Happy Birthday, Cranes for JZ and a walk in the garden...

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JZ's second quilt. She asked for cranes and decorative stitching using contrasting thread. Some of the chalk lines still show....

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Talk about knee trouble? I know this is creepy to some people. But really, isn't it amazing how the daddy long leg can survive with such delicate legs? Have you ever watched one walk from plant to plant? Amazing.

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Pink IS the best, of course.

Summer residence.

Creative Prompts

Yesterday, there wasn't anything scheduled on the calendar, or, if there was- we forgot to do it. We got some things done around here and then just hung out. It was nice. I grabbed the doodle book and drew out a few of the creative prompts I have seen offered by Artquiltmaker.com.

Using only paper, pencil and eraser (sparingly) I did the first few. There are, 23-I think. I'd like to catch up. Now that I see the photos, I may use an ink pen to darken them. There is no plan in the works for these doodles, but fun, nonetheless.
~percolate~

~look~

~circles~

~time~

~journey~

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And I loved the colors of this.

Guild Show-n-Tell

The Raffle Quilt.

I promised a full photo when the quilt was finished.

The raffle committee hung the quilt at Guild on Thursday for all to see. It's a beautiful quilt. Several members pieced the blocks, a group of talented women did allllllll the applique work with the flowers and leaves being reverse applique and I quilted it. Chance tickets will be available shortly. The raffle quilt is a major fund raiser for our Guild, in addition to our yearly dues and our biannual quilt show.

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The gals holding this pretty comfort quilt are my friends (aka sistahs) Susan and Sharon. As posted about earlier, they did the piece work then I quilted it. We are giving it to a mutual friend of ours who has been ill. Sue developed the pattern and a great template to make this quilt. More info on that later....

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The Guild awards a scholarship to a local, high school, senior and this young, talented lady is the 2009 recipient. She came to our meeting on Thursday night, and here she is showing her first quilt. I understand she wants to become a fiber artist. How exciting.

The Story

So last night was Guild night, we displayed our challenges. The theme this year was Butterfly Fantasy. The interpretation could be anything, as long as the piece was: a quilt, finished, measured 36" square or less and contained at least one butterfly. The quilts were beautiful and each had a story, often as unique and/or as colorful as the artist.

Rays of Hope is the life cycle.

I took creative license to omit the egg and chrysalis....

....so the life cycle begins with the caterpillar inside the window, climbing on the thin, delicate, flowering plant.

Outside the window are thicker, stronger, multi-colored plants. Not really growing in any one specific direction.








... the butterfly emerges, he is half in the window and half out, but fully embedded into the rays of hope. Purposely quilted really puffy and fat, with all the hope and promise of the future.

and going from left to right as we do, (image at the top) is the fully mature, flower.

Rays of Hope

Finished for now.

The butterfly/blue project...

Vicki's hand dyes come to life....

The painted lady....

The quilting.....

Why everything takes 4x longer than it should.....

PMC and Summer is Busy...

The first attempt with Precious Metal Clay The piece is rough and should have been fine tuned before I heated it. A good learning start though, I have a better handle on the clay's properties and how it reacts to touch and heat. The swirls melted away, using a Dremel tool-I tried to put them back without much luck. All in all I really liked working with the clay and was amazed at how it turned to silver once heated with the torch.

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My parents were visiting for almost two weeks and we had record amounts of rain, here in New England. It didn't squelch our fun, though. We puttered around, went antiquing, flea marketing, shopping and house project repairing. I found some more neat sewing stuff on our travels. The three white, glass buttons and the numbers are a few of my favorite finds.

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And before the rain came, I think we had record amounts of tree pollen. With that- the fish pond got all mucked up so dad helped me drain the pond and clear it up. It's crystal now, you can see the fish peaking out from under the rock.

Sadly- all the fish died except for Goldy, word has it we stressed them. Keeping fresh water is a delicate balancing act ( I guess).... once balanced we replaced them with some new babes. And they are so cute.

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This silver guy is awesome.

And while that was going on the deer mowed down the Hostas, the ground hogs ate all the perennials and the wren moved into the blue bird box.

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Sewing news- the blue project is moving along slowly and I will post photos after Thursday night's display.... Yes, I will finish. I have to keep saying that, you know......

I will have two quilts displayed at Images in Lowell in Aug.

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My friend, Sharon from NC, is coming to visit with two of her three boys.

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Summer is good.

Enjoy your day whatever you have going on!

While enjoying our Independence Day weekend and our out of town guests, I've stolen a few minutes to finish this little gift. My friend and fellow long arm quilter- Michelle Civetti sells these great little penny rug kits. Perfect projects for idle hands.
Below, is a start on Lynne's king sized quilt.

Another visitor.