Graduation day

Proudly I stand by my work wall.





We finished class today with a critique during which we got to see each other's work, ask questions and make comments to each other.

Oh! But first...more pictures from Nathaniel and Michelle's home. You have to remember...they're both artists.


A birthday cake ala Michelle's found objects.









And another butterfly...







And Nathaniel by Michelle's teapot.....






Nancy brought in a piece of her work for us to drool over. It's easy to see why she's the teacher.























This is Robin working on her final piece. And here's Nancy with her stunner.


And here's my final piece that I rotated in iPhoto, but it came back horizontal and I can't figure out how to make it be upright. Just tilt your head to your left shoulder, and you'll get the idea.


Tomorrow a few of us who are staying for next week are going out to the Amish country. Should be fun.

Final day of class!

I said I'd post some pictures of Nancy's son's house. Here's one of their cat perched in their globe collection.












This is a piece by Michelle. It's made from recycled and found ojects.

We're in the Homestretch!!

Well, today's the last day of class #1. I'll start the next one on Monday.

Now things have gotten really fun. We started our final composition yesterday, utilizing the strip pieced fabrics we've been putting together all week. This last one will be at least 4' x 6', but can be larger. Yesterday I managed to sketch out my plan for this big piece, get almost all the small sections of it up on my design wall, and have actually started sewing a few of the pieces together. I still have some details to work out, and there will be no rest for the wicked quilters today, because we have our final critique today at 3 p.m.

Yesterday we did a little field trip to Nancy's son Nathanial's (and his wife Michelle's) home/studio. It was incredible. I took photos but left my camera at the barn last night. I'll put some photos up tonight or tomorrow. They live in an old grange hall that they bought at an auction several years ago for $63,000. They've made the upstairs (where the stage is) into their studio spaces, and it's chock full of shelves and cubbyholes full of found objects that they put into their art. I've commissioned Nathanial to make a piece for me that will be the outline of a fish made from wire, with dangled found objects in it's body. I want to put it on an outside wall of my new studio.

This week has been a bit grueling, sometimes frustrating, often ecstatic, and always incredibly wonderful. I feel like I've made a huge leap in my understanding of color, value, proportion, and the energy that can be incited from the interplay between colors of fabric. And by now, I'm really settled in and acclimated, so I should really be able to get a lot from next week's class.

No rest for the quilter!

Today we hit the sewing machines hard. I've loved every minute of it, even though Nancy's classes are not for sissies. We're cutting strips of fabrics and sewing them together with various other strips of fabrics, making what Nancy calls a "vocabulary of new fabrics." Most of the exercises have parameters of either strip width, color value gradations, or color temperature variables. Some of the exercises give us much more free choice, but still with some parameters she has set. It's fun to see how different everyone's pieces are, even with the rules. We've made tons of these pieces (something like 25 or 30).

Above are a couple of mine.


Yesterday, I went for a stroll around the farm and took some photos. It was so beautiful and warm, but guess what? Today it's snowing! Anyway, here are some photos from yesterday. Maybe I'll take some tomorrow just to show you the contrast with all the new fallen snow and dead daffodils.

This is the front of Nancy and John's house. It's very old and beautiful.

And the photo above is of the barn studio where our class is being held. If you click on the photo for a larger view, you'll see the daffodils.

Well, I'm pooped, and it's off to Nancy's for day four tomorrow, so I'd better get some shut-eye.

First Day of Class

Well, yesterday was our first full day of class. The weather was beautiful, the food at the barn was incredible, and everyone worked their tushies off.

First some photos...

Here's a picture of the 125 year old barn that Nancy's family moved to their land and restored into a two-level classroom building/studio with a big kitchen and dining room. There is a dye studio downstairs and our class is upstairs. There are about 18 people in our class.

I couldn't resist a photo of Nancy's hand dyed stash of fabrics (below). She gets such rich and beautiful colors by dying and then over-dying the fabric a couple of times.

The last two photos show Nancy's house and my end products from yesterday's exercise.

She had us sew 12 strips of fabric. Six were white lines in the center enclosed by two black lines, and six were black lines in the center enclosed by two white lines. Then we cut those strips crosswise into varying sized widths. With those pieces we created two compositions. I finally finished at 9:30 last night, and when I finally got to bed, I could hardly fall asleep. I had visions and ideas keeping me wired.

Today we'll work in color, but first we'll have show and tell. Everyone in class has either brought slides or actual pieces to show. Should be fun.

Finally Made It!

Well, it took me awhile to get connected to the hotel's internet service, but all's well now. I'm in Ohio.

Yesterday was a beautiful day weather-wise, so it made our first trip out to Nancy Crow's barn especially wonderful. We got our spots set up, had an amazing dinner, and then came home for our last good sleep of the week.

After I got set up yesterday, I took some photos of Nancy's house and the barn where we'll be. I hope to be able to post some of them tonight, but for now, I need to scoot.

My Relationship with Blogs

(Cartoon on the back of a business card
by Hugh MacLeod, London, UK)

Phoebe the Bengal cat

Here's a photo my husband took of our Bengal cat Phoebe sleeping on a black and white quilt I made a couple of years ago. She's sleeping right in the middle of the face I made depicting an Asian Leopard cat, from whom she's descended many generations ago. She's incredibly smart and very sweet.


I've had some responses from a number of people who have viewed my blog. Now the pressure's on to keep it updated.

Experimental art

I keep trying to find my true "voice" in my work. That means constantly trying new techniques, fabric choices, and color combinations. Some seem to work well, others...not so much.

Here are pics of some of my more recent stuff

The one above was trying some new fabric manipulation techniques and some strip piecing. I'm thinking it looks pretty busy, but at least it's cheerful!

The one below was cut improvisationally and pieced and quilted by machine. I really like it.

The piece below has some fabric manipulation (folds, gathers, etc.), and includes some wonderful fabric I bought from Cherie in Nancy Crow's class last summer (the green and yellow animal-print-looking fabric). This is one of my favorite pieces I think.


The piece below is all pieced (no fusing or gluing) except for a few appliqued pieces added after the base piece had all been constructed. I think I like the idea of doing impressionistic portraiture, so this was a good learning piece, but it looks maybe a bit over the top. I think the concept is a good one though, so I'm sure I'll do more.


Today is my dear hubby Jim's birthday, so I'm taking him out for breakfast this morning. For once, it's not raining.

Ready or Not...I'm off to Nancy Crow's

I'm getting excited and prepared to leave Saturday to spend two weeks with Nancy Crow at her beautiful barn studio in Ohio. I've admired her work for a very long time, and had a class with her last summer. She's a wonderfully creative and super energetic person, so hopefully some of that will wear off on me.

Since the previous class I took from her, my quilting style has completely changed. For one thing, I had a studio built so that I could have a huge design wall. Since it's in a different building from where we live, I'm now able to fling stuff every which way, and not worry about what a slob I'm being. I tidy it up when I want to, and don't if I don't.

Here are some photos of my new studio.



Another really cool thing for me is that I recently bought an old Bernina 1090 machine. The machine in the photo is my trusty Viking, but I wanted to get a used machine for a spare when the Viking has to go to the shop. I love my Viking, but WOW is the Bernina an incredible machine! Perfect stitches, no computer to act finicky, and easily adjustable stitch length, width, and tension, and a very adequate variety of stitch types. If you ever get the chance to buy one of these old girls, I highly recommend it. I just turned sixty this month, and I'm beginning to learn that us old broads have our advantages.