Quilt Card Process #1 11-03-07

One of the things I enjoy about reading blogs is learning how different quiltmakers develop and execute their original designs. So, I thought I would share my process for what I call Quilt Cards - small quilts made for a special occasion such as a birthday or to benefit a charity.

As much as I hate all those stiff paper ads in magazines, they are the perfect weight for paper cutting! I get out my box of saved cards and my favorite scissors and start cutting. I first did this decades ago when I had an art teacher who wanted to teach us to actually see things - she had us look at an object and cut it out of paper. no pens or pencils allowed. Today I sometimes need to mark the paper first, depends on the subject. Here are three free cut elephants, done without looking at a picture, but just from memory. None of them are exactly right. I might cut off a portion and tape additional paper on to re-cut the legs (as I did with the smallest elephant) or the head or.... Or I might get a new paper and start all over from scratch.

Here is a dancing cat cut from paper. And a cat and dog that I originated sometime in the past twenty years and liked the images so much that I have used them in many different quilts. These are cut from fused fabric ready to use.

Here is a bird on a tree that I cut yesterday to use in a quilt for the Alzheimer's project. The tree was cut from a card folded to make the two sides mirrored reflections. The bird is a variation on many birds I've cut in the past. All of my quilts have a bird on them somewhere - in the design, the fabric, on the back or the front or in the quilting stitches. Birds are now easy!

Using my paper cuts as patterns I cut the designs from pre-fused fabrics. I always have a variety of colors and printed textures sorted by color into Ziploc bags and a flat box filled with scraps from these pre-fused fabrics.

Tomorrow I will continue to explain my process.

Dressing Up 11-01-07

Here is Corky, the Poodle Prince, dressed up for Halloween. Usually he wears bat wings, but this year he was Assistant Coach at SC and his papa wore his SC jacket and was 'head coach'.

Corky isn't much interested in children, but he always seems to enjoy answering the door when the children are trick or treating. As his Poodle Nanny I've spent several Halloweens at his house answering the ringing of the trick-or-treaters. When the evening is over he is exhausted and sleeps very well all night long, this time in his costume!

"Last Walk in Autumn" 10-31-07

The Houston Quilt Festival opens tomorrow, so I am posting my Journal Quilt tonight. A full picture (all the quilts in the exhibit are 17"W x 22"L), a detail shot and am image of the label. Some of the fabric was hand dyed by Mary Leakey of San Juan Bautista and some by Elizabeth Barton of Athens, GA.

I wish I could be in Houston just to see this last exhibit of Journal Quilts. If you are there, take a picture for me, eh?

Alzheimer quilts 10-29-07

In August 2006 this little 12" x 9" quilt went to Ami Sims fundraiser for Alzheimer's research, but instead of being part of the online auction they just put a price on it and sold it with many others at the project booth in Houston. I've made a few fabric postcards that have actually been auctioned, but not another of the maximum size like this Canary in the Jungle. Someone on the Quilt Art online list has started a sort of challenge for those who are not going to Houston this week - make at least one quilt for Ami's project. I suppose this will suppress the yearnings to jump on a plane and fly to Festival! My problem is that I want to SEE the Festival, I just don't want to be there with 49,000 other quiltmakers. I think it would be too much for me. So, while others are in Houston rubbing elbows and other portions of their bodies with the quiltmaker mobs, I will try to make at least one little quilt for Ami to sell in her online auction. It may be another bird or dogs or cats or.... who knows. Tomorrow I must apply myself.

A meeting in San Diego 10-27-07

I drove to San Diego today (Saturday) for a meeting of the Visions Art Quilt Associates, which is an affiliate of the Visions Art Quilt Gallery. The group meets about every other month for the purpose of letting all the Visions members and interested people visit, share ideas, share work and usually to hear a short program relating to our quiltmaking interests. I haven't attended during the summer and wanted to see people I haven't seen and catch up with what the group is doing. The attendance was low - because of the disruption of so many lives by the fire and also due to people having gone to Market and Festival in Houston. I learned sadly that three Visions people have lost their homes and at least half a dozen were evacuated, but had been able to return to their intact houses. Some said they had to attend the meeting just to put a little normalcy in their lives. We had a fascinating presentation on quilt appraisals by Julia Zgliniec who is a certified quilt appraiser (in fact, MY certified quilt appraiser) and past president of Visions. I go to Julia for TCQC appraisals because she has long exposure to both traditional and contemporary quilts. She was there for the first Visions in 1987 - her twenty years of involvement is a plus in my book!

On the way home I zipped off the highway at Oceanside to see the work in progress on the Oceanside Museum of Art where the biennial International Visions exhibit is held. The construction will be finished in time for Visions - 2008 coming up next fall and will greatly expand the gallery space available.

There were sprinkles periodically all the way home, which must be a huge help to the firefighters and the humidity last evening was 81% - up from 9% last Sunday! But the fires are still burning, so there was smoke in the air in some areas, but not enough to cause me a problem. I was amazed that the fire burned right up to the I-5/San Diego Fwy at Camp Pendleton, even though I had heard that there were closures on Sunday and Monday. I took some pictures as I drove along and posted them in an album that you can access at http://picasaweb.google.com/DELQLTS/FirestormOnI5AtInspectionStation102707

The weather is warmer today, but will be mostly in the high 70s with more drizzle predicted for late tomorrow. Next weekend the winds are suppose to visit us again, so keep your fingers crossed that there are no fires to burn everything that hasn't been burned already!