Quilt Nat'l in Wall Street Journal 05-23-09

My friend Linda sent this URL for a nice article (with a few pictures) about Quilt Nat'l - 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203771904574175704270154992-lMyQjAxMDA5MDIwMzEyNDMyWj.html

Or do it the easy way: http://tinyurl.com/pwtq44

2007 Quilt Nat'l Opening 05-22-09

Since I had to cancel my road trip to Kansas and Ohio and won't be at the opening of Quilt National, I thought I would look back at 2007 and remember that great trip. That year I discovered that the night before the opening there is a special evening for supporters of The Dairy Barn, Quilt National and also collectors of note. So, by the time of the opening a number were already sold. It is a bit off-putting that if one buys a quilt they won't have it in their hands for several years as the exhibit goes touring across the country - in three sections. The two quilts that I purchased in May 2007 arrived on April 30, 2009 (the week I came home from my Empty Spools 2009 session with Pamela Allen). Talk about a high! All that creative input from the class, topped by two fabulous quilts I own, but hadn't seen for two years. I couldn't wait to get them up on the walls.

"Red Wave" Dianne Firth - 2005 - Turner, Canberra, Australia

Cotton fabric, polyester batting, torn-strip appliqued, machine quilted.

No apparent website or blog.

This quilt is four separate pieces (which are conveniently marked 1 through 4 on the backs. It was inspired by a spicy vegetable root named galangal, closely related to ginger and turmeric.

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I didn't buy this next quilt, I didn't have the funds, even if I hadn't bought the other two! But I think it is spectacular and it is two sided, so I suppose it could be considered two quilts.

"Peach, Pear, Plum" w/artist Elizabeth Brimelow - 2006 - Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK

55"W x 60"L

Silk whole-cloth double-sided quilt; hand and machine stitched, direct and reverse applique, fused, slashed, knotted.

I wasn't able in engage Elizabeth in a lengthy conversation about her techniques, but as I recall the little diagonal lines on the colorful side are slits, while those on the B&W side are hand stitches. There are two tree shapes that are aligned diagonally on each side. This is just the kind of quilt that fascinates me - the more one looks the more one sees.

I appreciate Elizabeth's statement, it seems so apt for her work. "Landscape is where I live, what I look at, what I draw, and what I stitch. My subject is marks made on the land by planting, plowing, and harvesting. Through my hands I have a story to tell, and this connects me to other times, places and cultures." http://www.quiltart.org.uk/elizabethbrimelo.html

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"Structured Chaos #14" with the artist Beth Carney - Yonkers, NY - 2006

64"W x 53"L Cotton fabric; gradation and low-immersion dyed, machine pieced and quilted.

http://www.bethcarneystudio.com/gallery.htm

If you have seen this quilt in the Quilt National 2007 book, you have almost seen a completely different quilt - the color in the book is waaay off. The problem has to do with the pigments used, they are different for dyeing, printing and photographing. We used to use Ecktachome film for blue-violet objects because the color was more true. I imagine that if the picture above was printed in a book the blue-violet would come out red-violet, as in the book. Guess the moral would be that if you make a quilt in these colors, don't expect it to print in true color!
Beth was charming and so excited that her quilt sold so quickly, but perhaps not as excited as her friends who seemed almost delirious. If I were ever to be in her position I would hope my friends would be as supportive. It was an exciting weekend.

The quilt is very closely machine quilted with vertical lines which have just enough variation to create a texture and movement on the back of the quilt. The hand dyed fabric on both sides adds much to my enjoyment of this piece.

2007 SAQA conference in Athens, Ohio 05-21-09

I'll call this image "Quilters at Lunch". This is about the time I wondered if there was anyone other than Ruth Powers that I knew! I'm terrible at remembering any one's name and seem to get even worse as the years go by. So, if you see someone here you know, drop me a e-mail or make a comment and I will add their names to the pictures.

There is someone I know smack-dab in the middle of this picture. Jill Rumoshosky Werner is wearing what appears to be a red-orange/brown jacket. I know her because I visited her in Wichita a couple years earlier, she was at the Visions opening in 2006 and I own one of her quilts.

The tables were round and seated (I think) eight, so those across the table were a long way away. I should know names for both of these ladies (wonder if they would rather be called 'gals'), but I can't think of them right now. One would suppose by this age I would be smart enough to write them down, but I didn't. I thought I might see them again this year. [A comment tells me that the lady on the right with the great smile is Laura Jaszkowski Jennings of Eugene, Oregon]

The group was not large so that we could be one-on-one quite a bit. I talked to this lady several times - very friendly and relaxed.

Some attendees were preoccupied with other people or other things. These two ladies were sitting on my right and I don't know who they are because they didn't talk to me.[A comment tells me that the lady on the left is Carol Larson.)

And these two waited until after dessert to discuss something in a catalog.
I get overwhelmed when a room is full of people. It doesn't bother me at all if I am doing a presentation, I can handle a crowd as long as it isn't a room full of children. Scary stuff, that!

2007 - Kansas to Ohio 05-20-09

My memory is playing more tricks on me these days. Ruth and I drove some tiny back roads on our trip and I remember that this bridge was AFTER the SAQA conference, but the date on the picture proves me wrong! It had to be before we arrived in Athens, Ohio.

This is a replica bridge - replacing one from mid-19th C (if I remember correctly!). It looks like it is leaning, but that is an illusion caused by the timbers on the sides of the opening. They slant inward from the roof. We wondered why the builders used that construction.

