More Round Robin Pages

It's been a while since I've had a chance to post anything. Our art quilt group met last Friday. I took 2 weeks worth of pictures since I missed the meeting 3 weeks ago.

This one is Lynn's page for "Art Paper Dolls"
and the other side. I'm not really sure which is the front and which is the back.

This is Marilyn's page for "Art Paper Dolls"
and the back.

GeriAnn's page for Marilyn's "Techniques" book.
Carmen's Page for the "Techniques" book. She experimented with foiling.

Carmen's page for my "Nature" book. I think she used Shiva paint sticks for the leaves.
Lynn's,Ice Out, page for my "Nature" book. After we had some of Marilyn's delicious desserts (she made 2!), we played with Shiva paint sticks. I'm not sure if I really like them or not.

Next meeting we will get our own books back and then we get to figure out how we want to put them together.

We've been thinking about making fairy houses for our next project. This would not be a round robin but we each would make our own. We've have talked about doing something that was more 3-d.

Vacation

My vacation is almost over. I go back to work tomorrow.
Kara is now an official driver. We went up to Twin Mountain (up in the middle of no where) Monday and Tuesday. It was so busy Monday that all she was able to do was take the written test. We would have had to wait 4 hours for her to take the driving test. We decided to come back Monday morning with an appointment at 10. It didn't take too long for her to take the test and get her license.
Thursday we went to Fun Spot. This was Alex's day out. Fun Spot is an arcade and bowling alley. Afterwards we went out to eat.
I didn't get much quilting done. I just didn't feel like it and decided maybe I just needed to take a break and relax. I did get this page done for GeriAnn's "Art Paper Dolls" book. This was harder than the others. I don't do alot of stuff with people or dolls. I'll probably have a hard time with the next page I will be working on. I get Sue's "Personal Goddesses" book next.

Yesterday, I went to Canterbury to Jane Balshaw's studio for her Coloring Fabric Workshop. I had a nice relaxing day. This was my day out for vacation. It was interesting learning about her color theory and seeing her work in her studio.

Spring is FINALLY here! (I think)

It sure has been crazy since I last posted. I had last Monday off and that was when we had the 3rd big storm of April. This last storm was mosty wind and rain. I've never seen the wind blow as hard as it did then. We were lucky we didn't lose any trees or lose the power for very long. There were some who went without power for most of the week. The high school lost the roof on the north wing of the building so Kara didn't have school all week. Alex didn't think that was fair. This week is spring vacation so hopefully the high school will be open when vacation ends.



We also found out that our dog, Ginger, has heartworm. Most likely she picked it up in Arkansas before we adopted her. She tested negative last fall when we had her checked out after we got her and she's been on preventative since then. She spent a day and a half at the vets getting shots to kill the adult heartworms. Now the big thing is to keep her quiet for 4-6 weeks. Ginger doesn't know the meaning of the work quiet. I don't think she understands why we won't play with her. She keeps bringing her tennis ball to us to throw.



I wasn't able to make it to the art quilt group last Friday so I missed seeing all the round robin book pages. This is the one that I made for Carmen's "In the Woods" book. I used pictures of trillium that I have taken around our house. I have GeriAnn's Art Paper Doll book now. Just have to pick it up from Carmen. Will try to get it finished this week while I have the time. I'm also hoping to get alot done on my journal quilt. I hope that I can get some dyeing and other things done in between doing stuff with the kids.

I have to take Kara to take her driving test. It will be nice when she gets her drivers liscence. Alex wants to go to Fun Spot, a local arcade and bowling alley. I'm the one who has to take Alex to Fun Spot since the lights there can set off Gary's epilepsy.

Where's Spring?

It's hard to believe that it is the middle of April. We have had another foot of snow and we are supossed to get another storm on Monday. This was taken this morning.

Here's the last batch of postcards for my Art2Mail swap. I took the pictures at night so most of the cards appear darker than they really are.

This was one of my favorites. I really wanted to keep it for myself. The water really looks more interesting in person.

New Books

I've been telling myself that I need to stop buying so many books. I have enough! Well, look what I couldn't resist. The 1000 Artists Trading Cards I decided to buy after finding out that I have an ATC in it. I had no idea. It's really cool to have something in a book like this. So I just had to buy it! My mom also split the cost with me, so that was added incentive!

