Older Quilts for a New Show at the Pioneer Museum

There is going to be a quilt show in March at the Paso Robles Pioneer Museum and they are looking for larger quilts, so I pulled out a couple of quilts made some years ago to see if they want to have them for the show.

This is a quilt I made for my mom in 2000 when she moved to an assisted living facility. This was my way of helping her take her garden, which she loved dearly, to her now home. She has since passed away and I have the quilt back.

 

Closeup of Mom's quilt.

This one is called, Geishas in the Garden. It has sashiko stitching

 as well a machine quilting.

Above is the whole quilt, below, a closeup 

This a  link I checked out from another blog I visit regularly, called Waiting for the Muse,  http://sandeedee.blogspot.com/   This woman's work, 

Hilary Waters Fayle,  is just incredible.  It took my breath away so am sharing it with you.

http://www.hillarywfayle.com/#/new-page/

Wishing you an inspirational day!

Circles Pizzazz Class with Judy Sisneros

Just got home from a great class offered by Almond Country Quilt which was taught by Judy Sisneros called Circles Pizzazz, which is also the name of one of her quilt books.   She was a very knowledgeable, enjoyable teacher.  We learned a lot and had some great fun.  It's a very challenging block. Every seam is a curved one but she had lots of great tips on getting 'non-puckering' seams. To find out more about  Judy visit her website
http://judysisneros.com/

 Judy looked at everyone's fabrics and helped us figure out what would be the best choices 

for circles and backgrounds.

 Planning and figuring out my blocks. When I get a few more, I'll post pictures of them. 

Only finished two today.

 

 Cheryl's fabrics

 

 Above and below are two of Judy's beautiful quilts

At the end of the class, Judy put together everyone's blocks on a design board and although everyone had quite different color choices, it looks pretty good.

Playing with Solvy

I've been laying low this last weekend with a light concussion caused by being blasted in the head from a kicked soccer ball early Friday morning at school. It hit me with such force that it knocked me to the pavement.  I was totally blindsided.  The student wasn't aiming at me, but nonetheless got me.  Hopefully this will result  in a 'no ball playing area" in our quad at school, something we used to have but has not been enforced this year.

Had a little time and energy to play with making a little lacy piece with the possibility of using it as embellishment on my newest quilt.  It was fun to to it, but I don't think I'll use this particular piece here.

 

Here it is all stitched but still in the hoop with the solvy.

Here it is on one of the white sections where I was contemplating putting it. It shrunk when I removed the sulky  plastic in the water.  On to plan B. I'm keeping the 'lace' but won't use it here.

New Itajime and Arashi Shibori Quilt

Here is a picture of my newest quilt all sewn together.  I can see lots of great places for hand stitching on this one.

Below is a closeup.

Reversible Tote Bag

The other day, Saturday to be specific,  on Laura Kemshall's blog, she had a great post on making an easy reversible tote bag. Instructions are here: http://laurakemshall.blogspot.com/

Here's a picture of mine. Since I was using two lightweight fabrics, I added interfacing to one of the them so the bag would be more sturdy.

Elephant Seals, Beautiful Stenciling and Family

Sorry I did not get to post a blog this weekend.  Nor, did I get to any artwork. Oh well, I did have a great time however. My oldest brother,  sister-in-law, and nephew from Michigan were visiting us.  They had not been out here for about 9 years.We took them to two missions, three wineries and the show at the SLO museum where my art quilt is hanging as part of the "Off Kilter" exhibit by the Cutting Edge Fiber Art Group. We also took them to see the elephant seals on the beach near Hearst Castle.  They were really incredibly interesting.

Here's the whole group of us at our house.  We had a wonderful, long overdue visit. 

 Some beautiful stenciling from the San Luis Obispo Mission.

The largest Elephant Seal we saw on the coast.  They can get up to 5,000 lbs.  Watching the interactions between them, the females and the pups was really incredible.

Planning New Shibori Quilt

This is what I sewed together late last night, thinking it was pretty good. 

 

This morning it didn't look as exciting as it did last night, so I did this:

 

Then I pinned up this variation:

Followed by this last variation:

 

So if you are looking at this, please give me some feedback as to what you think is most interesting, 1, 2, 3 or 4.  I'm leaning towards 3 or 4.