Group Comfort Quilt

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you may know that I have participated in two online classes with quilt artist Pamela Allen. After the first one, Think Like an Artist, many of us in the group begged for another session. Quite a few of us stayed together for the second class, Still Life is Boring- Not! These were very active e-mail groups, posting pics and critiques and continuing to correspond by e-mail and blogs.



During this year's class, one of our members had a tragic death in the family of a beloved baby grandson. Some of us contributed blocks to make a "comfort quilt." Originally, some one suggested nine patch blocks, but Pamela herself suggested that we contribute art quilt blocks instead. The result is quite amazing. Linda Jacks assembled and quilted the blocks and it is ready to mail to Norway. I think it is okay to post the picture, since the recipient has already seen the photograph.

For Synnove, with love

Wednesday WIP- Trash to Treasure?

Does anyone remember my "Creative Challenge" project that started with a black trash bag and torn strips of colored plastic bags? I had to put it aside for awhile, but have now finished all the steps detailed in the challenge instructions. I started with two large pieces, but have cut them into more manageable sizes. It is surprising to see how pretty they look. The last step was to fill in the holes with the gold wrappers from Ferrero-Rocher chocolates. Since I am thinking of making a purse for the North Carolina Quilt Symposium "Purse-on-ality"challenge with mine, I decided to use the quilters' gold lame for the centers. I fused it to a piece of cotton before sewing to keep it from fraying. On this piece, I stitched around the centers and made flower shapes from a thick black thread.

I started out trying some of the jewel-colored threads for the flowers, but they did not show up against the rainbow organza. I stayed with black after that.

You know me, I get tired of doing the same thing over and over. On this large piece which will probably become the purse, I added a layer of Angelina fibers over the gold lame. Except for one center which I made from a piece of some stretchy, shiny purple polyester that I have had for years.


And, this one is postcard-size and uses the actual Ferrero-Rocher wrappers that my friend Michelle Bonds sent to me for this project. I have added some Lumiere paint and additional stitching to this one.

I am probably going to quilt these on the long-arm to get them to lay down a little flatter. You can't exactly iron them flat! And something needs to be done to improve those thick fern fronds.

Okay, today you get two WIP's for the price of one. Here is the latest revision to the dreaded spider plant art quilt. I changed the window location and fabric so I can add something in the window with embellishment or quilting. There are a few more leaves sewn in.

Speaking of a Work-in-Progress...here is one of my favorites. My oldest grandchild, Charles Avery, is five years old today. On April 29, 2004, I made Charlie get up at 2:00 AM and drive to South Carolina when we found out that the baby had been born by emergency C-section. We will be spending the weekend with them to celebrate.

And if you follow NHL hockey at all, there is a lot of celebrating going on in Raleigh after the Carolina Hurricanes won the Eastern regional playoffs in a stunning come-from-behind win over the New Jersey Devils with two goals in the last minute-and-a-half of play in Game 7. Go Canes! (Hey, Dave, how about that...I wrote about hockey on my blog! And we did watch the end of that game after Dancing with the Stars!)

WIP Wednesday: Still Life

Still tweaking my Still Life Project #2 from the online Pamela Allen class I took in February. I am determined to make this into something I like! Hasn't happened yet. But, I still have some embellishment ideas that I think will make this quilt whimsical and humorous. But, must get the "bones" right first.

Since last seen, I have added more fabrics and batting to the top and bottom. I was going for the effect of a window in the upper right. But I don't like the green fabric going right down the middle of the piece. And the four top fabrics are too alike in size and shape. Back to the cutting board!

I have been adding more to the spider plant to fill it out, and gave it a couple more babies. Some of this is still just pinned or glued together. I have used some silk and a shiny gauzy fabric from a wine gift bag to add interest to the green leaves. Maybe some cherries on the table for a much-needed color accent.

Since I was having trouble with the spider plant looking somewhat like an octopus, I took this photo of two of my spider plants in the McCoy pottery flower pots. I see that the leaves (blades?) should be more random and cross over more.

I thought I would share a link that someone posted on the Quilt Art mail list. A photographer set up his camera on a street corner in New York for two weeks, photographed passers-by, and then photo-shopped the scenes. One might have everyone yawning, another all children, all walking dogs...fun!