What I've Been Doing

First, let me say thank you to all who have visited my blog and left lovely comments since I posted about my fabric give-away. I have been trying to reply to each commenter by e-mail, but have found that I do not have the e-mail addresses for quite a few. When I try to reply, the address for the commenter comes up as noreply-comment@blogger.com. On my last give-away, I had to redraw a name because I could not contact one of the winners. So, I hope you will read the post announcing the winners next Wednesday or Thursday.

When I have not been on the computer answering e-mails, I have been doing some quilty things.

Just a couple days after I went with Mary and two others to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, Mary hosted the Anything Art bee at her house. I love to go to Mary's and look at her lovely lake view. One of those geese near the shoreline has a broken wing, and the pair stays there all the time.

Mary had planned a hands-on activity for us. For our first round of meetings, we have tried different products or techniques. The product this time? Plaster-of-Paris! She had a stencil cut from freezer paper reinforced with masking tape. The design was a little pitcher. We taped the freezer paper stencil to our project, and applied the mixed plaster thinly with a credit card, scraping it across the stencil design. We also added a bit of plaster across a masking tape to form a table edge.

On mine, I added some impressions with a wooden skewer. I will probably paint the pitcher to make it look like graniteware or spatterware.

Notice my background: having just finished a month of Pamela Allen art quilt lessons, I dutifully constructed my background from a light, medium, and dark fabric, stitched down with embroidery floss. My project will be different from the vase of flowers in the project guide, since I have such a big space and such a little pitcher. I think it will become a still life with other objects like fruit, perhaps, on the table. And I will be sure that some of the stems or objects extend beyond the frame. See, Pamela, I've been listening...

During the week, I finished quilting two more charity quilts, and started a customer quilt. If I have not done any long-arming for awhile, I like to "warm up" with these charity quilts. The first one is a very pretty watercolor style quilt that I agreed to quilt for guild and CyberBee member Doris.

I think that someone else donated two small quilt tops, and Doris joined them together, adding a border. I have always loved watercolor quilts, have made several of them, and decided that this one deserved some flowery quilting. It will be donated to the Safe Child of Raleigh organization. They provide quilts to the children in a family counseling program dedicated to preventing child abuse. That is a cause dear to my heart. Capital Quilters Guild provides the quilts, and sometimes also participates in their fund-raising auctions.

The second charity quilt is another Quilt-on-Wheels, made by Marilyn from a kit I put together with donated fabrics. This one again has homey plaids and a woodsy-theme novelty print.

I decided to try a free-motion meander with pine-needles and a few pine cones. It came out okay, but would have been more effective with a dark green thread. Sometimes on charity quilts I just use whatever thread is already on the machine if it coordinates, or if I have a few bobbins left.

Last night was my local quilt bee meeting at a different Mary's house. I almost always take my camera, and forget to get it out to take pictures. But I was so struck by this little quilt of Sharon's that I got out the camera. I have edited and saved and uploaded this picture twice, and Blogger insists on displaying it sideways.

Sharon cut up a panel design and placed it in an asymmetrical frame of pieced blocks. She used a Lazy Angle tool to cut the triangle shapes for the cream and purple blocks. I love the way the bright rose color pops against the more sedate, cool greens and creams. She designed the whole quilt. Great job! I am going to be looking at panel fabrics in a new way.

This weekend I am attending a birthday party, visiting my sister, and playing with her grand-babies. Can't wait!