The Everchanging River at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest

Love

While you are at the show you might look up my quilt "Love".

The Everchanging River at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest

The is the beginning and part of the Focus section of the Everchanging River Exhibit that will be on display at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest in Hampton, VA this weekend.

About a year and half ago three groups in the state of SC, Focus, Thread Heads, and Fringe Sisters, combined their talents in a challenge. The challenge was to make 31 quilts that connected together with a river running through the design. There was not a theme, as such, your piece could be representational or abstract. Each member was given an entry and exit size for the river along with a fat quarter of river fabric. The quilt on either side was to match those measurements. The quilt had to be 18" wide and could be between 14" and 23" in height.

The original exhibit was held at The Arts Company in Seneca, SC. Since then it has been displayed at NQA, AQS, Knowville, The Sewing Expos. and will be at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest, in Hampton, VA, The Festival of Quilts NJ, Somerset, NJ Mar. 4-7. It will then go to The Original Amish Quilt Show in Dalton, Oh. Apr. 8-10.

We will have a very special last exhibit that I will post about later. If you are any of these locations I hope you can take a few minutes to look the exhibit up.

The Everchanging River at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest

Another section from the Thread Heads.

The Everchanging River at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest

A part of the Fringe Sisters section.

The Everchanging River at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest

This is where Focus and the Thread Heads join together.

ToteTuesday

Our tote made $250,00 today for The American Cancer Society. Thanks to Beth Wheeler for adding her padfolio to the tote. Thanks to all who bid on the totes today. Virginia is still adding up the total and I will post when I get the information.

Virginia, started this project hoping to raise $5,000.00 but after such great success she raided the total to $12,000. I think we will top that number.

ToteTuesday

"Yellow Beauty"
11" x 11"

"Yellow Beauty" is part of my donation to the tote bag that goes up for bid tomorrow on ToteTuesday at Virginia Spiegel's site (see below).

ToteTuesday

ToteTuesday

Tuesday, February 23, is the last Tuesday you will have the opportunity to support the American cancer Society and receive for your donation, a wonderful tote filled with items pertaining to fiber art.

Judy Heyward and myself put together a tote filled with yards of hand-dyed fabric and fringes. A great book by Beth Wheeler, "Altered Photos" and to top that off Beth has donated a padfolio made using her photo techniques. Judy has included two of her patterns, pastel chalks to play with. And Oh, there is also a small art quilt by myself.

For those of you who do not know what ToteTuesday is all about visit Virginia Spiegel's site at http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/blog/

You can bid on our tote, Tuesday by visiting Virginia's site and placing your bids. So far Virginia's ToteTuesday has raised over $10,000. Let's help Virginia make the last day for ToteTuesday a memorable one.

San Diego's treasure: Balboa Park

Yesterday we went to Balboa Park with our son's family. My son is the Director of Research for the California's at the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park and we always like to visit during our trip.

Yesterday we started off at the craft shops. My husband is a wood turner and loves to browse these shops as much as I do. It just so happened that a fiber artist, who dyes silk was there demonstrating. What beautiful work she makes. I then went next door to check out the wood turning and it was amazing as well. A woman who was working there was so warm and friendly. She had brought tangerines in from her garden and gave us a bag. They were fabulous.

We then went to the Conservatory, something my husband and I always enjoy. They seemed to be featuring orchids and what beautiful orchids they were. I've show just a few below but these were many more.

We also visited the Mingei International Museum, more on that later. We head for home tomorrow. Will miss the kids and sunshine and warm weather.

San Diego's treasure: Balboa Park

There were some of the largest most beautiful ladies slippers at the conservertory yesterday I've ever seen.

San Diego's treasure: Balboa Park

My husband and I both are avid photographers. He has the better of the camera's and often I ask him to photo up-close for me. Here he is working on a close-up of one of the many beautiful orchids at the conservatory.

San Diego's treasure: Balboa Park

Isn't the structure of this tree amazing? What design!

San Diego's treasure: Balboa Park

A beautiful yellow orchid with back lighting.

San Diego's treasure: Balboa Park

One of the walls enbellished with beautiful bourgenvilla.

When you have lemons

What do you do with a basket of lemons? Why, make lemonade, of course. Yesterday Sydney and Connor, two of our grand children, picked a basket of lemons from the trees in their yard. I sent them out with the idea of picking enough to make a quart or so of lemonade and they came back with this basket of lemons. We put the lemons through a hand juicer and came up with a quart of lemon juice. What do you do with a quart of lemon juice? Freeze it, of course. Lots of lemonade for the future.

I am still in awe of being able to go outside and pick lemons, oranges, avocados, etc. from a tree in yard. We are loving California.

When you have lemons

Connor and Sydney making lemonaid.

When you have lemons

Juicy sliced California lemons.

Anza-Borrego Desert

This beautiful flower was on the end of a cacti looking plant. We visted the desert yesterday with out son and his family. According to the rangers we were a couple of weeks to early for the blast of wildlowers that is expected this year because of the rains in this area.

However, we did get to see a few of the early flowers. The desert lily is one of the earlieest and more evasive ones. We felt fortunate to see a few of the lily along with desert lupine and desert verbinia. Hope you enjoy.

