Folk Art

My friend Ann and I took a detour from I 81 as we traveled from Syracuse, NY to Watkins Glen, NY after our workshop at QBL. I was driving and saw this hugh moose, made out of scrap metal, along the side of the road. As we passed the moose we saw other animals made of scrap. I looked at Ann and said "shall we turn around." Obviously we did.

This folk art gallery is named "Frog Pond" and is located in Little York, NY. We went in and asked the gallery owner if we could take photos and post them on my blog. We chatted for a while and then did a self guided tour. I only scratched the surface in this post of the many pieces around the outside and inside of the gallery. I concentrated on the frog statues in this post. What's a girl go'na do when her husband's name if Kermit.

I hope you enjoy the photos below.

Folk Art

Folk Art

This one was called Frog Pond Poll Dancer, look closely and you will see a dollar bill tucked in a string around her waist.

Folk Art

Folk Art

Folk Art

Folk Art

Folk Art

Folk Art

QBL Quilt Show

I'm standing by my quilt "A Touch of Red". This piece as well as the one below was machine quilted by my friend Diana Pickens. This quilt hung just as you walked into the show. One of the vendors who had her booth just in front of the quilt came up to me and asked if I had made the quilt. She said that she had enjoyed being in front of the quilt all week. That was a nice compliment.

My work is very colorful and it was a stretch for for me to do this piece. I wanted to make a step out of my box with this piece.

The quilt below was made from the same original pattern but with my usual bright colors and both were juried into Paducah and Houston.

QBL Quilt Show

This quilt is named "Peacockiness". Marge Edie actually gave it this name. I took the piece to a Focus meeting after it was finished and asked for suggestions for a name. Marge said she thought it looked like a peacock. With all the beautiful hand dyed fabric I think that she was right.

Marilyn Belford

If you've been following my blog these past two weeks you know that I was taking a class from Marilyn Belford. She was teaching a class in portraits for fabric lovers at QBL.

Marilyn has several of her quilts in the QBL show including "Medea Escaping". She was gracious enough to pose by her quilt for me and give me permission to post this on my blog. Marilyn specializes in making her portraits completely out of fabric and thread. Obviously she is a master at this. You still have time this week to see her quilt at the show. It is located on the Onondaga Community College campus in Syracuse, NY.

I also have two quilts in the show, "Peacockiness" and "A Touch of Red". Look them up too.

Marilyn Belford

This is a closeup of the dragon in Marilyn's Medea Escaping. Please click on it to see it in a larger format. It is incredible.

Quilting by the Lake

The process after fusing everything down is to zigzag around all the little pieces. I have finished with my little girl and started on the mother. I will then cut away the muslin and attach the two portraits to the landscape that I have prepared.

Two years ago my husband and I went on an Elderhostel trip to Copper Canyon, Mexico. The landscape that I am using is from a photograph taken at a waterfall. The group had to hike to the waterfall and several of us was not feeling well and stayed behind. As in a lot of the area's on our trip we were visited by women and children selling beautifully made baskets. A young, age 17, woman with her l7 month old daughter was selling her wares where we were waiting. I asked if I could take her photograph and she agreed. The results was mother & daughter. I was very moved by the look of love the mother showed for her daughter and hoped to capture it in my portrait. I decided that I wanted to place the two against the backdrop of the waterfall. The finished quilt will be posted when it is actually finished. Hope you enjoy.

Quilting by the Lake

Ann was almost able to get both of her portraits finished during class. She decided on Friday that she didn't like the nose on Jonas and is starting to reconstruct it. Emmy needs her glasses made and she is almost done. Ann auditioned fabrics for the background and has selected a muted purple. Can't wait to see it finished.

Quilting by the Lake

Carol was able to attach her portrait of her son to the background and start sewing down each piece before the class was over. Everyone in the class was so impressed with what Carol accomplished on this piece. Here it is for for your enjoyment.

Quilting by the Lake

Too tired to do more than post a few pictures. I finished my mother & daughter today. Still have lost of sewing to do on them but the portraits are done.

Quilting by the Lake

Ann finished Jonas' portrait today and started working on Emmy.

Quilting by the Lake

Carol Allison almost has her guitar man finished.

Quilting by the Lake

I am really tired tonight we have have two long days. My posting will be brief so I can go to bed. This is the finished, well almost, portrait of my little Mexican girl.

Quilting by the Lake

Carol Allison of Pennington, NJ is doing a portrait of her son playing his guitar. His wife took this photo and the light cast a purple hue on him. Carol has loved this photo for a long time and decided she wanted to turn it into a portrait. Carol has chosen fabulous fabrics to represent both her son and his guitar. I'll post again on this one.

Quilting by the Lake

Ann made a lot of progress on Jonas. He has beautiful blue eyes and Ann really capture them.

Quilting by the Lake

Today has been a little stressful as it usually is in the first day of class. There are twenty people in our class and each student is making a different portrait.


The instructor must give each individual instructions as no two portraits are alike. Marilyn Belford has been very generous with her time today. Class was supposed to be over at four but she stayed until 5:30 and returned to help students who decided to work late.

The photo about is the beginning of my little girl from Mexico.

Quilting by the Lake

This is one of two people I will be working on this week. A little girl and her mother from Mexico. I decided to do the girl first since she is more important to the photo than the mother. This was drawn on a piece of muslin. A piece of vinyl is placed over the muslin and the image is then traced onto the vinyl.

Quilting by the Lake

This is the beginning of a portrait of Jonas. It's starting to look good.

Quilting by the Lake

I couldn't photograph this with out the light reflecting on the vinyl but this is Ann's two grandchildren. I will follow her piece as the week progresses.

