Valerie Goodwin quilt in TCQC 09-27-21

Here is a quilt that I added to TCQC in 2003 and it is very different from what Valerie Goodwin is now creating.   Some viewers think of this as the "olive" quilt, but those are not olives at all.  If you Google Rotational Displacement you get:

– Rotational displacement is how far the object rotates.

Rotational displacement is how far the object rotates. • Units: fractions of a complete revolution; degrees; radians. • 1 complete revolution = 360º = 2π ...

I am definitely not a physicist, but for my mind this does relate to the image on this quilt.  I continue to find it fascinating and like to hang it at the end of the hall to enjoy it often.  Here is the original blog post from 2010.

Valerie Goodwin quilt in TCQC 09-12-10

I first saw this quilt in September 2002 when Valerie Goodwin posted to the Quilt Art list giving her new website where she also showed work by her students. She is an architect and teaches at Florida A&M University's School of Architecture. Valerie was preparing for an exhibit of her work and didn't want to sell this quilt until after the exhibit. But, true to her word, she contacted me when the exhibit was taken down and I was able to buy the quilt. It is very unlike the work she is doing now, but it still "speaks" to me. I have been tempted by her more recent work, but I have yet to add another of her quilts to the TCQC. I was pleased to meet her two years ago when she had a quilt in the Visions Exhibit. See her current work at www.quiltsbyvalerie.com

"Rotational Displacement" Valerie Goodwin 2002 25"W x 46"L

Cotton fabrics, machine pieced, hand appliqued, hand quilted.

There are two pieces of this fabric printed with words - just the kind of detail that draws me in.

This quilt has a plain back and you will notice that the matching sleeve makes it a horizontal quilt, but I have added a black sleeve on one end to hang it vertical. I much prefer it that way. If you want to see it in the artist's orientation - the bottom of the quilt is the grey border with the red inserts. The label is on the original sleeve - the white label on the lower left is the TCQC label.

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Plants in the neighborhood 09-25-21

When my neighbor planted this it was already quite large.  I asked him about it and he said a friend was redoing his yard and wanted to get rid of it.  It is a gorgeous specimen and has adapted well to the location. 

 It is about two feet wide now. 

And almost as tall.  

When the "petals" first come out they are fringed, but as they expand they develop a more scalloped edge.  I wonder if it will bloom some day. 

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Out and About 09-24-21

I drove to San Diego again yesterday with Nancy Ota.  We both wanted to see the current exhibits at Visions Art Museum, she needed to pick up two dining room chairs she had reupholstered, we both had scraps to drop with Salvation Army, and I needed to pick up something from my friend Judy in north San Diego - right off I-5.  KoKo stayed home alone for about eight hours, poor guy, but he seems to do okay as long as I don't leave him like that very often.  He couldn't stay with Nancy because she was with me!  He needed extra loving and extra play time last night so he recovered nicely.

The main exhibit at VAM is "Raw and Reassembled", quilts made by Paula Kovarik.  I have long admired her work and hope to add a piece to the Collection.  She does wonderful free motion stitching with heavy black thread on white or white thread on black - whimsical creatures, swirls and squares, thick and thin, houses and waves, and.... well, anything that comes to her mind.  I do wonder if she has nightmares!!  VERY inventive.  She also cuts up quilts she has made previously, combines them with pieces of other quilts and creates fascinating juxtapositions of shapes, colors, motifs, and great visual depth.  Here is a picture of "Unmapped" made in 2017 and measures about 30"W X 40"L.She describes it as 'Reassembled quilt pieces, overstitched."  

And a DETAIL.

Another gallery shows "Expressive Liberations" colorful quilts from San Diego People of Color Quilt Guild.  And in the small gallery are four quilts from the permanent collection. 

These exhibits are up until October3rd.

Today is the one year anniversary of the death of my friend Mabel Huseby in Washington State.  Not a day I wanted to stay home and mourn (something I have done every day for a year) and my friend Carol joined me for lunch at Cedar Creek in Brea.  Carol is always good company and we both enjoy the food at Cedar Creek.  It is in a Republican area, but our table was nicely separated and we masked up going in and out and the wait staff was all masked.

Carol had the Brown Derby style Cobb Salad which is finely chopped and delicious.

I had the fish tacos which came with rice and beans. Also delicious and enough food that I didn't need dinner tonight.

The plate was so colorful I took this close up.

I had a yen for dessert (when don't I?) so we shared a lemon tart which was topped by three huge raspberries.  Fabulous, but it would have been easier to eat with a spoon.

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More on Whisper quilt + doctoring 09-22-21

 If you are intrigued with the idea of Whisper Quilts you should Google  "Whisper Quilt Challenge".  There are many shown, some more successful than others.  I was especially interested to read Jenny K. Lyon's explanation of the quilt she made and the third person in a 12 month SAQA challenge in 2012.  She did a lot of thinking about her design.   Most of the groups you find on the Google list just show the quilts, but some have explanations.  Loose Threads group is interesting.  Browse a bit, the progressions are varied and inspiring.

I've talked before about the coyote problem we have in my neighborhood.  Something that is happening all over the country, or so I have read.  We haven't seen any on our walks just recently.  But one day last week when I took KoKo out back for a piddle we spied this one walking between the chain link fence and the block wall that surrounds the patio homes behind us.  KoKo never goes out alone and likes to walk on the short wall across our backyard and survey the homes and park, always barking at dogs out for a run.  And, in this case, coyotes!  That guy stopped and took a good look and I wonder if a coyote could fix the location in his memory and come back later looking for a meal!  It is quite a long way around to get over the two chain link fences, the very deep flood control channel the gravel road, our metal fence and up the slope.  But they can do it as I have seen them in our yard.  

