Photos and Silkscreen Prints

You are invited to view

my photos and silkscreen and Gelli plate (!) prints

during the month of December, starting Dec 4th

at the Levite Jewish Community Center gallery.

The title of the show is

" From the Wintery to the Whimsical" 

I have included my 

"When Happiness Knocks ,......"quilt

I was given very short notice and am just now putting the last touches on some of the pictures.More later, next week, I hope.

Marimekko Fabrics

Two months since last post.
What's been going on?


Well, vacation trips, yard work, swimming every day etc.

But I've got something of my own to show this time:

Two quilts and a softie.

The Birmingham Quilter's Society had a challenge, where we were supposed to show a nine patch as part of the quilt design and also supposedly be inspired by mirror images, since the theme was Alice Through the Looking Glass, ( Looking glass was how a mirror was described - back in the time.....)

Well, I stuck to the theme somewhat, had my nine-patch and did a mirror image of the back of a  Bassetts Allsorts liquorice bag.  I wonder if it shows in the photo of the front of the quilt, but it took me hours to do that, and then suddenly Quilting Arts arrived in the mail and a contributor wrote about dissolving thread. Next time when I need to quilt back to front I'll definitely try that.

Or I'll buy a backing with lines and go ahead again and quilt from the back, as I did on the Marimekko quilt  to show sun rays and waves This is my first whole cloth quilt and there is a story.
 Last year when visiting Berkley my husband had seen there was a Crate and Barrel outlet. Off we went on the bus to find it, and they had tons of Marimekko fabrics on sale. I really went crazy and we ended up taking a taxi back, because of my heavy bags of fabric.

 But there the fabric stayed until about a month ago, when I found that the baby shower for my first grandchild was fast approaching. No time for patchwork or piecing, so she gets my first whole cloth quilt. The three family dogs were appliqued and she is looking out to sea at our favorite beach, Neptune Beach Fl. looking at a ship coming from St. John's river. I don't know if the fabric was supposed to be dyed in two colors, or if it was a mistake from the factory, but the quilt is just one entire piece of cloth.

And then of course Charlie the Elephant.
A soft toy all the way from England, pattern obtained for free from Bustle and Sew.

 Our guild is addicted to hexies since two members are getting a book out soon, devoted entirely to  hexies. ( See  Julia's blog The Hexie Blog)

 The color of the elephant? To match the stroller. We already know it's a girl.

Carpets

I can't believe my last post was May 5th.

This time i want to show some carpets that relates to quilting.
Last week we stayed at a motel, a reasonable place, BUT the carpets in the halls were awful.
They made you dizzy even if you hadn't drunk any alcohol; I would hate to come back one night
with a hangover to those carpets.
I wonder what  effect a quilt with that pattern would do.

 The second carpet was with the tumbling blocks.
 It was at my son's workplace and it somehow worked.

When you were in the room it was calming. Coming from the door however one feltt that one was taken to a higher level, which of course is the effect a place full of programmers induces has anyway.

Carpets

I can't believe my last post was May 5th.

This time i want to tell  about carpets that remind me of quilting.
A reasonable motel we stayed at last week has the most amazing carpet.
Even without alcohol it made you dizzy. I should hate to go through its hallways under the influence.
I wonder if I could translate this into a quilt  and what effect it would have.

 The second carpet was on the floor of my son's workplace. That carpet was the tumbling blocks,
 It worked somehow. Not at all disturbing, when you were in the room.

 Standing at the door however it seemed to want  to take you to a higher level which is just right for a
 place that  masters computing way past the level of most of us.

CINCO DE MAYO

Celebrate this American holiday by feasting on Hispanic woven cloth.
Surprise - only one state in Mexico celebrates Cinco de Mayo. Check Wikipedia!!
Photos from Antigua, Guatemala.

Container Patchwork

                                      Maersk Headquarters "The Building with the Blue Eyes"

                                         Patchwork quilt - First stage?

                              Panama Canal, Panama City behind- the "real" Panama City

                                          Ditto

                                         In case you missed the containers!  Here in Costa Rica.

                                             
                Maersk is the shipping line that uses the Panama canal the most we were told.



 I believe all quilters do it.
That is, take photos that would make great patchwork quilts.

