Category Archives: Along the Shore

A Bit about process

 

IMG_6471  Hello-

I am getting back into my usual grove this week.  I went to a FAB meeting where Judy showed us  more of the blocks she created after the Mill Sight weekend.   I think the colors work well together well and it will result in a grand quilt.       I have finished several pieces this week so it is time to begin new work.   I though I might talk about one of my processes. Rock wall First I select an image.  This is a photo that I took in Washington state of a cut in the road.   Then I make a little windows and run them around the photo to find an area I think is a good jumping off point.     When I choose one and  I then do a little sketch of it using dark, medium and light.   IMG_6498IMG_6502  At this point I need to decided on a size and select a fabric for a base.     Because of the great amount of shrinkage and IMG_6503warping that occures with all the felting and  the stitching I apply I make the background fabric  10 inches bigger then the  final projected finished size.   The next step is to lay out roving in  the areas that are light med and dark and felt it down.    I then build up the surface with yarn,  silk paper and fabric strips.

Progress Report:   Small Cleft  IMG_6478.jpgThis work is 24” long and 20”  wide.  It is based on a photo I took four years ago.    I used the same process I described above for this work.    IMG_6479  I incorporated silk yarn in this work as well as silk paper.   IMG_6480  There is also some fabric bits and yarns here too.

Beach FrontBeach Front  This quilt is another in the three challenges process.  My hand dyed fabric is the white with colored spots and Ethel’s is the  blue and dark batiks.     It is based on a collage.IMG_6496   The top half is quilted in parallel lines while the bottom section is done in a wavy pattern to suggest water.IMG_6497

 

Generational WhispersGenerational  Whispers  This work is 43” long and  38” high.     I shows five generations of women in my family with my grand daughter at the center in the bottom.IMG_6490  I  did free  motion drawing on organza to create the portraits and then sewed them to the background.  Mom   The last step was to add  the names of the women represented then quilt.  There was not enough space  below all the heads to  add their dates of birth and death on the top so I have added a panel on the back with that information.IMG_6489

 

BuitterflyButterfly   I am just about done with the thread painting on this butterfly.  The black sections on the body and the left wing  remain.  Then I will add it to the top and do the final quilting on that piece.

 

 

Ethel's Nine PatchesEthel’s Nine Patch   I am enjoying building these squares.  I have completed 25  at this point.  To make it a queen sized quilt it will take 43 blocks so I am a little beyond half way done at this point.  Looking at the scrap box I know there will be a second one of these too.

Label blocksLabel Block # 81  I feel back into my old pattern and only finished on block this week.  I have started making Creative Assistants in the evening  so I did not put in any extra time on this project.

Keep Creating.

Carol

Travel With Marty- To Lincoln Nebraska

IMG_6334Hello-

I am home from a wonderful and stimulating trip from Spokane Washington to Lincoln Nebraska.     We loaded a black rented jeep with 20 boxes of Marty’s books and our suit cases and we were off.  AspinFirst we went south along the   mountains  between Idaho and Montanta and enjoyed the landscape.  Our fist goal was to see a falt in southern Idaho

Shiftwhere the land shifted fifteen feet in the 70s.  The exposed slip is the white area in this photo.    The drive to this location resulted in a flat tire.   Thank goodness for  the help of a Fireman from Texas who helped us put on the spare.  But that meant taking the boxes of books out of the car so we could get to the spare and reloading them afterward.   We drove  to the next town and although it was Labor Day week end we found a tire dealership that was open.  They agreed to patch the tire.  So I unloaded the boxes again to get to the tire.  After he patched it the tire bulged so we did not put it on the car.  Loaded the books yet again and drove to IMG_6340.jpgIdaho Falls airport  where the car rental company traded our Jeep for a bigger car.  This picture is of Marty waiting outside the airport.       The new one was white and had so much fancy stuff on it that we never  figure them all out.IMG_6341  There was so much space in  this one that we did not even need to stack the boxes on top of one another.  We could have slept flat on top of them if we had to- but that did not happen.  Then on to Yellowstone.   Lots of stops there with  geysers and  hot springs,Hot springsmuseums and animals.   We checked put the petrified tree  and  enjoyed the day until  about two in the IMG_6372afternoon when it started to hail on us.  We pulled off and waited for it to stop as the hail balls were the size of marbles.  The storm lasted about half and hour and left the road covered with hail that made for slow slick driving.IMG_6374.jpg   This picture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

