Anything Art Flower Challenge

Today was our monthly meeting of the Anything Art Bee.  I traveled on the new I-540 toll road for the first time.  I would say there is strong resistance to paying the toll for this section of highway.  There were only two vehicles on the southbound trip, and three on my return trip!  Lovely not to have any traffic, but $1.00 each way seems high to travel a few miles.

First, we had Show-and-Tell.  I showed my baby quilt top and my paintings of the Christmas tree farm  and another one that I have not posted here yet.  I dropped the paintings off at Michael's on the way home to get them framed.

Roberta had an array of beautiful hand-made cuffs.  

I loved the one she was wearing.

Our hostess, Toni, made a great-looking T-shirt quilt, quilted by my friend Cathy Kirk.

Marion made a unique background display for quilt pins from a folded fabric technique.

After a delicious salad lunch, we proceeded to show off our red/purple flower blocks for our group challenge.  Don't they look beautiful grouped on the table?

Several members made more than one block.  What a wide variety, from the simple broderie perse rose, to the traditional blocks at the upper left, to the exotic in the second row!

We decided to slice each block into four equal parts.  Marion volunteered to be the slicer and dicer.

As soon as they were cut up, we started playing with the pieces to recombine them.

Everyone got one section of their own block back, and chose three more.  I thought we played very nicely during this game!

When I got home I tried mine in different combinations on my design wall.

We decided we would add stems and leaves to our blocks.  I found some pieced beige fabrics already in strips, probably left over from some Debbie Mumm-inspired quilt projects in the nineties.

Now I have to figure out how to join my flower squares, design a stem and leaves, quilt, and embellish.  Each person will make an individual quilt with a hanging sleeve.  They will be hung together if we decided to enter the in a quilt show.  Can't wait to see how they all turn out!

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