Anza-Borrego Desert

The strange case of the two headed turtle.

Anza-Borrego Desert

Desert Lily

Anza-Borrego Desert

desert verbinia

Anza-Borrego Desert

Desert lupin with green beetle.

Anza-Borrego Desert

My grand daughter Sydney wants to be an Entomologist. In this photo she is taking a photo of a green beetle on a desert lupin.

Anza-Borrego Desert

We stopped along the way at Ranchita, CA to take photos with the local big foot. It seems that someone in the area came up with this idea to get people to stop and spend money. There was no myth to go along with the statue but fun to have your picture taken with big foot.

Sunny Southern California

My husband and I are visiting our son's family in Solona Beach, CA. We always come during this time of year because the grand kids have a week off of school....and because this is always the worst weather we have in SC.

With the East coast having such bad weather I hate to rub this in but I'm going to anyway. I was sitting on the patio this morning at 8 AM. I will admit that I had a light sweater on but otherwise it was wonderful. I understand that my home town had snow a couple of days ago. I love to see a snow fall for about one day and then I'm ready for it to melt.

My daughter-in-law and I took a wonderful walk this morning around their neighborhood. There are so many beautiful flowers bloom, I have to remember to take my camera with me when I go again.

Tomorrow we are going to take a trip into the Anza-Borrego Desert. California has had quite a bit of rain this winter so there should be some wild flowers blooming. Stay tuned for photos from that trip. Can hardly wait.

Sunny Southern California

I'm not a lover of spiky plants but I really like this one. Don't know the name of this plant. When the sun and shadows play on it there are wonderful designs.

Tote Tuesday

Judy Heyward and myself have put together tote contents to be auctioned off Feb. 23 by Virginia Spiegel. http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/ToteTuesday2.html
All proceeds from the sale of these totes goes to the American Cancer Society. Quilters are generous by nature and Virginia has been more than generous over the years organizing projects where both the giver and receiver benefit. Hope you support us in this venture.

Tote Tuesday

Contents of the tote put together by Marilyn Wall and Judy Heyward. Beth Wheeler, author of "Altered Photos" is adding a padfolio to these contents as well.

The tote has yards of hand dyed fabrics and trims. The book "Altered Photos, by Beth Wheeler. Two patterns by Judy Heyward, a box of chalk pastels. A small (11 x 11) quilt by myself.

Tote Tuesday

This small ( 11 x 11) quilt by Marilyn Wall will be included in the tote.

Tote Tuesday

These are the hand dyed fabric, ribbon and trim that will be included in the tote.

Preparing for a class at J C Campbell Folk School

cone flower

I finished this piece today and decided to apply it to the back ground before my class. I will use it to demonstrate how I add paint to my flowers and how I sew and quilt them.

This little bud took me almost as long to make as the two flowers together. Little is more time consuming.

I am having fun doing these little pieces. Most of my work is so much larger and takes weeks and weeks to finish...so it is nice to be able to do one piece in a day. That doesn't include quilting, of course. Don't know if I will do any more finished samples before the class but am planning to start a few for demos.

I think I still have a few openings in the class, March 12-14 if you have time. You can find the schedule at http://www.folkschool.org

Preparing for a class at J C Campbell Folk School

cone flower

I started another sample for my class today. This is taken from a photo my husband took in NY last Summer. I start these small pieces by fusing together on my applique sheet. This gives me the opportunity to place them at any point on the back ground.

Preparing for a class at J C Campbell Folk School

Gold Finch

I finished the gold finch today by adding his markings. I will use him to demonstrate choosing a background for my class.

Preparing for a class at J C Campbell Folk School

Gold Finch

When I teach a class, not matter how many times I've taught it, I always start a new project or two just to refresh my memory and perhaps change a thing or two. I will be teaching a weekend class at J. C. Campbell March 12 - 14 titled "Mini Nature Quilts".

In this class we take a photo and transform it into a small fiber art piece. This class is to short to do landscape so we stick to flowers, birds, insects, or other graphic elements.

I have decided to refresh my memory on how to built a bird. I always do these small pieces by building them on an applique sheet. After they are together I place them on a background that I have added other elements, such as a tree limb, etc. or depending on the subject a plain hand dyed background might be best. I will post the progress on this as I continue.

Portrait of my dear husband

Dear Husband One

This was the first portrait I did of my Husband. When you look at this one and the post under it you can see how important fabric selection is for this process. Here the base or lightest value is far to light and the darkest is far to dark. Actually I think I only used three values in this portrait while four is the better number.
I also decided that the high light on his lip in this piece is far to large. I reduced it in the second one.

Portrait of my dear husband

Dear Husband Two

I don't know if there is just so much to learn in making these portraits or that I'm a slow learner. However, every time I make a new one I learn something new. Beside getting the photo shop preparation of the photo done correctly I've found choosing the fabrics to be the hardest part of this process.

I actually made two portraits of my husband. The fabric selections were off in the first one. The lightest one being too light and the darkest too dark. I will post a photo of this one tomorrow, forgot to take one today.

As I make more of these portraits I find little tricks that help the portrait to look more realistic and am trying to get these tips accumulated as I go.

You may be getting tired of my portrait post but I am having a blast making these so hang on for more.