Hot, Hot, Hot

We are having one of the hottest summers on record here, and severe drought conditions.  Tempuratures have been in the 90's every day in July so far and a few days over 100 degrees.   We have had very little rain in the last 8 weeks,.  The one day it did rain, I was waiting in line to check out at Michaels and everyone around me started screaming and running to the front windows to see the rain, everyone was just so excited, it was crazy, but we hadn't seen rain in so long it was an exciting event.  The sad part about this is that a lot of the farmers around here raise corn and much of the crop this year is going to be lost because of the weather.  My daughter's fiance however has sweet corn ready, and it is so, so good.  There are not as many ears as usual, and the ears are much smaller than normal and not filled out well BUT it still tastes amazing.  Around here, this time of year we eat sweet corn a LOT, freshly picked it is so sweet and yummy.  Not anything like what the grocery store carries as sweet corn.  Usually, we would pick and freeze 12 to 14 dozen ears of corn to have throughout the next year.  This year we were only able to get about 5 dozen decent ears to freeze, but thats OK. 

I always cook the corn in the husk in the oven, that way you can do about 2 dozen at once.  Then let it cool a bit and shuck it, the jacket and silks all come off easily since corn has steamed inside the husk.  Then we cut the corn off the ear, put it into freezer bags and freeze it.  I also have a tool to cut the corn off the ear which works pretty well. 

My daughter Kelly's fiance Doug also plants fields (yes fields! usually 3 or 4)  of sunflowers every summer.  It is such an amazing sight.  So she and Doug had their engagement pics done at the height of the sunflowers.  I will post some of the pics later, they turned out really well.  The photographer loved the sunfower fields.

Amazingly the heat and drought have not affected the sunflowers.  They are shortlived however, only at their peak for a week to 10 days, then they all turn dark brown and start falling over.   I should add that these pics are from last year, this year that corn in the field behind the sunflowers is barely half as tall, and mostly brown.

It is always so amazing to me that they all face towards the sun., and the flowers are so huge, just makes you smile.

Every year I take pictures of them.  Someday I am going to make a sunflower inspired quilt.  Not gonna happen this year though, way too busy with all the wedding plans.  Kelly and Doug got engaged on May 31st and the wedding is planned for October 20, 2012!  And my daughter has all kinds of ideas and plans for cute vintage burlap table runners (to be sewn by Mom), galvanized buckets with burlap printed numbers and dried flowers in them arranged by Mom, an album quilt with each guest at the bridal shower signing a center block, (my idea), cute homemade invitations with burlap and scrapbooking paper ....  so yeah we are keeping busy around here.

Thanks for stopping by hope you are enjoying your summer!

Details

I thought I would show some detail shots of some of my paintings.  With the oil and wax techniques there is a lot of texture on the surface that gets lost in pictures.  Hopefully the detail shots will give you a better feel for the layering of color, and surface texture. 

This is a close-up of a small corner of the painting October.  I love the rich colors of it and also most of the linear parts of this detail is raised from the surface of the painting.

This is a detail of a small painting called Wall.  Once again you can see some of the raised and indented texture on the surface of the painting.   I use different things such as stamping texture plates, letter press numbers, whisk broom, netting, cardboard, notched trowels, bamboo skewers....  this is just a few of the "tools" I use to get texture into the painting.

I also use oil paint sticks to make marks within the layers of the painting.  And depending on the surface they can be very bold as in this painting above called Structure, or more soft as in the detail below.

And lastly a detail of one of my shibori quilts called Ebb and Flow it is machine pieced and hand quilted.

Somehow the texture and colors of the quilt seems similar to the paintings even though they are completely different media.  I am always so drawn to these beautiful soft earthtone colors and the linear textures of water, trees and sky.

Hope you enjoyed my detail shots, any questions please don't hesitate to contact me. 

A Quick Visit

My daughter Alyssa and her husband Matt and Ethan and Cora stopped for a quick lunch and visit on their way to Michigan (they live an hour away).  Every year they go to Michigan and stay at a place on the beach near Grand Haven with some of Matt's family.  This is Cora, she just turned 2, and while she is so sweet in this pic, that is not always the case - she has her tantrum moments now and then :>).

This is Ethan and Cora, Ethan is 3 1/2 and as you can see here a sweet big brother who picked some flowers for Grammy.  Yes, they are weeds, but to Ethan they were beautiful flowers, and in his little bouquet they are very pretty!  I loved getting to see them even though it was short visit.

My New Favorite Skirt

I love my new skirt.  The skirt pattern and the design of the leaves is from the Alabama Chanin book "Alabama Stitch Style".  I first saw some of these designs on the blog of www.stitchedincolor.com and I was intrigued.  I have always loved hand stitching and applique so I decided I would like to try a simple skirt.    I really liked the leaf design and there was a stencil included in the book that I could use without having to cut my own. 

This is a close-up of the design.  The process involves using t-shirt fabric (new or recycled, mine is recycled) to stencil the design on, and then you layer black t-shirt fabric behind and stitch around the steciled paint design and then you cut out the center of the design.  This is actually like traditional reverse applique.  I love the designs and stitching, but I really don't like all the prep work of cutting and doing the stenciling first.  BTW, there are different samples in the book showing with or without knots and tails showing.  I decided to go with leaving the knots and tails on the outside.  At first I didn't like it, but they have kind of grown on me. 