I did see my primary doctor this morning.  She gave me a referral to a different orthopedic group to try to see if I can get another spinal injection SOON.  Guess I will try calling tomorrow.  I gave blood for testing to see about the various levels.  I just can't seem to regain any endurance and am always dragging around, too tired to accomplish much.  All my life I have heard "It ain't easy getting old." and they were right!

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A Whisper Quilt Project 09-20-21

A Whisper Quilt project is like the childhood game of "Whisper" where the 1st child sitting in a circle whispers something to the second child.  She then repeats the whisper to child number three, who in turn whispers it to number four and so on around the circle.  It was great fun to see how much the whisper had changed when it came back to the first child.  With quilters the first person in the privacy of her sewing space makes a small quilt and then shows it to the second person, letting them keep it until the second person has made a quilt based on the first.  She then returns the first quilt to the maker and shows her own quilt to person number three who will base her quilt on that inspiration.  Nobody else will see the quilts except the maker and the next person on the list.  Our art quilt group in San Diego started our project over two years ago, but the pandemic rather slowed us down.  Instead of passing our quilts to the next person we started e-mailing pictures to the next person.  Only seven of the members participated and we all took an inordinate amount of time to make such small quilts.  However, we finally had our "reveal" at the in-person September meeting.  It was interesting to hear the explanations of why each quilt developed.  

The only “rule” is that it should be approximately 18” X 24”, either portrait or landscape orientation.  Any fabric or technique is acceptable.  The quilt must be quilted and have finished edges.

       

Andrea Bacal started us off with this view of cone flowers based on a picture she had taken.  

This is my quilt, based on Andrea's coneflowers.  Butterflies love coneflowers.  I had intended to add the white dots they display using white puff paint, but I forgot!  This is all fused with the orange/yellow of the wings one piece with the cutout black veins fused on top.  

Michalee Sloan was next.  She based her hidden tiger on the colors in my quilt with lots of green as in the background.  The leaves are made individually and tacked to make a 3-D jungle.  

Ellen Spellman followed with her delicate embroidery inspired by the intricacy of the hidden tiger and foliage.  She accented the blue in the tiger. 

Carol Sebastian-Nealy picked up on the geometric, but used squares instead of rectangles, repeating the vertical quilting.  Now called "matchstick", but was called "channel" quilting in the 70s. 

Deb McKay printed her own fish, repeating the five images and included the horizontal line from Carol's quilt. 

Nelda McComb started with a blue background as in Deb's quilt and created a whimsical view of her recently retired husband catching a fish.  

Here are the quilts pinned up in order at our meeting. 

It was an interesting project, but might have gone better without the complication of the pandemic and not being able to pass the actual quilts to the next person.  

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Surfside Quilters Guild meeting 09-14-21

This morning I drove down to San Clemente for the second in person meeting of the Surfside Quilters Guild since the pandemic started - in our second new meeting place.  Our speaker today was the witty, talented David Walker.  His appliqued pieces are amazing.   If you click on his name in the sidebar you can see the hummingbird quilt I purchased from him back in 2013.

Our president kept reminding the members to wear their masks, but not everyone did.  I hope there were no Covid molecules in the group.  I wore my mask and tried not stand too close to anyone, but it was  almost a full house, so who knows.  I am the official photographer so needed to be all around taking pictures.  Below are pictures of two president's quilts - one for Mary Arter, our current president who is serving a second term, and one for Monica Shafer who is the previous president and received her quilt at home since Covid had shut down our meetings.  This is the first time the guild members had seen these quilts in-the-fabric.  For those of you are are not familiar with this custom...   Every year the past president organizes the membership to make 6" blocks with a theme of the president's choice and a committee puts the blocks together so that it can be hand quilted at various members' homes.  The banner is always the same and the back has great back art including the names of everyone who helped to make it.  

Mary Arter had requested all stars and bright color batiks. 

The previous year Monica had asked for beachy things and we all used a blue background. 

Here is my hat block that I piece for most of the quilts.  And the blocks around it - there are several of the clever folded Hawaiian shirts in the quilt and quite a few machine embroidered flowers and sea critters. 

After the meeting four of us went out for an old lady's lunch for my 83rd birthday, Nancy's 80th birthday, and Charlotte's 90th birthday.  Mary's birthday is in mid October and I don't know how old she is, maybe early 80s.  Cedar Creek in San Juan Capistrano has a large patio, which was packed, so we ate inside and we were the only diners there.  It was a little eerie, but very quiet and nice.  The food is always tasty and the service excellent.  

When I got home I needed a nap!

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Bad Memories of 9/11/01

This little 14X14 quilt is "New Growth" which I made for Karey Bresenhan's project after 9/11.  It is in her book showing all the quilts made for the project.   My thought was that out of the ashes would come a new strength among all Americans and a surge of patriotism and cooperation.  Guess I am not a psychic, huh?  The towers are pieced and everything else was fused.  It was a hard piece to work on - I kept thinking of all the children who would never again see their parent.  My father died of kidney failure in 1942 when I was four.  Although there were pictures of him my only actual memory is of him sitting with me on my grandparents porch and teaching me how to tie my shoes.  It is hard to grow up without both parents.  

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