And Now, Something Different

I have posted before about the 2012 free Strathmore Online Workshops.  The first one is hosted by Traci Bautista and is called Doodles Unleashed.  In the fourth lesson, we created a beautiful background with acrylic paints, stamps, stencils, doodled text, etc. 

We also created doodles on a separate sheet with India ink and paintbrush.

The final step was to paint a face onto the background, and collage some of the ink doodles as a headdress.  Traci's looked like this one on the cover of her latest book.

She creates stylized lady's faces that she calls "glam girls" who have one very elaborate eye, no nose, sexy lips and curly long hair.  They also tend to have green, purple or other colorful faces.

I did not want mine to be a copy of Traci's.  Since I have been trying to paint faces for awhile, I decided to try a more realistic face.  When I collaged some of my doodles, the India ink smeared all over.  I had to repaint them.  Here is what I came up with.


Island Bride, mixed media painting by Jeanne McBrayer



She ended up being a bride because I went a little too wild when I painted in her hair.  I gessoed over the black paint, and it looked like a bridal veil.  So I added some stenciling with white acrylic paint.

I have no idea what I will do with this.  Maybe cut it up into postcards or journal covers?  It is fun to try new techniques.

I also began several other backgrounds that have faces in progress, so I will get to those sometime this week.

Are you ready for the Super Bowl?  It is cold and rainy today.  I think I will spend the afternoon before the big game quilting my Cassatt portrait, and maybe its companion, the barn picture, as well.  I have almost finished stitching it.

Whacky Ladies February Meeting

Thursday night was the monthly meeting of The Whacky Ladies, my local quilt bee.  We met at Irene's, who lives less than three miles from my house.  I will share some of the show-and-tell with you.

First of all, Donna Sontag finished quilting the stunning American Flag quilt that Kathy Miller and several other women made to give to the Veteran's Administration Hospital.

Donna really outdid herself on this one.  The white stripes feature stars and words written in script.  This quilt will be used to honorably drape the bodies of deceased Veterans at the hospital when they are being moved from their rooms.

Donna had other impressive work to show us.  She has been designing computerized patterns for customer quilts.  Here is a T-shirt quilt that has various-sized baseballs for the quilting pattern.  I was impressed that she even has the stitching on the baseballs included.

The next quilt is a customer's Double Wedding Ring with huge blocks.  She used a variegated blue thread with custom quilting. 

 

Here is the center block design, a cluster of oak leaves.

The back is solid white, and looks beautiful with the blue thread.

Donna also brought in a customer's quilt that has the Grinch Christmas fabrics.  Unbelievably, the quilter cut the notches around the panel figures to make them look lie postage stamps, and zigzagged around each one.

Lori has designing talents, as well.  She used a geisha panel fabric to make this oriental-style quilt.  The diamonds are made from the extra panel fabric cut into strips.

Carolyn is participating in the House Block a Day project, where you make a different 3" house each day of the year.  She is not sure she will make all 365, but she has made some really cute ones so far.

Marilyn was working on the applique border of this beautiful pineapple quilt.

Irene was not able to attend our Charity Quilt Sew-in Day in January, so she made a baby quilt at home from her own fabrics.  Yes, it is another Warm Wishes quilt.  Our bee has made many of these to donate! Sorry that Irene is sideways in this picture- sometimes Blogger does funny things to photos.

I showed my Mary Cassatt color study art quilt.  I wanted to make it more like the original Impressionist painting with lots of dappled sunlight and reflections.  I stenciled Shiva Paint Stix over a fern stencil, and I think it really added to the Impressionist look. 

Here is the original painting, Mlle. C. Lydia Cassatt, and my version in fabric with the addition of paint.

Here is how it looked before the paint was applied.  Quite a difference!

Janice brought a basket full of beautiful quilt projects, but I am going to refer you to her own blog to see them.  She is becoming quite the quilt artist!  Love the quilts on this post, as well.  Janice recently won 200 spools of Aurifil Wool Thread, and generously let each of us choose two spools to keep.  I have not tried mine yet, but am excited to give it a try!

