Sweatshirt Makeover

       I've been working more on the sweatshirt makeover that I started in Kathy Howards's class, early March. I want to finish it so I can enter it in the Seven Sisters Quilt Show in San Luis Obispo, which means it needs to be done by early June.  Today I was machine quilting the back. All the quilting should be done while the garment can be laid flat, 

which of course makes it a whole lot easier.

I was having such a hard time finding an appropriate erasable marker that would show up on this piece so I could see where I was quilting.  The ones I have are white or blue, which are the same colors as the back of this jacket. It's very frustrating

 when you can't see where you're suppose to be quilting. I tried my new Bohin pencil set I bought recently but the chalk pieces kept breaking on the linen fabric with hardly any pressure.

If you have a favorite brand of marking tool for machine quilting, please leave me a comment below. I've been using the chalk pencils by Clover, but would like something darker for use on lighter pieces. I have heard mixed comments on the Pilot Flexion Pens that some quilters are using. I did find a Dritz purple marker that so far is showing up, but it disappears in 48 to 72 hours.

On a happier note, Lesotho Pink Ice-plant ground cover in our front yard

 is just stunning right now because of all the rain we've received this year. The color of it is so similar to the color in my jacket above. Go figure!

Sweatshirt Makeover

    I've been doing lots of improvisational piecing, having fun making fabric to cover my deconstructed sweatshirt. The other week I was Kathy's assistant in a class she taught to the Bear Valley Quilt Guild on refashioning sweatshirts into wearable art.

 She got me inspired and energized to make another one. Here's the one I'm working on now,
 using some of my hand-dyes, including shibori ones.

This is the second time I've taken this class from Kathy.  Some years ago, I did refashion a sweatshirt collaging Asian fabrics. The lighting in the room where I took these photos

 was not great, but you can get the idea.

Above is the front and below is the back.

Beacon Art Show and Sweatshirt Makeover Workshop

Friday night was the opening reception for the annual Beacon Art Show at the United Methodist Church inSan Luis Obispo.  I was wonderfully surprised and honored when the judges announced that they purchased my art quilt for their permanent collection.  Every year they choose just one piece of art for it.  Above is the picture of my quilt, " Gothic Grace."

This year's theme was "Blessed and Soaring."  I was all over the board thinking of ideas for it, tall redwoods, birds, etc. One day I was looking at one of my ice-dyed pieces on  my design wall when I saw the lines of a rose window in it. Rose windows were first used in the tall Gothic cathedrals  of Europe as the crafts guilds of the time tried to build taller and taller structures to reach to the heavens. I thought this would be the perfect idea for the theme.

Below is the original piece of fabric. It is an ice-dyed piece.  I block printed the smaller circles in the window and machine appliquéd them to the background. I added rick-rack trim and handmade fusible black, bias tape to create the lines. It has some  hand-quilting on it as well.

Below is a picture of me receiving the award. 

 Thanks to my son for taking photos. 

Yesterday I was an assistant to my wonderful friend, Kathy Howard, who was teaching a workshop on turning sweatshirts into art wearables through deconstruction and reconstruction. 

Above is a picture of Kathy, in her beautiful sweatshirt/jacket starting the class. Kathy also taught a lot of fabric manipulation and piecing techniques, including but not limited to seminole piecing and square within a square. She has been making beautiful quilts and wearables 

for many years and had great tips and shortcuts to share with the group.

  The class was presented by the Bear Valley Quilt Guild of Los Osos. They were a wonderful, fun group of women with whom to share the day.  It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot.