My apologies for not posting, between the holidays and preparing to vend a Road to California with hand dyed fabric, hand painted cheese cloth and other items it’s been an all-out race to the finish line. My flight is fast approaching so I hope to ship some of the products on Monday and bring the rest in my suitcase and carry on, at least my carry on will be lighter on the way home LOL.
Here are my holiday puppies, they loved their stockings Christmas morning!!
Merry Christmas – Pete & Bella 2015
And here is what I’ve really been up to – a couple new hand dyed designs, the ones below are a Mandala design.
Hand Dyed Mandala Green & Purple
Hand dyed Mandala Pink & Yellow
I’m off to rinse and wash the sky fabric tonight along with rinsing one of my “Kitchen Sink” fabrics made from the left over dyes (I throw everything in but the kitchen sink), I love it when it’s all about serendipity and there’s no stress!!
Last New Year’s Eve we adopted Bella the Boxer which quickly slipped into Bella Boo, then to Boo Boo and since we have two boxer they temporarily became Boo Boo and Yogi (sorry Pete). Since the sound of Boo Boo reminded me of Betty Boop – finally, (hopefully) she is now – Bella when she’s in trouble and Boopy the rest of the time.
Boopy January 2015
Boopy is a rescue dog with visible and invisible scars, she’s quite the little singer and although Doggie Daycare loves her they’ve deemed her the Mexican Jumping Bean 😜. The invisible scars mean she’s also attention needy, thus a quilting puppy:
When I stand at my long arm there is a big dog bed underneath it which both dogs occupy regularly, but Boopy, being a puppy, gets bored rather easily. When she’s bored Boopy likes to jump (we’re working on this). The other day I had a quilting deadline and she wouldn’t stop jumping so,… I picked her up like a child and put her on my left hip, her front paws on my shoulder, and proceeded to quilt with my right hand (yes quilting one handed can be done, it’s the only way to “quilt things out”). She watched the quilting for a while but, as luck would have it, was again bored easily and ready to get down and explore some other adventure.
I forgot how inquisitive Pete was when he came to hone from the Humane Society . Boopy has broken a stained glass lamp among other things but Pete broke three crystal wine glasses, ate a bag of cookies and loaf of bread all in one day when he was younger – LOL.
Puppydom and quilting – not always the best mix, but an exciting one none the less! – did I tell you she likes to sit on my lap while I piece at the sewing machine???🐶
About a week ago, Heritage Quilters were nice enough to invite me to present my lecture, Never Truly Traditional. This lecture highlights my personal art quilting journey and includes suggestions for different ways to step outside the box, from slightly stepping over the line to stepping out on another planet.
What a pleasure to speak with such an interested and friendly group. I’d say they were a captured audience since I was blocking the door, but they were terrific, laughing at my jokes and asking great questions during and after the program. I love questions, it gives me a sense of connection, that not only are people listening but that something clicked for them, and hopefully what I’m saying has inspired them to try a new technique.
This is one of the quilts from the lecture, it’s my dog Pete printed on a dryer sheet. I made it during the October snow storm so it has lots of hand work (we were out of power for 13 days) embellished with both hand-made and commercial beads and some basic embroidery stitches. This is just one way I’ve recycled laundry products into my art quilts – LOL. J
I also got a sneak peek at the beautiful raffle quilt for Annual Gathering coming up in October, can’t wait for the event!