I didn't take any pictures of the card I sent in to the Quilting Arts office for the one on one swap but this card was made in the same batch and is very similar to it.

The second book, Landscape in Contemporary Quilts, caught my eye the first time I saw it but I kept telling myself that I didn't need it. I also really like to see a book in person before I buy it. After seeing a better description of it on Joggles web site and seeing it mentioned on 3-4 blogs, all with great reviews, I decided to go ahead and buy it. I'm really glad I did! Ineke Berlyn has done a really great job with this book. Ineke combines quilting and embroidery in the UK tradition. She also talks about using and keeping sketchbooks for developing your ideas. There are lots of great pictures for inspiration! I had to hold myself back from sarting a new landscape project. I have too many things to finish as it is.

Round Robins Pages

Yesterday our art quilt group met and exchanged round robin book pages. I don't remember what each piece is called but I think I remember who did each piece.
This is my page for Lynn's "Sky" book. I started a different one but Thursday, I messed it up and had to start over! Talk about frustrating! I like the way the ocean came out with cheesecloth over the blue fabric.

This is GeriAnn's page for my "Nature" book.

Susan's page for my book. The pictures don't do these pages justice!

This is Susan's page for Marilyn's "Techniques" book.

Marilyn's page for Carmen's "In the Woods" book. I have Carmen's book now to work on. I have an idea for it and hope I can actually do it.

This is the first of Susan's book that I've been able to post since it went directly from Susan to GeriAnn in Mass. Susan's theme is (if I remember right) "Personal Godesses". This is Susan's

and GeriAnn's. There are little doors that I had trouble getting to stay open so I could get a picture.

Carmen's biker goddess. I forget what the actual name is. Carmen and her husband like to go out on their motorcycles.
Lynn has her page for GeriAnn's book started but wasn't able to finish it up due to being sick.

GeriAnn, I hope you enjoyed this round of the books. I hope you will get to see all of these in person. They really look so much nicer since you can see all the little details!

New Hampshire Spring

Typical New Hampshire spring - you never know what to expect! This is what we woke up to this morning. We had over a foot of heavy wet snow. Good thing I didn't have to go to work at 5:30 this morning - I never would have made it out our driveway!

I just had to take a picture of the bird house. Looks like it is wearing a wig! I have no idea how the little bit of snow on the tiny perch is staying at that angle.

I love how the trees look with the snow outlining the limbs. The pictures I took really don't show the trees really well. There is no school today, so both kids are happy. Alex because he doesn't have to go to school and Kara because it gives her an extra day to get makeup work done from when she was home sick.

I won't be able to get all the stuff done that I had planned for the day. I do need to finish the book page for the round robin done since we are meeting tomorrow. I would have thought Lynn's "Sky" theme would have been easy but I had a lot of trouble coming up with something that I liked.

I have been working on my journal quilt project. Part of the problem is I want to be working on that and not work on other things I need to get done. Oh, well.

My Brain is Mush

I started working on a new piece today. I got alot done and I really want to keep working on it but my brain has quit working so I'm done. I wish I could post it here and get some opinions but it is my entry for the journal quilts.

I do have these pieces of fabric that I made. The smaller one on the bottom was made last week. I thought I was going to use that fabric design as part of my journal quilt and made this bigger piece with the gold leaves. I also monoprinted and painted a bunch of other fabrics and when I was playing around with them I ended up likeing the way some other pieces were comeing together better.
The piece I'm working on for my journal quilt is completely out of my usual color palette and style but I really like the way it is looking. We'll see what I think tomorrow when my brain is not mush!!

I really like this piece of fabric. I'll just have to think of something to do with it.

Guess I forgot to crop this one. Oh, well!!

Housework? What Housework??

I spent most of this afternoon, making monoprints and painting fabric instead of doing housework. Since I liked the way my stamps came out the other day, I made these stamps out of Fun Foam and styrofoam meat trays today. I haven't used them on the fabric I painted but I did try them out on another piece I started the other day. I just wanted to see what they looked like.

I really like how easy it is to make the stamps with the fun foam. I don't have any pictures of the fabric I made today. I'm waiting until I get the stamping done. Maybe Monday when I have another day off. Maybe I'll skip housework that day too!!!

GeriAnn - This Post is for You!