I used a t-shirt but it started out light blue and I overdyed it with an indigo blue.  I used a turquoise blue paint for the stenciling, to give some contrast.  Then the background fabric is a black t-shirt.  All of the stitching is done with heavy button and craft thread (as recommended in the book).

The book puts together all of the panels of the skirt with hand stitching.  I opted to machine stitch the panels together with the seam allowances to the inside but then felled the seam allowance with hand stitching.  After I got the skirt done and wore it once I really wished it had a pocket.  Then I realized I had taken a pocket off the t shirt before I cut out the skirt, so I stitched the pocket on up at the waist with a blanket stitch, and it is the perfect size for my iphone or keys.  The skirt is also so comfy to wear. 

I already have plans to do another skirt, but haven't found the perfect t-shirts yet.  If you are interested in this style check out the website www.alabamachanin.com they have everything you need for diy or they have already made clothes which are pricey but are also great for inspiration.

My Art Show

I am finally getting some pictures posted of my art show.  The opening was on May 11, 2012, at a local gallery run by the Tippecanoe Arts Feceration.  It was a busy night as it was a downtown gallery walk, so over 350 people attended the opening.  My show consisted of quilts that I have made using shibori techniques for dyeing all of the fabrics used, and paintings that I have done that are abstract, using oil and wax techniques.

Here are some pics of the gallery and me feeling very nervous right before the opening started.

Quilt of shibori dyed fabric titled "Late Afternoon"

Paintings and a quilt at the upper left.

The show also included a few pillows and hand dyed scarves

This painting was a favorite of viewers called "Hot Flash"  it sold fairly early in the evening.

Painting entitled "Passage"

Pieced quilt of hand dyed fabrics "Early Spring"  and 3 oil and wax paintings.

Another quilts of shibori dyed fabrics

This painting was also a favorite of viewers called "Summer Day"

The show ended on June 15, but it was a success.  I sold 6 paintings and 2 of my hand dyed scarves!  I was very happy with the response, especially since my oil and wax paintings were all new work.  And if you see any paintings or quilts you are interested in purchasing please email me.  Many are still available. 


Thanks to my daughter Kelly for all of the great pictures.  She worked very hard the day before and the night of the opening helping me with hanging things, and food, and pictures...  I really appreciate it Kelly!

Contemporary baby quilt

June 11, 2012

Here are pics of the baby quilt my friend Rissa made while we were at the lake back in April (wow time has flown by since then).  It is for a young couple she knows that loves contemporary design.  They had requested salmon and grays.  We had some difficulty finding those colors in contemporary, but also good for a baby quilt, type prints.  All in all I think these prints all look great.

It turns out the Michael Miller orange and gray dot (just below the center of the quilt in the pic below)  which was from my stash was a perfect complement to her prints so we swithched out one of the prints she had bought for my dot.  I think it is so cute in the quilt and adds some deeper colors to the overall mix.  Rissa used the black and gray dot stripe as the focal point down the middle of the quilt and on the back.

I love how the quilt turned out.  She decided to machine quilt it with meandering parallel lines.  I think it adds a great soft touch to all of the straight lines of the piecing.  Rissa sent the quilt to her friend Amy and her husband as they live in Texsas.  It just so happened I was with Rissa the day Amy got the quilt, and then called Rissa screaming with excitement over how perfect the quilt was.  She was so excited, and Rissa of course was thrilled. 

Hexagon quilt is basted!

My friend Rissa and I spent a few days at our lake house and each of us worked on quilt projects.  The weather was quite cold when we were there, which was frustrating since we have had such a gorgeous warm spring.  Here's a pic of the redbud overlooking the lake.  The lake (which is a flood control lake) is at winter pool, which means it is 22 feet below normal (summer) pool.

 I worked on getting borders on the hexagon quilt and making the backing and getting it basted.  It was quite a project as the quilt with the borders is now 82" x 93" .  I ended up using the white on white dots from the Bliss line of fabrics by Bonnie and Camille.  I am a lover of dots and have collected all of the dots from this line (I love all colorways of it).  But I especially loved the white on white dots, I had been stashing the white on white for a year or so, buying them every time I saw them.  So I had 3 seperate pieces of what I thought would be big enough, but because I had cut small pieces out of them I had just barely enough to do the backing with 2 full widths of the fabric Whew!  I really love it on the back. 

 

This is an Iphone pic so the white looks a bit pink! 

Rissa helped me lay it all out and I spray basted the layers together.  Even with the two of us working it was a big job.  But it is all together and ready to be quilted.  I am planning to machine quilt it with a free motion flower design.  Hopefully it will highlight the hexagon "flowers". 

We had a nice relaxing few days away and got a lot accomplished.  Rissa made a super cute contemporary quilt.  I will share that on another post.  Here is a pic of a beautiful wildflower from the woods at the lake.   I do love this time of the year with all of the beautiful flowers and trees.