MIA

I've been missing in action lately. Not for any good reason, just haven't had much to post about.

I feel like I should always add a photo to any blog post I make so here is today's.




This quilt was made for a QuiltArt challenge called Why Is The Sky Blue?

When the challenge was announced I immediately thought about the beautiful cobalt blue Skyy Vodka bottles. I requested, and was granted, permission from Skyy Vodka to use images of the bottles in my quilt. It turned out to be harder to execute than I thought it would be originally. Probably because I used all sorts of non-traditional quilt fabrics. The orange background is rayon. The bottles are made out of satin, velvet, and lame' among other things.

You can see all the quilts submitted for the challenge here

One man's trash...

This year my guild, the Cobblestone Quilt Guild ran a mystery quilt in the newsletter. My buddy Karen was making the blocks but decided that she hated most of the yellow/orange blocks. I told her I would adopt those poor unloved blocks because I loved the colors. (I'm of the mind that you can't have too many bright colors!) Here are the blocks I got from her.




After playing with the blocks for a while I finally decided on a way to set them while adding some additional blues and greens. This isn't done yet. I was working on this at TTT (trailer trash Tuesday) at Karen's and we all decided that it would be fun to add something else. I don't have a photo of what I've done yet, but will post one soon.

I think I'm going to name this "Trash or Treasure?" Karen still thinks it's too bright, but I don't.







Karen ended up making 2 tops out of the mystery quilt blocks instead of one row quilt. I like what she did, and am glad she included at least SOME yellow/orange!

Veteran's Day

Since today is Veteran's Day, Jan over at Serendipity Quilting mentioned that her hubby, affectionately known as Cabana Boy, served in the Marines. I thought I'd share that Jerry also served 20 years. His time was spent in the submarine service and several years ago I made this submarine quilt in his honor. The back of the quilt has a listing of all of his duty stations with the dates during which he was at each location. We had to pull out his service record in order to get them all. There were a couple I'd even forgotten about - for instance, he once spent 6 weeks in a school in Memphis, TN and I don't remember him ever doing it! It's hard to believe that he has been retired from the Navy for nearly 17 years. Heck, that's almost as long as he was on active duty.

Thanks to all the vets who served and also a big thank you to those who held down the fort at home while the vets served their time.

Finished Dormer

The dormer is finally finished. I'm in the process of moving back into the space right now. Of course, even with the remodel, I don't have enough room!

Del recently asked me if we were done and to post photos. Here are a couple I took the other day when I started a bit of unpacking. Jerry was still putting up shelves for me at the time.

I'm still trying to decide where to put my cutting table. Right now I'll try it here until I see if that works.




The shelves will be all across the back wall. Jerry cut down the shelves I had and made them work with brackets. He thinks I'll have more shelf space than I did before, but I think it's less.



The one side wall didn't change so there's really no change here.



The dormer didn't really add much floor space, but it sure makes a difference in relation to the light in & head space in the room. I still need to get blinds for the windows. I'm anxious to get sewing up there!

How to ruin a good day

Our mini quilt group (the Ducks) met this morning and we had a good day making cute purses out of Santa hats. After leaving Ducks I stopped at a store for some shopping. I purchased a couple of things and while at the register I noticed that the cashier automatically gave me the senior citizen discount. (they give a 10% discount on Tuesdays.) I noticed the sign above the registers said that the senior discount is for those 60 and over. At that point I mentioned to the cashier that I didn't actually qualify for the discount and she just let it go. I think I'm offended that she thought I was 60. sigh-- guess I'm looking worse than I thought!

Journal Quilt 2007

Today is the opening of the International Quilt Festival in Houston - THE quilt show. For the past 5 years or so one of the special exhibits is of Journal Quilts. Members of the QuiltArt email list were invited by Karey Bresenhan, the force behind the show, to create a monthly series of small 8 1/2" x 11" works which would be shown in Houston each year. The hope was that participants would use these small works to try out new techniques or ideas without having to commit large chunks of time or materials. It was a highly successful project that resulted in a book being published last year with photographs of many of the journal quilts.

This year Karey decided that the project had run its course and that for the finale participants would create one 17" x 22" quilt that used at least 3 different techniques found in the journals pictured in the book.

This is my quilt entitled Celebration. Last year I had a quilt juried into the Houston show that paid tribute to the old Cooper River Bridges in Charleston, SC. (the quilt pictured in my header - which can also be seen here) Those old bridges were town down and replaced by a modern new bridge. Included in the big opening celebration for the new bridge was a spectacular fireworks display, which was the inspiration for this work. This was my class project for a class taken on Quilt University from Helen Marshall.

Here are a couple of detail photos. I won't get to Houston this year to see the journal quilt display, but many people from QuiltArt have promised to take photos of the display to share.