Mid Atlantic

I have been so busy and unable to post lately but today I received my acceptance letter to the Mid-Atlantic show and I am very excited. If I am accepted into the Celebrate spring I am going to have to choose the show to enter, wow, I never thought that would happen. I should be notified by them if accepted, Feb. 1 so we'll see. I would love to go to PA and see the show but I think that it would be a bit tough with Jenn, so I will admire from afar. I went to road and saw my little quilt hanging and was amazed it even got in with the quality of quilts that I saw there. It is interesting though, that some of the quilts I saw at Pacific International I was amazed that they didn't win anything but at Road they won big, and others that won at PIQS didn't even place at road, so that goes to show you don't quit sending your quilts. Who knows what the next set of judges will be looking for.

I am excited to get started on my next quilt. I have decided to make it quite large, so that will be interesting since my studio is not that big and I have a few UFO's stuck to my design wall I will have to remove just to work. That might be a good thing, since I am frustrated with them anyway. Maybe I will just put them away until after and then take them back out and look at them with fresh eyes. That always works with my paintings too.

I was painting a dragon today for a little 6 yr old boys room, didn't want to make it too scarey so I am giving him a bit of a smirk on his face. I will post a picture later.

I was tagged

Deb, from Deborah's Journal tagged me so I am going to try and answer all the questions. Thanks Deborah, this is my first tag.

4 jobs you've had:
1. My first job at 15 was bagging groceries at an Alpha Beta!, wow there not even around anymore.
2. I worked as an office manager in several businesses. Got to hire and fire people. Yuck
3. Worked with several interior designers, theming rooms, painting murals.
4. Worked for the best boss, myself.

4 movies you could watch over and over:
1.You've got mail
2. What lies beneath
3. Wethering Heights
4. Lots of the oldies

4 places you've lived;
1.Upland, CA
2.Clairmont, CA
3.Tustin, CA
4.Riverside, CA wow, I haven't ever gotten out of Calif

4 TV shows you love to watch;
1.Medium
2. Survivor!
3. CSI
4.I Love Lucy

4 Places you've been on vacation;
1. Mexico
2. New York
3. Alaska
4. Vegas

4 websites you visit everyday;
1. my blog
2. this one is really hard since it changes all the time, depending on what sparks my interest this week!

4 of you favorite foods;
1. Mexican
2. ice cream
3. El Pollo Loco chicken
4. sweet potatoes

4 places you'd rather be;
1.on vacation
2. getting a massage and getting pampered at a spa
3. Italy
4. Germany

4 albums you can't live without.... no such animal, do they still call them albums?

4 people you'll pass this on to;
Its a secret, not telling

Some of my fibercards and further ramblings

I have a total of 8 done now, what fun. It is a fast, fun project and you can send them to friends. I also received another one today.

I made it my resolution to not sew today but to get the office cleaned up. It is one of the first rooms you see when you enter the house and its such a mess! It seems like it becomes the dumping ground for all the mail and junk in the house. Just dealing with all the paper work when you have two home businesses plus all of Jennifer's paperwork is quite a challenge. I really have been worried about all the deforestation due to the amount of junk mail I am receiving! I feel guilty knowing that some tree died so that I could receive one more credit card application or pizza coupon. I wish I could just stop the madness, I don't read or even look at one piece of the junk, so the waste is huge. My girlfriend started sending back the credit card applications in the return envelopes, without her information. Just so they could get some of the junk mail back.

Swapping Fiber Post cards

Well I have received 4 fiber postcards from my swapping group ( that sounds bad). They are wonderful, and so fun to receive. Its such a nice surprise to go to the mailbox and have a handmade card, its great fun. I have a few done, I am doing them all different. Some are doing series and some are keeping with a similar theme, but not me, I hate to do alot of repetition. So each one will be unique and signed, like a tiny piece of artwork. I will post some soon. Its really so easy, if you have some time and would love to surprise a quilting friend you might want to think about making a few. I love the stamps and postmarks from being mailed directly. Some people put them in envelopes to mail, but thats no good, the markings are part of the art. We have a group of 25 and a yahoo group home where we can chat and share pictures and ideas. This would be one class I wouldn't mind teaching.

Close up

I just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to comment on my new quilt. I really appreciate what everyone said. I have had a few people ask me to give more information on some of the techniques and how I put it together. I actually painted all the fabric in the colors I needed. I use salt and water to achieve a watercolor effect on the fabric. I then fussy cut out the leaves and storks heads, and birds heads. On several of the leaves I went ahead and did some textural stitching by taking small seams along what would be the veining on the leaf then I quilted the leaves seperately to give them more a three dimensional look. The birds faces are painted with inks and paints after they were assembled. While I was at the Pacific International show I found a hand dyed fabric that I thought would be perfect for the background so I bought it. I actually had problems with it because it was like silk and when I went to quilt it the fabric started to pull and bunch up. Well if I had had half a brain I would of realized that it was doing it before I got so far. As it turned out, I ended up spending two days ripping out quilt stitches. I then stablized it and the quilting went much better. But honestly, I almost tossed it several times before I finished the rip out process. Here is a close up. I ended up quilting the background in the shapes of more of the leaves. I will let you know if I hear from the shows.

Its DONE!

I can't believe its been so long since I had a chance to write in my blog!! But I have been so busy, I finally finished my newest art quilt. I think it turned out good, my quilting skills still need some major work but I am going to submit to as many shows as I can and see what kind of response I get with it. I worked so hard to get it done in time to submit to Paducah and when it came time to fill out the form I noticed that I was 1" to short and so I didn't meet the length requirment and couldn't submit it. AHHHHH I couldn't believe it, after all of that. Working every minute over the holidays with my family here from out of town. OK, I'm over it, maybe Paducah isn't all that anyway. I would love to hear some comments on it so if you have the time PLEASE email me.