Quilting by the Lake

Judy Blaydon was the keynote speaker for the opening of Quilting By the Lake in NY state. While Judy is know for her great quilts she is also one funny lady. Judy gave us a wide repertoire of very funny jokes. When she turned serious we were able to see some of her amazing quilts. Judy starts with a photo paper collage and when she gets the design the way she wants she moves on to portraying the collage using fabrics that read the same as the photos. A little difficult to explain but look one of her books up I'm sure you've seen her work.

Judy explained to us that when she first started quilting she decided to keep a record of how many hours she spent on each quilt. She might have kept track of how many spools of thread she used or how many squares she cut. But in the long run she decided that what made a quilt exciting or have the Ahh! factor was not the hours, thread or how many squares but how it made the viewer feel.

I hope to be able to bring you snippets from QBL this week. My class with Marilyn Belford is portraiture in fabric. If Marilyn and the fellow students agree I will try to show you what we do each day. Stay tuned.

QBL

A welcoming sign by Quilting By the Lake organizers on the campus of Onondaga Community College.

QBL

What a beautiful sky and weather we are having in the mid section of NY state. The temperature hovered around 73 degrees today. Sweater weather for us Southerners. A beautiful drive from Watkin's Glen NY to Syracuse, NY.

Portrait class with Marilyn Belford

I am leaving for NY and a class being taught by Marilyn Belford at Quilt By The Lake. I understand there will be wireless access at a few locations on campus. I hope to have time to post a few times during the class but it may not happen until I return home. Please don't give up on me as I hope to have some really great things to share with you from the class.

High Fiber meeting

This is a work in progress by Dianne G.

A friend and fellow guild member, Jean L., is teaching her how to do images with fabric. Jean is a fabulous art quilter in our area.

Dianne was stuck as to how she should finish the piece. Again we always have lots of suggestions. Can't wait to see this one done.

High Fiber meeting

This piece was done by Barbara. She folded the fabric and put clips all along the folds. Choose a couple colors of dye she liked and squirted them along the folds. She then placed it in a baggie and left it in her hot garage for a week. Rusted beautiful fabric.

High Fiber meeting

I don't know the procedure for this one but I love the results. This was also done by Barbara.

High Fiber meeting

Barbara purchased two sets of alphabets to make this piece of fabric. She put the letters on both sides of the fabric and wrote shalom. How cool!

High Fiber meeting

Barbara did a lot of experimenting at Bonnie O's dying class last month. I don't know the particulars but she folder it many times then clipped the fabric and squirted different colors of dye on the fabric. I think! I loved this piece

High Fiber meeting

Beatriz also brought this wonderful appliqued sampler. She took a class from Mary Isbel who is a well know teacher in this area. Beatriz has a wonderful eye for color and fabric and her stitches were "to die for".

High Fiber

Beatriz brought a bargello jacket she has been working on. Great choice of colors and fabric.

High Fiber

This is Dawn's first art quilt and she asked for advice for the group. As always everyone had something to add and it will be interesting to see it finished. Dawn plans to do a lot of embellishments.

High Fiber

I've talked about Dawne in past post. She is the most awesome cross stitcher. She needs a little reassurance in choosing her colors of thread. She had selected more muted colors than the pattern called for and she needed to be reassured that they worked. This photo show that they do.

High Fiber

Judy started this piece during POP Art Studio Tour. I admire the fact that someone can start painting, embellishing, looking at the piece and add a litle of this and a little of that and it comes out like this. I'm afraid that's not my talent. Judy brought the piece to show us how she does the corner hanging pockets. For small pieces you can take a square that looks about right for the size piece you are making. Fold it diagonally and sew it in the corner when you sew your binding. Makes a neat hanger for a small piece.

High Fiber

This is another piece that Judy experimented with, I think string was the resist in this piece. I love the color here.

High Fiber

Judy used tape to make the resist on this piece.

I think this piece was done by Judy. I've got to take notes during these meeting because I can't remember what she did here but I like it.

High Fiber

Last month our experiment was marbling on shaving cream. I didn't get around to posting last months photo and I've forgotten who did this piece. Sorry!

High Fiber

Diane is using the apple as her motif for all of her experiments. This piece was done by marbeling on shaving cream. I love that she was able to get realisme in marbleing.

A Summer's Garden

What is better than a fresh tomato? The only thing I can think of is the first fresh tomato. We have very little sun on our property but my husband makes use of what we have. We have tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers.

We are very fortunate to have friends who share their garden's bounty with us. Yesterday we had fresh green beans with corn, Harvard Beets, cucumbers and tomatoes. Who needs meat?

A Summer's Garden

We have a berry farm near us, it is called Happy Berry. My husband goes about every two weeks and picks and picks both blueberries and Blackberries. This past week I made blackberry jam. UMMM GOOD!

A Summer's Garden

Friends of ours from Ga. brought us beets from their garden. It has been years since I've had fresh beets. I made Harvard beet with them and they tasted great.

We are Just Shadow of Ourselves

I finished my new piece today. It's rare that I am able to start a new piece and finish it within the week. This piece just seemed to keep pulling me to my studio until I had it finish. However, I have a problem that I may or may not know how to solve. If you look at the piece up close you can see the white organza around my lettering. I would like to have it blend with the background but not cover up the lettering. I have tried tea and the organza did not absorb it. I have tried the ink stamp "sand" made by Tsukneko. It covers some but not enough. I am concerned about using paint because of bleeding problems. Any one have a suggestion?

We Just Become Shadows of Ourselves

I've had such an interesting time working on this piece. It is very different from my usual art work and quite frankly I didn't think I had it in me. While it might not be a great piece it has been enlightening working on in this manner.

We are Just Shadow of Ourselves

The background I chose for this piece was done in a dying workshop I took last year. When I was looking for a background I found this and thought it looked like it had shadows scatter through out the fabric. A closeup of some of the quilting.