Am series...which can feature really, really long races. These are a min. of 2 but usually 3 day events.....boring...... 

"The husband" was dissatisfied with the way our old folding chairs fit in our car so he purchased new ones.  But of course they didn't come in a carrier.....but couldn't I make one for each chair??  It can't be that difficult can it?  (says he).....

Well of course it's not hard.....just not that much fun......so here I go......

I'm making simple pouches with Velcro closure at the top....and I will add some strap handles to make carting them around easier....

Naturally, racing fans need to have everything 'branded'......so each will have a patch sewn on....do you hear me sighing???

YO YO BASKET QUILT

Years ago, Mary Berry won a set of yo yo basket blocks at the Asheville Quilt Guild's block of the month exchange. These blocks found their way to our PTA Fiber Group's annual white elephant exchange at our Christmas party.  

I was the recipient of the blocks and before I knew it......our group decided to put them together as a donation quilt.  It was a perfect solution!!

 This quilt has been kicking around for awhile after the top was pieced at one of our meeting days.  And....now it's been machine quilted by several members. I volunteered to do the binding and sleeve.....tasks I actually enjoy.

 It's now complete...excuse my poor photography....I don't have a good place to photograph such a large piece.......but I think you'll get the idea...

.....and here's a detail......  How many of you have blocks stuck away that you've been meaning to set into a top?  May I suggest....make a play date with girlfriends and get it done!!!!  It's such a great feeling.

ONE LAST SUN PRINTING POST

My friend Kay (and excellent dyer) over at Quilts + Color sent me her take on why our sun printing might not have worked.  I know my fabric was sopping wet so I don't think it applied to me, however it's as good a reason as any we thought of!!!

My possible take on your disappointment with the sun printing…….

I am thinking because the temperatures were warm the whole area may have gotten warm enough to dry the paint almost equally and so there was no color migrating out from under the things you put on it.

I have found the sun is NOT necessary to get the effect……my granddaughter and I did it in my studio late one evening and in the morning we had the clearest prints ever.

It’s just the fact that the color can’t dry under the objects so it migrates out.

Someone recently did an experiment and found it worked with a lot of types of paint and found out craft paints work equally as well, although they DO change the hand of the fabric.not a problem if you are making wall quilts, etc.

 To wind up this subject....here are the only two cotton pieces I sun printed.  This one shows the front.....with slight impressions of the sticks I had placed on top. 

 Here's the back side which had been drying on black top.....much more interesting!!!

 The front of another cotton piece....the only thing that printed at all was a metal wheel sort of thing in the upper left....the other metal objects didn't print at all.

But, I'm lovin' the back of this piece...which had dried on cardboard!  

So, I conclude this venture with fond memories of a day hanging with the Fiber Junkies.....we are in deep discussions about what the subject of our June experiment day will be.  I'm now going to focus the rest of my week to other more productive projects....grinning......

MORE SUN PRINTING

Here's more photos from our Fiber Junkies day of sun printing.  A big thank you  dear followers for the many suggestions that have come my way.  Yes, we did use translucent paint.  Mixed 2/1 as recommended...we tried equal parts water as well (after it didn't work well) and began on both damp, dry, and PFD and non PFD fabrics......

We recognize now that heavier, flat objects gave us the best of the worst prints. (and knew it at the time but tried to push the envelope anyway)

 This is another one of my experiments working with felted wool....after just painting it from a damp state.

 Button were added.

 Here it is dry......yes, faintly some of the images are visible.  I am not terribly bummed about the less than wonderful results with the felt......I wasn't sure it would work anyway so my expectations were in check!

 We all had sun printing envy over Val's pieces.  As we all totally have garage envy over her 'wet space' each time we visit her house!!  Here she used a plastic doily to get these good results.

AND...here goes our 'excuse'.....she used a lightweight fern and still got a good print.

Now that my pieces are home and heat seat, I'll take a few more photos to share tomorrow....

FIBER JUNKIES SUN PRINTING

Summer arrived just in time for our Fiber Junkies sun printing day.  The sun and heat were totally on our side.....but the sun printing gods did not shine on our results.  We are all totally puzzled why we didn't have better success...though I am blaming it on our altitude.  I KNOW that isn't really the case but it makes as much sense as anything we could think of!

 We started with all the proper paints, a variety of fabric choices, a hot blacktop driveway, plenty of sun, and great enthusiasm.

 I chose to work with some wool that I felted.....just to see what results I'd achieve.  After wetting the felt, the paint was slopped on using foam brushes.....

....until it looked like this.

 The painted felt was placed in the sun and covered with a piece of non-slip rug padding that I cut a pattern into.  It sat, and sat, and sat....FINALLY....it dried......and when I removed the padding piece.....drat....it looked nearly the same as the photo above this one.   

We had painted fabric everywhere....surely there were going to be wonderful surprises to come.

  I had several pieces of felt and my hopes were still high.....so I eagerly continued painting.....

 Here I used sticky paper labels and salt.

Though I'm realizing now this isn't a very good photo......it is the best felted piece I did with the most visual results.

More to come tomorrow.....