Cutting Edge's New Show at Studios on the Park

Thursday, May 1st, Cutting Edge, one of the quilting groups I belong to will open their new show, Fabrications II at Studios on the Park in Paso Robles.  We will have an opening reception May 3rd from 6 to 9 pm.  There will be great food, wine and of course fabulous quilts. The show will run through May 18th.  There are 12 other members in our group and we all have some great quilts to display.  Hope you can stop by.

 Torrential Dreams, Finally Morning and Fried Eggs by me.

 Glacier by Gay McNeal

 Transformation, No. 2  by me.

 Night at the Improv by Gay McNeal

 Naupilus by Sharon Emerson

Reflection by Andi Perejda

Controlled Burn by me

San Francisco Trip

Had a great, art and fun filled mini vacation to San Francisco earlier this week with hubby.  Did a few typical and really fun touristy things and saw some fabulous art at the de Young and Legion of Honor Museums. Here are pics of just a few of my favorite paintings from these exhibits.

Jack in the Pulpit, No. V by Georgia O'Keeffe

Autumn Trees, the Maple, 1924 by Georgia O'Keeffe

Pond in the Woods, by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1923

The Moon Pine at Ueno, #89 by Utagawa Hiroshige, Wood Block Print

All of the above artwork is part of the O'Keeffe exhibit at the de Young.  

It's a great show.  I highly recommend it.

Of course, the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from near the Presidio

Happy Easter Cactus Lilies

Every year about this time our cactus lilies bloom if they get a little water.  I've been recycling our dishpan water, after hand-washing items not suitable for the dishwasher, and gave the cacti a little drink last week and we were rewarded with these blooms today.

Vacation and a Little Progress on Sunflower Quilt

Yesterday was my official first day of vacation. I drove up to Pacific Grove with a friend and had a wonderful day complete with beautiful ocean views and a visit to one of my favorite fabric stores, The Back Porch.  Bought a couple great fabrics and had lunch at Goodies.  The only thing missing was Frances Bailey, with whom we often made this trip.

Been working on my holographic sunflower quilt doing more machine quilting but leaving room for some hand quilting here and there.  Which brings me to a great blog post I read today on "Waiting for the Muse" blog.  Sandy, the blog's writer usually has great posts of very interesting happenings in the art world and about life in general, http://sandeedee.blogspot.com/ I've added a link to her blog in my blog list.  Her post from Sunday, with accompanying pictures about a Brooklyn artist by the name of Melissa Zexter really caught my eye.  This is an artist to check out. http://www.melissazexter.com/  Melissa combines photography and stitchery in a very interesting layered way.  She stitches right through the photographs.  I emailed her to get permission to post some of her work here but have not heard back from her yet, so you will just need to go to her site to check out her unique work.

Meanwhile I want to show you my progress on my sunflower quilt. I'm hand-stitching in some places trying to keep a more delicate line drawing in tune with the organza layered, flipped photograph.  In other areas I'm machine quilting.  Hope to finish this quilt by the end of break.

Green and Lilac, Green and Pink, Green and Red in the Garden

Sorry it's been over a week since I last posted.  Been very busy with student art shows.  Some of my talented 8th graders have paintings up in Paso Robles City Hall for the month of April and three others won cash prizes at the Brushmarks show at the City library last Friday night.

Also, my garden has been going wild, so have tried to get out there and pull weeds, trim back overgrowth, etc.  Here's some photos of what's growing in my yard.

These lilacs are just lovely.  The green in the top photo is so different from the green below due to  changing the position from which I was shooting.

There is a huge mound of these ice plants.  The pink is practically fluorescent.

Pomegranate blossoms already.

I've been eating fresh lettuce from my garden for the last couple of months.  It came up from seed planted last August.  It's yummy too.