Whew! Finally Finished Quilt #4

Orchid Rhythms: Petals

Working under deadlines is something I keep promising myself to give up - for the year, for Lent, for any excuse at all. Somehow I sucker myself into them. While the events can be challenging, they are certainly invigorating. So I am REALLY invigorated at this time.

I can't wait to see all 28 fiber art pieces assembled together at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens this coming Thursday. We hang the exhibition on Thursday with the opening weekend Saturday and Sunday. From 12 - 4 PM each day we will be doing demonstrations, walk throughs and talks.

Orchid Rhythms: Buds

Here are some previews of several of the works. The assembled group of work by all seven members should be wonderful. I am really proud to have work with these great artists.

Orchid Rhythms: Stems and Leaves

These are details. Hope you like them. And we hope that lots of friends of orchids, fiber art, quilts, and ours will help us launch this collection.

Orchid Rhythms: Bud

To say I am finished is a bit of an exaggeration, I need to add labels, make the foam board hanger and sign each piece. But given the lousy weather, I should have time to do so before Thursday morning.

Happy quilting,

Nancy

PJ Howard - Fun with Creativity

PJ Howard in Orange Ski Cap
My friend and fellow member of Fiber Art Options, has a great sense of humor, it comes out in every thing she does. Love this photo of her, it really captures that spirit. Recently I bought a couple pieces of her work, one for me and one for a friend. I am so delighted with them that I wanted to share them with my friends.

Serene

I fell in love with this piece and purchased it before PJ could put it in the Denver Art Crawl.
The vase is recycled paper and gel. She has done a superb piece of art in a small piece about 10" by 8". Notice how she has moved the green in the vase around both with fabric and stitches. She has obtained a great deal of depth with the fabric choices, overlapping, and changing fabric sizes. She has repetition with color and mass, but keeps the viewer interested with a change in size for every piece of fabric. The round beads and the swervey green machine embroidery stitched leaves are a nice contrast to all the straight edges. Good study in art. I love it every time my eyes light on it.


Three Hearts

My friend Andy fell in love with this at the Annual Denver Art Crawl. Made for easy shopping for me. PJ has used a multitude of red fabrics and notice how she has moved the black and red print around to keep the eye moving. The three hearts are made from recycled paper and beads. I love the additional heart on the red wire she used to hang the piece. She has used built in machine decorative stitches to quilt the piece and add additional texture and details. Even small work can be a nice piece of art.



Blue and Green Angel
This tiny piece is chuck full of recycles. Note the body of the angel and the button face. PJ loves to work with plaids and has used one for the background. This tiny piece won big prizes at the last CQG show.



Baby Quilt
Now this is a baby quilt to stimulate the little sucker. Somehow I see the dear little one playing and giving high fives more than sleeping.


Blue Kite
Can you see the flying kites on this one? Two of them are stitched on. Love the pieced background in the irregular shape.

White Pin
PJ also makes jewelry generally from recycled papers, and other found objects. Love this one, with the threads and what looks to be a mobe pearl.
Hope you enjoy these pieces by my friend PJ as much as I do.

Keep Quilting
Nancy

Elizabeth's Poem on Taupe

Elizabeth Miller and her new taupe fabrics - photo by Grace Howes

Elizabeth Miller was one of my friends who attended the fabric party on Monday. Elizabeth, who has a fabulous stash and creates wonderful bed quilts that span the line between fine craft and art, focused her collection of my fabrics on shades of taupe. I spotted this great photo of her on Grace Howes blog http://www.barnyardchatter.wordpress.com
and Grace generously shared it with me.

Today I received a poem from her inspired by her new fabrics and our weeks of rain, mist and fog.

And with Elizabeth's permission. Here is the poem.

Winter’s Rainbow

By
Elizabeth T. Miller

With those who see the World in Black and White
And those who only think in tones of Gray,

I tend to disagree.
I love a Rainbow World.

Now, in this Winter of my Artist’s life,
Some cataracts have moved across my eyes.

Yet, still I clearly see
A Rainbow through the Clouds.

For, nestled in this misty fog lives Hope
And Winter’s other name is surely Taupe.

All hues in Taupe I see.
It’s Winter’s gift to me.

Until the surgeon robs me of my haze,
I’ll love this Winter
Rainbow
World of
Taupe.

Enjoy, and Keep Quilting

Nancy

How to Have a Great Time and Reduce Your Stash

Several of the 12 drawers of fabric we went through

Today 5 fabric loving friends came over to help me work on my stash. We measured it and folded it in preparations for selling. Lots of laughter and sharing as the day went on.

My DH fixed us lunch -- chicken, fresh asparagus, vegetable bird nests, and ice cream and biscotti for dessert. Yum.

He topped it off with a tin of his home made chocolates that are to die for.