is a  view out the windshield early on in the storm.     We left the park and were told that the road we needed to use to get to our lodging was closed due to snow.   So we stop and found another cabin to stay in.   It stormed during  the night IMG_6381but we got up to sunny skies and snow covered canyon walls on both sides of our resting place.IMG_6384 We altered our plans   again and opted to drive  south and cross the Continental   Divide at Dead Indian Pass  as it was lower and less likely to be closed.    It was  a beautiful drive and we made lots of stops for pictures.    We continued south in Wyoming .

IMG_6359.jpg       Ate lunch along the Wind River  and continued to enjoy  the landscapes.

IMG_6408  We went to Fossil Butte  National Monument and enjoyed the wonderful museum there.  Life sized  alligator and  turtles with the four foot shells were among the fossils as well as lots of leaves and ferns.    We  had crossed the Continental Divide seven times before we left the mountains. We drove across the southern portion of Wyoming  and  into  Scott’s Bluff  just at sun set.  It is a good thing we got to  see it that evening because when we got up in the morning there was so much  fog one could hardly see across the four lane highway.    It took the better part of two days to cross the Nebraska sand hills.  We saw lots of wind mills, cattle and train cars loaded with coal.

Ashfall Fossil bed We visited the Ashfall  Fossil Beds.  They were a wonder, with  the remains of over one  50 rhinos, turtles, tortoises ,and Sand Hill Cranes.  There were the skeletons of  three types of houses- three toed and single hoofed ones.   And  species of saber toothed rabbit- something I had never heard of before.    We left the fossils for Lincoln  where we meant Rosalie.IMG_6421Friday was the last unloading of the boxes at the International  Quilt  Study Museum.  A man came  with a cart and did the job that time.

chinese quilt  We enjoyed the museum. There was a great display of quilts from southern China.   The silk made them very beautiful when they were mixed with gold  couched embroidery thread.     We took the tour of the Mountain  Mist Collection too.  IMG_6434   We explored Lincoln on the week end and enjoyed the public art that is so much a part of the city.   There are lots of beautiful brick houses too.  We also went to the German Russian Immigrant museum on Sunday.   It was great too.

Marty and Rosalie  On Monday we had a meeting with the director were she took Marty’s QBL quilt and showed us the storage and preservation  parts of the museum.  She spent a couple of hours talking with us and it was g good visit.  We enjoyed out stay at the Rogers House Bed and Breakfast but we were all glad to be on our way home on Tues.  morning.IMG_6463

 

Nine patchProgress  Report:  Ethel’s Nine Patch   I did do a bit of work before I left on Tues for the start of this trip.  I had the strips put together from our weekend at Judy’s camp and I started cutting them into 5” squares and matching them with solids from my Ethel stash.    The blocks are a nine patch and I may add sashing.   That remains to be seen

Along the Shore IMG_6465 I am doing the machine quilting on this one now.

IMG_6464Machine Painting   I started working on the machine drawing on this butterfly yesterday.   The printed butterfly is fused to organza  with a paper backed fishable.  Then it is hooped before I began the machine work.   I would not trim the butterfly before I did the machine work next time.  Even though it is fussed it is still fraying.

Label Blocks # 76,#77, #78, #79, #80Label Blocks I took this project with me on the trip and found lots of little snippets of time to do hand work so I got five blocks done in two weeks.

Keep Creating

Carol