Heritage Day Auction Quilts

Tonight was one of the summer meetings of the Capital Quilters Guild in Raleigh.  We have only been having summer meetings for a couple of years now- in the past, the guild year ran from September through June.  Tonight was the night to turn in Challenge quilts for the Heritage Days auction.  For the past several years, we have had an October quilt auction to benefit a charity.  Last year, we raised $11,000 for Military Missions in Action, which helps provide housing accommodations for disabled veterans.  Mike Dorman again provided poignant stories of the work they have done to make bathrooms, kitchens, and entryways accessible for veterans in wheelchairs.  We also had a young speaker who was named Scott Quilty.  Perfect name for this blog!  Scott was an officer who stepped on a land mine and lost both his right arm and his right leg.  He looked great and strong, and is now working with Military Missions in Action. 

We had a pretty good set of donated quilts for the challenge tonight.  There will be more available at the Heritage Days auction in October, but the ones on display tonight were eligible for some nice prizes.  The quilts were hung anonymously and voted on by "Viewer's Choice" ballot.  Here are some of the ones that were donated and part of tonight's challenge.

                               

One of my groups, Cyberbee, swapped fabrics to make these Bug Jars quilts a long time ago.  Here is a Bug Jars quilt donated to the auction.

This one by Candy Joerendt was one of the award winners in the Challenge.

So was this VERY large quilt---probably a king size, in citrus colors.

This quilt featured a fabric I loved and purchased "beaucoup" of back in the nineties...Flower Market by Jennifer Sampou.

I think this one was called "Without a Gnome There Is No Garden."  Still have not spotted the gnome!  I believe it also won a Viewer's Choice prize.

My little donation quilt, The Star of the Garden, was hung next to this giant vintage churn dash.

This one was a first place winner in the group category...a patchwork sampler by the Knight's Bee.  Look at all those blocks!

Patriotic quilts are always popular with the MMIA fundraisers.

This one has a snowy toile-looking print combined with other red and white fabrics.

This was a beautiful quilt with Americana colors.

I loved this small wall-hanging of sea turtles.

This one is a lovely square-in-a-square.

This one is a variety of star blocks that look like they could have been vintage.

The vintage churn dash won an award.

Here is a colorful Delectable Mountains quilt.

The guild will still be accepting donation quilts for the October auction even if they were not completed in time for the challenge tonight.  A great cause!

Star Light, Star Bright

Thanks for your patience during my no-sew period while I tried to avoid heat stroke by staying out of the upstairs of my house.  Although our air conditioning was supposed to be fixed on Monday, they had to come back out on Tuesday and work another four or five hours.  Finally, today it was cool upstairs and my sewing room did not feel like a sweat shop! 

Here is the first of two quilts for my customer Pam.  It is a pattern called Star Light, Star Bright, a very scrappy and fun quilt.  Pam chose a dark purple thread which disappears in the purple sashing and border, but shows up beautifully in the lighter areas and on the backing.

I did free-motion leaves, swirls, and flowers all over.

Here is the light floral backing fabric.

It's funny, but I did another scrappy star quilt in purple for my friend Mary not long ago.  That one was made from the Lucky Stars pattern.

We just watched Crazy Heart on DVD.  Loved Jeff Bridges, and will probably purchase the music CD.

Trying Out Zentangles

Yes, it is still very hot here in central North Carolina, and the HVAC guys have been here since 9:00 AM installing a new system to replace part of our sixteen-year old air conditioning units.  I got up at about 6:30 AM in order to clear off the steps and landing to my finished attic rooms so they could install the new duct work and returns up there.  We are told that the new system will be much more efficient, which is good.  Usually it is too hot or too cold upstairs.

Anyway, I have been staying downstairs again where the A/C still works.  I decided to try my new sketchbook for making Zentangle Doodles.  I bought the Zentangle Basics book to help me get started, since I really didn't "get it" with Zentangles.

I had heard my art bee member Ruth-Ellen Flanagan mention Zentangles, and  the vendor newsletters from Joggles. com always mention Zentangles, so I decided to jump in.  The first thing I drew was the illustration above.  Nothing like not beginning at the beginning.

That was fun, so I copied another demo from the book.

Somewhat addicting!  I made a few boo-boos on the above attempt, so I decided maybe I should actually practice some of the doodles before doing another big sketch.  I tried drawing what they call "tiles" with the helpful step-by-steps.

I immediately realized that many of the Zentangle patterns were similar to quilting blocks or quilting designs.  Flukes looks like Log Cabins.

Of course, the Squares grid looks like patchwork, and the Flying Geese are familiar to all quilters.

I will probably apply some of the doodle designs to my machine quilting.

There is a Zentangles web page with lots of information if you are intrigued by this art form using repetitive patterns.

While reading Melanie Testa's blog, I decided to check out the Laura Marling album that she was praising.  Well, look at the cover art of Laura's first album (Alas, I Cannot Swim)!  Whole lotta doodles going on!

Kids and Mountain Fun

We got back today from another fun-filled mountain weekend.  This time we were joined by our older son and the two grand-kids.  Great weather except for some much-needed rain on Friday night.  We spent the whole weekend fishing in the pond, floating in the creek, and going on Gator rides to the top of the mountain.  This time the kids ran all the way down...great idea for getting them sleepy before bed!

