Hello friends,
When violets appear I know spring is really here. My mother always put violets on my Birthday Cake when I was growing up. I celebrated this week.
Here is the same branch as last week. The leaves are two and three times as big as before. Mother Nature sure moves things along this time of year.
This week has been a very full one. I started out by going to the opening of the Recycle Show at the Art Center in Rome NY last Thursday evening. I am so delighted to report that my friend Barbara won
“Best of Show” for her piece. She even mentioned me when she accepted the award as I had contributed some of the stuff she included. Our mutual interest in Rust helps. 
Last Friday I went off to the Turquoise Street Studio and played along with the gals. Both are pushing them selves for new work for two different shows that are coming along in the next few weeks.
Beth was finishing up work and Barbara was starting a new work. They both work from personal Photo graphics, starting by first drawing in Charcoal and then adding the color on top. 
I printed some of my insects stencils in preparation for the workshop I will be directing on Friday. I like to do all the processes again before I teach them. I learned that I want to encourage my students tomorrow- to work toward openings that are under three inches wide. The back wings of the crickets were challenging to fill with the oil sticks and I do want the students to be successful without difficulty.
21 ” X 31″
Progress Report: Rain Run ( formerly Golden Rain) I changed the title of this work because as I stitched the wrapped pipe cleaners to the surface, I felt that the idea of rain running down the window was not represented with the title of golden rain. I like the way the “drops” like they are moving. 
But it is really hard to keep this quilt flat as the wire has a memory and every time you lift or shift the surface it does not go back to flat without pressure. The copper ribbon really reflects the light like the setting sun was doing on the window the day I noticed how rain ran down the glass. It is a great memory and I am glad to have captured it with this work.
Before The Buds This quilt has gone through some major changes sense last week. First of all I made a stencil with this quilt in mind. I drew it on the back of a piece of handy cardboard as I was not in the studio.
I did the drawing with a marker and kept the positive of the cut as well as the portion I used. My thinking was that I could use it for a stencil too and just add the growth around it. I stenciled five trees on the surface of the quilt . Then I got our some “Solvy” a corn starch material that is a water soluble stabilizer, and drew a tree with a permanent marker on the Solvy. Then I drew the tree with the sewing machine and lots of thread. 
When I was happy with the appearance a I washed out the stabilizer and had my thread tree. I will use the machine on free motion to attach the tread tree to the surface. I did the the majority of the drawing on the stabilizer because all this thread work on the surface of the quilt would cause a lot of distortion of the fabric. This way I can quilt and add the tree to the surface and stand a chance of the final product being flat. I have not done any of this “drawing” in a long time and it felt good to use this technique again. I am sorry that the shadow makes the picture look a bit fuzzy, but feel it will look fine on the quilt.
Brass Bits
I have been working away on the hand appliqueing of the brass units on this quilt for several weeks. I feel that part of the process is now complete. So I trimmed it and placed it on a backing fabric. The yarn is pinned on the surface and that will get machine stitched down and become a part of the quilting on this work. I will have to see how much additional quilting the piece needs to be stable after that point.
It was a personal challenge to add all of the brass pieces that Sharron sent me on the surface of this quilt. I enjoyed another chance to do some fancy hand stitches on a piece as well.
DMC Challenge – Dawn’s fabric. This was only a bunch of triangles pinned to the wall last week. I decided that I could use the challenge fabric with it and make the idea work. It is OK and because the challenge is meant to be an exercise as much as anything I am satisfied with it. After talking with Marty about the challenge we agreed not to complete the projects before we got together. It makes transport in the suit case a lot easier as I will be flying out to meet them. Now I need to go back and see if I can save the other two parts of this challenge.
New Work I am auditioning these fabric pieces for the possible next Egyptian quilt. At the moment I think it needs a new
” star” stencil fabric to do the trick. So I will think on that and keep you posted as to the dynamics. I guess all this prep for the stencil class is really pushing me forward.
Keep Creating Friends
Hugs
Carol