Really Cute Baby Quilt

Here is a customer quilt that I love so much that I might have to make one like it.  (Please excuse the glare from sunlight.)

The owls are adorable, with googly eyes made of French knots.   There is a patchwork inner border of quarter-square triangles in bright colors


                      


The center medallion has four trees in bright yellow-green shades.

The backing is a bright polka dot.  I used Pear Green Signature thread and made lots of leaves for the trees and owls.

The quilt was made by Jessie Oakley from a commercial pattern called Hooterville from Brandywine Design.  The designer is Linda Hohag.

I am still behind on my baby quilts, and getting more so all the time.  Here is my newest great-niece, Holly.  Holding her is her "big" sister, Lacy.

I can't wait to get my hands on her!  Congratulations to Jason, Robin, Anna, Tyler, and Lacy on the newest addition to the family!

Deja Vu

I could have titled this post the same as the last one, "Another Charity Quilt...and Another Win."  Unbelievably, I won another blog drawing, this time a Jelly roll of Moda's "Little Apples" by Aneela Hoey.  Thanks to Lindsey from Interweave, and to my friend Janice for alerting me to the win!

The next charity quilt is made from those raggedy circle blocks that were quite popular back in the 90's.  I had a book called Quilts From Aunt Amy that had the directions for this quilt with freehand-cut circles that are sewn a quarter-inch in from the edge.  The quilt is pictured on the cover of the book.

When the quilt is finished, you are supposed to wash it to let the raw edges fray and form a kind of textured ruffle. 

 I made a lot of the blocks using muted Civil War repo fabrics.  I decided to donate the blocks at our bee's sew-in last month, and Marilyn Featham stitched them into a quilt top.  I got it quilted yesterday.

 

 

I did some bouncing curves around the whole thing until I got to the circles.  Then I just went round and round, spiraling in to the center and back out.

I had no idea this would look so nice when it was finished!  We had thought this would be for Quilts on Wheels, which is Capital Quilters' Guild's charity for rest home residents in wheelchairs.  But I am thinking now that it might sell well at the Heritage Days auction in the fall.  I will check with my bee and see what they think when we meet tomorrow night.

I found the perfect soft plaid flannel in our basket of donated fabrics.  It has cream, peachy pink and soft green plaid, and is so soft.  I had just barely enough to be able to pin it on the machine.

The quilting shows up nicely on the back.

When I do charity quilts, I try to use up some of the bobbins that are leftover from other projects.  For this one, I used every shade of off-white that I had already wound, which included Linen, Parchment, Ivory, and Sand Dollar.  They all blended in just fine.  Between the three charity quilts I did this week, I freed up about twelve bobbins!  Yippee!

That reddish check fabric in the border of the quilt was left over from my granddaughter's nursery fabric.  She had a double- or queen-size bed in her room for company, and I made this quilt from the fabrics her mom had picked out plus some brighter pinks and greens.  I had some orphan blocks that I added in with the Yellow Brick Road blocks.  The center medallion is a Carolina Lily, which I just had to make since my granddaughter is Lily from South Carolina.

I actually scalloped the border, which made the quilt a bit more feminine.

I had fun doing lots of pretty flowers, swirls and feathers in the quilting.

I also made her a wall-hanging using some of the same fabrics.   I designed the fancy letters, and used patterns from  Bugs, Blooms, and Bullfrogs by Pat Sloan for the flowers, dragonflies, and ladybugs.

I added Swarovski hot-fix crystals, yo-yo's, buttons and beads to embellish the quilt.  The vine is one of those fusible bias strips you can purchase by Clover. I got mine at Mary Jo's Cloth Shop in Gastonia, NC.

This was one of my favorite projects of all time.  I can't believe how fast the years have gone by.  Lily is now in Kindergarten and will be six in June.  But that big quilt I made for her ought to last her until college!

You can see why she got the nickname "Lilybug" from this picture I put on the label.  She had the biggest eyes on her tiny face!



Another Charity Quilt...and Another Win!

Here is the little Yellow Brick Road charity quilt that I finished quilting yesterday.  It will be donated to the Capital Quilters Guild of Raleigh, probably for their Quilts on Wheels program.