Everyone got a 5 yard personally selected bundle of fabrics to take home for their efforts. And then they commenced to buying. When they left about 55 yards of fabric walked out the door. YEAAAA!

Another of the 12 drawers

And the best part was that I got to clear out 3 drawers of fabrics I will never use, and we all had a great time. Everyone has volunteered to come back for another Fun Fabric Follies day again.

Two of the beautiful EMPTY drawers

Several of the folks were worried that I was going to regret getting rid of so much beautiful fabric, until I took them for a tour of my studio. We had not touched any of the 6 bins and full closet of fabrics that are in my studio. And each of the bins holds 3 times the fabric of any of the drawers.

We made a great start and set a process for helping me clean house of way too much fabric that I will never use. Next I am going to put it in 1 gallon bags and sell it by the bag. Actually, I will probably invite others to fill the bags for themselves for a flat price per bag.
What a great time. Three empty drawers. Decluttering seems much less overwhelming now. Thanks, dear fabric friends.

Keep quilting,

Nancy

Art To Go - 3 Gallery Openings Tonight

Rhododendron Seed Pods

Going to put on the track shoes tonight!! With three gallery receptions where my work will be on display, I will be moving around town.

The Charlotte Art League has an annual small art sale for its members to sell work no larger than 14 inches framed. I completed this piece and matted and framed it in an 16'' x 14'' frame.

This is my first time at this venture. Will be interesting to see how it goes. The entry prices were good: $10 for 4 pieces and $2 for each additional piece up to 8. If any are sold, the artist can replace them at no additional charge.


Pine Cone

Pine Cone was framed up to be 16'' wide, but the chair of the show indicated that she was not going to be measuring. This is a study for a larger piece that I will do later.

Burford Holly

This little piece has been used in photos by me for awhile, but I had not finished it. This was also matted and framed to sell. I also framed up several photos that I had photoshopped, printed on fabric, and hand embroidered. They will be a bit less.

This is a year for checking out the local art groups to see which one I want to have a long term relationship with. I entered two pieces from my Seed Play series in the Guild of Charlotte Artists December juried show with some trepidation. Both got in. The Guild is more of the fine art group, painters, sculpture, photography, so I had been hesitant to even try entering any work with them. But when the folks who took in the work saw my pieces, their reactions were very reassuring.

Get this, we delivered the actually work between 10 -11 am for the jurying and were notified before 3 if we needed to pick up any rejected pieces. The art world sure works differently than the quilt world.

My three winter pieces will also be at Ciel Gallery next door to the Charlotte Art League.

And before hitting the gallery crawl, I will enter 2 pieces in the Mint Hill Arts first juried show. Since they will have a fiber show in January, they may not be as interested in having any in December. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I am encouraged about the reception of my work in the traditional art world and think lots of other quilters and fiber artists should venture out.

Keep Quilting

Nancy

My DH Has a Sense of Humor

We celebrated Thanksgiving by having friends bring their favorite Thanksgiving dish to share. We provided turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry relish and coffee. Sharing is my idea of a great way to celebrate.

Don wanted folks to be in a festive mood upon arrival, so he created some humor to welcome them. At our walk, he dressed up our concrete rabbit as the Eveready Bunny disguised as a turkey. Note the ultra suede wattles dropping from the gourd beak and the real turkey feathers attached to a gourd tail. Don raids my fabric stash as necessary for his artwork.

Eveready always has his drum, so check out the drum and drum stick as well.



And at the front door, he disguised our concrete toads as turkeys as well -- but are they cows disguised as toads in turkey costumes? When he brought the turkey toads in to show me, I laughed for at least 5 minutes before I had him take them away so I could get back to work.

A friend brought his 6 and a 1/2 year old granddaughter to see the display. She figured that the rabbit was really a chicken, disguised as a rabbit in a turkey costume.

You can see more of Don's work at http://donfaires.com

A little laughter is good for the soul.

Wishing you joy and laughter.

Nancy

Small Works Underway

Rhoddy Small

Having completed a series of work all about size 38'' x 28'', I figured it was time to do something smaller to put in a local art show for small works for gifts. I want to use essentially the same style of work, just more close up and smaller. These are all going to be small enough to fit into an 11'' x 14'' frame. This design is inspired by the seed pods of the rhododendron tree.


Pine Small

People unfamiliar with fiber art seem more comfortable with work that is framed. This will be an experiment to see if they sell for Christmas.
Creating the templates and inking the pine cone was a challenge. This is a trial piece for a larger work. What do you think?

Juniperus Small

These little works went really fast because I printed the designs directly onto Quilter's Freezer Paper Sheets by C & T Publishing. I will use this product alot more. They are cut to run through a standard printer and made creating my freezer paper templates for inking the design really easy.

Let me know what you think of these designs.

Keep Quilting
Nancy