  Here is one from the port of Oakland, California, a load of containers.
 Why this photo?
 Well the richest man in Denmark, Mærsk McKinney Møller died today at the age of 98.
 If I can mention Steve Jobs I can write a line or two about this famous Dane.
 We see his containers and ships all over the world.
 Below a couple from Panama City, Panama and Costa Rica, and I thought I would
 include the Maersk headquarter in Copenhagen, known to the locals as
 the building with the blue eyes.

BRITEX FABRICS

I'm getting num with all the sales that clutter my e-mail. Yes, I know I can block them, but sometimes I do want a coupon from Jo-Ann's and others.
One sale entry I don't want to miss is from Britex. Not that I ever could afford any of their fabrics, but just to sit and dream is worth it.
We went to San Francisco last August and while my husband took a simulated stage coach ride at Wells Fargo Museum, I feasted my eyes on the many shelves of fabric at Britex Fabrics.
We had a fixed time when we going to meet up again, of course all to soon. I only got three photos.
But I get the e-mails and the blog and this week they even have a blurp about a quilt show in Washington state.
Well, maybe one day I'll buy a yard of wool felt or Italian silk from this fabulous store.

PS. I have added a photo of the ceiling at the San Francisco Mission, one day somebody will make a quilt with that pattern.

Mercury and The Mad Hatter

So what's a mercury spill have to do with fabric.
Well, it's a stretch, but since I was a chemistry teacher in a former life, I feel for the poor guy, who managed to get his middle school closed for a week, and this the week before the scheduled spring break.
What happened was, that a bottle of the stuff fell from a shelf and broke, and then the kids tracked the small silvery droplets all over the school. Next EPA, worried parents, nightly news etc.
 So what's it to do with me? Well this week at the guild meeting we tried to encourage more people to take the challenge for June's meeting: 'Alice Through the Looking glass'.
Even if in that story Lewis Carroll only once introduces the Mad Hatter, he is such a familiar figure in connection with Alice from the previous  'Alice in Wonderland' that I always think of him when she is mentioned.
And I think of his predicament which has to do with mercury,
He spent all day making leather top hats which were in fashion then. The leather used for these hats had been treated with mercury, a tanning agent.
So there is your connection.

 And we don't want everybody out there going mad, do we? Even if we all loved it, when a thermometer broke and we could play with the quicksilver, mercury's common name.

Quilters' Reply Girl

No, this is not U-tube and even if I'll show wavy lines, those are on a quilt.

But because the same pattern is posted on Pipkinhouse.blogspot.com  I thought
I could make you look at that much lovelier quilt and compare.

I finally got my quilt finished and with it hanging out there on my deck with the redbud trees flowering
I guess all my troubles over that quilt have evaporated. Let's hope the quilt will carry that notion with it
to the person who receives it.  For it wasn't all fun!
Whoever stands up at Show and Tell and says "This was a fun quilt to make", either sewed all their seven daughters'  dresses  for years, or they read instructions VERY CAREFULLY, or  they have a warped sense of fun, two of which isn't me.
So when the instructions said: SEW ALL THE WHITE STRIPS TO THE BOTTOM OF THE WEDGES what did I do? - exactly that, but the previous line had told me to turn the wedges to face each other before doing it, which I did not.
 By the time I discovered my mistake and in addition had squared everything, I found I didn't have enough white on white to finish the quilt.
 So off on a shopping trip to Jasper with Mary which costs us both dearly. Next my sewing machine got hiccups and well as I said I FINALLY finished the quilt yesterday in time for the March meeting, when it has to be turned in.
 I'm so glad others have enjoyed making these waves more than I. I hope I don't make waves for the cuddle quilt committee, who spend hours cutting fabric and preparing these kits for us to take - all ready made.

RETREAT

   

The Birmingham Quilters Guild  held its February retreat last week. 
Sheryl, one of our new members quickly fitted into the 

VERY  ORGANIZED CHAOS group of quilters.

And for those of you who took part in the UGLY FABRIC game and might not have believed that the yard I left behind would have taken the prize, here it is.
Poor Lincoln cut down to the size of a dwarf, with withered arms.
I dared not post it yesterday, on Presidents Day.