My nephew Jason and his family had stayed on at my sister's place since the Fourth of July.  I loved watching little Lacy doing her one-year old walk.  Her birthday was Thursday.

I think we are so lucky to have such a beautiful place to spend time with our friends and relatives.  I hope the kids all have wonderful memories of their mountain days.

New Book and Fourth of July Recap

All Things Quilty checking back in after a week off.  It is hot here.  The past two afternoons, this was the reading on our indoor-outdoor thermometer.

Yes, 109 degrees outside.  The afternoon sun bakes our front porch, so it is probably hotter there than the general temperature.  But...our air conditioning unit that cools the upstairs broke yesterday.  And my Gammill is on the second floor, and my sewing/painting rooms are in the finished attic rooms on the third floor.  I have been reading a lot the past two days!

Even though I got a lot of new quilting/art books for my birthday, I picked up this colorful book (Collage Unleashed by Traci Bautista) at the mall last week.  It is chock full of ideas for using paper and fabric to make journals and wall hangings and lots of other fun projects.  I have actually made a few backgrounds using fabric, paper, tissue, and paint.

I also have read several novels recently, including The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells, and several murder mysteries by Robert B. Parker.  I like all three of his detectives  including Spenser, Jessie Stone, and Sunny Randall.

Last weekend we escaped the heat and had perfect weather for a fun-filled Fourth of July.  Our little mountain place was overflowing as we had lots of company.  We had ten people and six dogs as guests for the weekend!  Dave and Emily's friends from East Carolina University are lots of fun to be with, and they took care of all the meals.  Love it!

The annual float down the river was Saturday.  This was probably the most perfect weather we have had...no rain, thunder, lightning, or hail that we have experienced in the past.  It took four hours to complete the float through beautiful mountain hills and pastures.

The next day, Sunday, we went down to the creek and enjoyed the shade and the cool water of the creek.

 My sister's family was there, too, so we played with the babies while the adults enjoyed playing horseshoes.

I actually have a customer quilt finished, but it is too hot to go up and get it to take pictures.  Our AC guy is supposed to come this morning to check out the problem, but we are pretty sure we will be buying a new heat pump for the upstairs.  Meanwhile, I'm sure we will be heading for the hills again.

Flowers

Here is Beverly's finished quilt with die-cut flowers lined up, marching in rows.

The cutting garden I planted in front of our porch on Easter weekend also has flowers marching along.  I am especially happy with the marigolds and sunflowers, all of which I ordered from Gurney's.

The sunflowers are about five-six feet tall, with assorted color schemes.  I like the yellow and brown combination.

And this orange/yellow flower is rather splendid.

There are many heads blooming on the same stalk without the need for staking.

The Fourth of July is approaching, so here is a little blue bachelor's button that made it into the garden somehow...

And, although I first feared that Audrey II had been killed by last winter's heavy freezes, here are the buds about to open again.  They will be a vibrant, glowing red.

We are having gobs of company this weekend, including Dave and Emily and little Roo, eight of their friends, four more dogs, and Charlie's brothers and families.  Should be a glorious Fourth!

Trying Out Fabric Paper...and Another Collage

Continuing my journey in mixed media, I painted and stamped a canvas board, added some collaged papers and lace, and drew all over it with black ink. The brown shading is done with Conte crayon. The text at the lower right was on a bit of scrapbook paper.  It is the first three lines from a poem by Thomas Campion: 


There is a Garden in her face,
Where Roses and white Lillies grow ;
A heau'nly paradise is that place.


I chose to interpret the poem quite literally!  I like the colors and layering on this one, but might do something about that big green leaf that is pointing to the lady's face.

After reading through the Stitch Alchemy book by Kelli Perkins, I was moved to try constructing some fabric paper.  On my first attempt, I ignored the suggestion to use muslin as the base.  I had this old ugly piece of  rust calico that I wanted to repurpose.  I covered it in tissue papers, scrapbook papers, and magazine cutouts.  The big yellow flower is some of my ill-fated hand-made paper that I painted.

This came out okay, but I disliked the areas where I had applied white tissue paper...and I thought the white and black diamonds were a little stark.  I squirted a Tim Holz ink in "butterscotch" over almost the whole piece to give it a kind of glaze.  Here is a section of it.  The lovely lady was from a feature in the St. Louis magazine in our hotel.

 

This one would be my favorite, except that I got a lot of wrinkles right in the lady's face when it dried.  I attribute this to being a rookie!  I was using a 2-1 mixture of water to Allene's Tacky Glue to attach and seal the papers to the fabric base.

Next up, another green piece, this time intended to be ocean-themed. It is on a muslin base, but the fabric had been dipped in my  turquoise rinse water from painting journal pages.  The seaweed vine was drawn on Golden Threads paper, which I sometimes use for quilting designs on the long-arm.  Everything else but the seahorse is just tissue paper layered over each other.

The next one is a modge-podge of tissue paper, fabric, and a graphic illustration I liked from the Wall Street Journal.

What will I do with any of this?  Who knows?  It's fun!