I used swirls and sometimes flowers.

The backing is a solid pink donated fabric that is quite slippery.  The black thread shows up handsomely.

Mary Nennstiel sewed the top together at my bee's sew-in day earlier this month, and I am going to drop it off at her house on my way to PT this morning.

I got a great surprise when I scanned Facebook this morning...I was one of the monthly prize winners for the January Sketchbook Challenge!  I will be receiving a $25.00 gift certificate to Joggles.com!

Joggles is a great vendor for all sorts of artsy embellishments and supplies.  They also have an array of online classes that makes me drool every time I read their newsletter.

When we got back from our walk on the greenway this morning, there was a large red-tail hawk swooping down on the viburnum bush in my side garden where the songbirds gather to reconnoiter before visiting the bird feeder.  When I walked around the yard, he was sitting very low in a tree by the little creek that runs behind our house.  Hope he did not dine on one of the tweety-birds that I attract to the house by putting out bird seed.

Communing with Nature

Not too much quilty news to report today.  We have been going to movies (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- GREAT!; Sherlock Holmes-Pretty Good)  and also went to see Memphis at the DPAC.  I thought that was better than any of the three shows I have seen on Broadway.  And I am so glad that some social customs have improved over time, race relations being the issue in the musical.  The performers were amazing with fabulous voices.


I got tired of waiting for my sprained ankle to get back to normal since it has been six months.  I started physical therapy two weeks ago, and joined the Rex Wellness Center last week.  So far I have only participated in the water fitness classes, which I love because there is no stress on the joints.  On Wednesday I have an appointment to have a personal fitness routine mapped out for me on the gym equipment.


And of course, I have been faithful about taking the beautiful Kasey on walks every day.  I cannot believe the warm January we have had, with temperatures in the sixties.   We have been hitting the greenways and enjoying glimpses of nature.

Here is a large hawk perched on a branch,  looking for his lunch along the Smith Creek greenway.

The bluebirds love the open spaces at J. Carroll Joyner Park, and they often follow along as we walk, flying from tree to tree.

There is a beautiful nature trail around the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.  Various sculptures and other works of art are visible along the trail.  Between 2005 and 2007 there was a remarkable structure by Patrick Dougherty called Trail Heads.   It was made of woven sticks and branches.  Children of all ages loved stepping inside this wonderful little house-like area.

Sadly, it had to be removed when it deteriorated, but I was reminded of it on our walk past the piney woods behind Heritage.

Mother Nature created this one on her own from fallen branches and pine needles.

 

Kasey about got herself in trouble this morning.  She is trained to walk up our long driveway with us when we get the mail or the newspaper.  She stops about three-fourths of the way and waits for us so she is not close to the road.  But this morning, there was a gray fox in the neighbor's yard next door!  She gave chase, and was just about on it when the fox doubled back and hid under the neighbor's machinery behind his house.  I'm glad she did not catch it.

Charity Quilt

I brought home several quilt tops from my bee's Sew-In Day in January, got a new customer quilt, and found one more that I had brought home from guild to quilt.  So, yesterday I warmed up the machine and got busy.  I finished this little one made from bright five-inch squares.

Some of the squares were left over from my grandson's quilt that I made before he was born.  His mom picked out the pattern and helped me choose the fabrics.  I called it Jungle Boogie.  I think the stars are from Jan Mullen's book Cut-Loose Quilts.

I even drafted my own border quilting pattern with jungle animals marching in a row. I quilted it with variegated thread.

Anyway, Kathy Miller completed the top from the leftover squares at our sew-in day, and I quilted just circles and loops with a pale yellow-green thread called Bamboo by Signature.

I started a second charity quilt made from leftover Yellow Brick Road squares from a previous charity quilt I made.  This time Mary Nennstiel put the top together at our sew-in. 

This one is still on the machine.  The quilting shows up rather dramatically on the solid pink backing because I am using black thread.

Tonight we are going to see the musical Memphis at the Durham Performing Arts Center as part of the Broadway South program.  Excited!