Adjacent to the bridge was this sign, but no indication which way to go. I just checked a map and Hoods Run is in Kentucky on state hwy 7, which is the winding country road we took from Greyson, KY, north into Ohio. Fun!

Ruth Powers at a roadside rest area. We stopped to rest frequently because our bodies would ache unless we moved around a bit. Ruth is a great travel partner. She even drove some, which will shock anyone who knows me well. I want to be the driver and I don't like others to drive my car, but I made an exception for Ruth.

Lots of huge fields, some with the cylindrical hay bales which seem to have completely replaced the old rectangular style. Ruth had just finished a small quilt showing these wheel-like bales - very nice.

I'm always fascinated by the unusual things that are hauled on trucks. At first I thought these were some kind of trailer, but I suspect they are mechanical parts to something large - like compressors or cracker making machines!

This flatbed is hauling a wooden huge spool of red tubing - which seemed to have a diameter in excess of five inches. I supposed there could be a hundred uses for this sort of thing. Occasionally I will see such a truck in a rest stop and ask the driver what he is carrying, sometimes they don't even know. Check out the complete lack of traffic - lovely.

Ruth had her portable GPS on that trip and now I have one in the Lexus - of course, I haven't completely figured it out. I'm not so sure how much I will depend on it. I ran across this article today.

http://www.switched.com/2009/05/19/gps-satellites-could-break-down-by-2010/

2007 Driving across Kansas 05-19-09

On this day in 2007 I was driving east across Kansas on US Hwy 50 - at that time it was a part of the country I had not seen before. The weather was great with lots of fluffy white clouds and green pasture to each horizon. I was en route to Carbondale, KS, (near the eastern border) to pick up Ruth Powers for our trip to Ohio for the SAQA conference and the opening of Quilt National 2007. This entire trip was just perfect. Looking west across the last of the true bluegrass pasture which stretches four and a half million acres. It is cattle country and cow country. I took the picture above when I was standing on the other side of this marker. Nice image of cowboy/horse/cattle and the Kansas state flower.

I saw very little traffic on Hwy 50. This image looks forward....

....and this image shows the reflection of the roadway I have just traveled.

A tidy dairy farm - there was a modern one story milking barn nearby.

These are long horned (medium horned?) cattle rather than dairy cows. I always see lots of cattle when I drive across country. If I stop on the roadside to take pictures they usually come to the fence to stare at me. Guess they must get really bored out there in the middle of nowhere.

I had spent the previous night in Hutchinson, KA, would spend this evening and night with Ruth and Charlie Powers. I started looking at these pictures today because I thought the memory of that trip might get me out of the dumps over missing this year's trip. I'll have to wait and see!

Quilt from TCQC 05-17-09

This week's quilt is one that I purchased at the East Bay Heritage Quilters auction which is held in conjunction with their quilt show at the Oakland Convention Center in even numbered years. They always have very nice quilts, some made by 'world class' quilt makers. I had seen Ellen's work in Visions year after year and this small quilt spoke to me. It is a 'one-block' quilt - sixteen 7-3/4" blocks. Instead of using commercial fabric, Ellen has silk screened layers of pattern on the background fabrics. For some reason these maze like designs are difficult to photograph, so I am showing some details below.

"C-Block #6" Ellen Oppenheimer 1997 31"W x 31"L

I don't know which color is the background - I think the medium blue - but you can see the layers where the polka-dots disappear around their edges.

In these two blocks it appears that the polka-dots may have been the final silk screen used.

Here it is clear that the polka-dots were screened before the light blue.

Ellen won the Quilts Japan Prize at Visions 1997 and later went to Japan to teach and study, which is part of the prize. She describes her process in the Visions catalog for 2002, if you would care to read about it.

Thank you for all the good wishes that my health problem isn't serious. I'll have the test(s) this week sometime and will give an "organ recital" when I have something to share.

New Fujitsu "Lifebook - S series" 05-16-09

This is a little larger than a mini - it is 11-1/2" w x 9"deep x 1" thick and weighs about 4 pounds.
I know I started out to buy a mini (smaller and lighter), but they don't have a jack for dial up and I need dial-up at Mary's and sometimes at motels in out of the way places. I wonder if Beaver, Utah, has computer service of any kind now - they didn't two years ago. Nor did they have cell service.

I went to visit Corky this evening while his parents went to the theater with their group. If I weren't here he would have had to stay home alone - horrors! But I needed a some doggie loving and he is a little lover. Of course, he slept most of the time while I messed with this new computer and read my current book. I keep feeling that I have forgotten something important - perhaps it is going on a Road Trip! Where would I be tonight? In the past I have stayed at Santa Rosa, NM, on the first night out, but I can't drive as far in one day as I did even two years ago, so maybe Gallup? I needed to be at Ruth's by Monday night, but figured I could make it if I stopped for a nap mid-day. Old age has given me the gift of power naps - they are wonderful, even if the old age isn't. People tell me that 70 isn't old, but it truly is the beginning of the last (maybe two) decades of most people's lives. I just think I am being realistic, something for which I have always strived.
[The Blogger spell check is so odd, they say it should be
'st rived'!]

Now that I have a new car and a new laptop, I need to start looking for a new digital camera. The battery access door won't stay closed, so I use packaging tape to keep it closed. Duct tape or masking tape is too obvious.