The quilt art group I'm in, met yesterday. We had a good time, as usual. This was our second exchange of our round robin books. GeriAnn, lives in Massachusetts and is part of our exchange, so I'm posting all our books so she can have the fun of seeing them each time.

This first one, is Lynn Elkinton's book. Her theme is SKY. This is her cover and her page for the book.

This is Marilyn's page for the book. I just love the colors in this! Marilyn used a piece of Micki Lawler's fabric for the sky.

This is what Marilyn did to the back of her sky page. I have the sky book to work on the next 2 weeks. Don't know what I'm going to do yet.

This next one, is Carmen's book, In The Woods. I mixed up the pictures. The first one is Lynn's page. She used her Embellisher to make the picture of the chipmunk.

This is Carmen's page for her book

This is GeriAnn's page for her book, Art Paper Dolls.

Carmen's page for GeriAnn's book.

This is Marilyn's page for her book, Techniques. I forget exactly how she made this. I think it's a print from a transparency that she made in a class.
Finally, this is mine for Marilyn's book, which I've already shown in the last post.

Round Robin Book Page

Today I worked on my page for Marilyn's round robin book. Her theme is techniques. I took a piece of fabric that I had sponge painted with blue and then painted over with a green wash. Then I stamped on the checkerboards and on top of that I stamped on the leaves. I machine stitched the outline of the leaves and the veins.
Since I didn't have stencils or stamps of the shapes I wanted, I made my own stamps. For the checkerboards, I took foam shapes with sticky tape on the back and stuck them onto a styrofoam meat tray in the pattern I wanted. For the leaves, I cut the shape out of a styrofoam meat tray and made the lines for the veins with a pen.
These were fun new techniques to try. I would like to do more surface design on my fabrics.
I just need to learn to let go and not over think things too much. Have more fun and not worry about making mistakes or ruining a piece of cloth.

I didn't even think. I should have taken a picture of another piece I worked on today that started with a monoprint of some leaves. The monoprint was fun to do. I need (or should I say want) to play around with more monoprinting.

One could get caught up in Painting, dyeing and playing with making your own fabric that you don't get anything made from it!!

Postcards

I finally finished the 5 postcards for the swap I'm in. I had a really big block and finally went to my scrap bag and started pulling pieces out. Once I started pulling pieces out, they started going together fairly easy. I did end up falling back on my leaf shapes. Oh, well, I like leaves.

Round Robin Page

This is the page I made for my round robin book. I decided to go with a nature theme. This is more abstract than anything that I've done before. For inspiration, I used the woods around our house. Our yard is surounded by woods and we don't have grass but there are areas that are greener. We also have old stumps that are rotting away where we cut down trees to make a clearing around the house. I used pieces of birch bark to represent these trees.
My daughter, Kara, found a huge piece of birch bark on the ground in the woods. I've used pieces of it in a couple of projects now.
Friday is our art quilt group. Can't wait to see what everyone else has done and what they have picked for their themes. I just need to find something to put this in so the pieces don't get lost in all the exchanges.

Projects On Hold

I haven't had time to work on this flower piece lately or the soy silk landscape.
On this piece, I did get the flowers and leaves fused down and machine stitched. I have started to add some hand embroidered flowers.
On the landscape, I added some cheesecloth and a tree. I don't have a picture of that yet.

Here is a close-up of the flowers.

Instead of working on these lately, I've had to work on a couple of projects that have deadlines coming up. One is a round robin book for my art quilt group. We decided to do a book for our round robin this year. each of us has to decide on a theme, size and format for our book. For this first meeting we have to have the page for our own book done. We decided to do either a folded type of book or a scroll type of book so that we would be able to display them at our next exhibit (where ever or when ever that will be). I'm not done with my page, so I don't have a picture yet. I decided to do a nature themed and my pages are 9"h x 6"w. I cut out pieces of peltex for everyone to use so that the pages will be stiff enough to stand up when I put it together. I'm doing the folded book but I'm not exactly sure how I will put it all together. I'll deal with that later.

I also have to get 5 postcards done by the 15 for the exchange I'm in.

This time of year I usually have more time to work on my projects since work is slow but this year my manager has been able to give me 40 hours a week. Shouldn't complain since I really do need the extra hours!

Bonnie McCaffery has a new VidCast on the New Zealand Quilt Symposium 2007. It is really good. I love seeing what quilters are doing in other countries and quilts from Australia and New Zealand always seem to catch my eye.