At 11:00 AM on Saturday, March 23rd, I’ll be presenting my design process at the Northwest Quilters Guild show, describing how I move from inspiration through research and sampling to the final artwork. The quilts I’ll be using to illustrate my talk are those I’ve created for two international traveling exhibitions. The first one toured […]
Busy Day at the FiberArts Guild
Today was our quarterly meeting at the Columbia FiberArts Guild. So many activities going on. We are going to be featured as a guest guild at the upcoming Clark County Quilters Guild Show, which is March 28th through 30th, where coincidentally, I’ll be one of the judges. I submitted my quilt “Z is For Zinnia, […]
More Sue Spargo
Sue had us prepare a piece of wool with 48 appliquéd 1″ circles to stitch on, something she has clearly done many times as shown by her textural, creative samples. Here are some of the stitches I completed over our two days. You’ll notice my circles aren’t all round even though I made sure they […]
Sue Spargo, Wool Embroidery
Last week our speaker at Northwest Quilters Guild was Sue Spargo, well-known for her hand embroidered, wool quilts. Obviously, I’m behind in posting, but I have good reasons. I attended her workshop the two days following her evening presentation. Then I went back to working on my World Poet Challenge quilt. I’m excited about the […]
What Were the Judges Thinking?
Thanks to the Columbia River Piecemakers Quilt Guild for inviting me to present my lecture last night on quilt judging. If your guild is interested in learning more about the process, I would love to come to one of your meetings. I do a power point presentation combined with actual quilts that illustrate how to […]
Emily Dickenson and the World Poet Challenge
To create the moth, I immediately thought of using two fabrics I had on hand: a white Radiance for the main part of the body and an iridescent polyester organza for the highlights. For the composition, see my post of January 25th. I chose reverse appliqué for the construction technique, stitching a section of the […]
Christmas Stockings
During the 1970s and 1980s I did a lot of hand embroidery: crewelwork, counted cross-stitch, needlepoint, and Christmas tree skirts and stockings. At the Northwest Quilters Show last spring I spotted three Christmas stocking kits circa 1990s at the show’s Bid and Buy table. My nephew Nick has three children, two boys and a girl, […]
World Poet Challenge
I’m participating in a new challenge with quilters from the US, France, and Japan. There are 90 quilters, with 30 from each country. Each quilter creates a 50 cm quilt based on one of 30 poets, which means each poet will have three quilts. I chose Emily Dickinson whose work I adore. We were asked […]
P is For Poppies and Periwinkle
I’ve been working on another garden-themed piece for what seems a very long time. And it’s going to be a lot longer largely because hand embroidery takes so much time. I haven’t been posting photos because even on days when I work for up to six hours, the piece looks like I’ve made little progress. […]
Le Palais Idéal of the Postman Cheval
While in France for the holidays, Mike and I traveled two hours north to a unique site my French teacher, Sylvain Frémaux, had told me about a called Le Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval or The Ideal Palace of the Postman Cheval. (If you read French, cheval means horse and is his actual last name). […]
Christmas at Chateauneuf
The village where we stayed, Chateauneuf-du-pape, is one of the premier wine-growing regions in southern France. The number of wineries you can visit within the village itself and its surroundings is overwhelming. We’ve stayed twice twice and made it to six wineries. While not as famous, there is also a premier chocolate boutique called Chocolaterie […]
The Christmas Markets of Provence
I’m a day late where the holiday is concerned but it couldn’t be helped. We were in France for two weeks to visit the Marchés de Noël in the neighboring towns and villages near where we were staying. When my late husband and I lived in France we went to Strasbourg in the Alsace region […]
Wonderful Mixed Media Exhibit
The current exhibit called “Peace and Justice” at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center features calligraphy and mixed media by three artists: Inga Dubay, Kanaan Kanaan, and Sara Harwin. The center is located on Capitol Highway in southwest Portland with the exhibit running through February 22, 2019. I took some photos, but many pieces are framed […]
The Visions Experience
Last Saturday was the opening of Quilt Visions 2018: Connections. I was honored to have my piece “Terra I” selected as one of the 43 works out of 353 by a jury of three renowned artists. As this year was the first time I’ve submitted to Visions, one of the two premier art quilt venues […]
World Fairy Tale Quilts Have Arrived
This Saturday and Sunday, all 90 World Fairy Tale Quilts will be on display for the first time in Oregon, having traveled Japan, France, and throughout the United States. Here’s a link from the Newport News Times that tells all about it. https://newportnewstimes.com/article/world-fairy-tale-art-quilts-show-coming-to-yachats Here’s my quilt.
Guest Artist as Butterfly
Saturday was my first time exhibiting in costume! When I was invited to be the guest artist at the Columbia River Piecemakers Quilt Guild Show, I was told most of the guild members would be in costume. Why? Because St. Helens is the site where Disney filmed Halloweentown, which the town celebrates during the month […]
Northwest Quilters’ October Quilt Guild Meeting
Monday night we had an interesting mix of speakers. The new owner of Montavilla Sewing Center in Lake Oswego came to our meeting to talk about their latest shop, which formerly was The Pine Needle. Generally, Montavilla’s stores sell machines and offer classes associated with their machines. This store is adding fabric to their line […]
Poppies and Periwinkle Progress
In between judging and what feels like a myriad number of other commitments, I’ve been working on my latest wall hanging, “P is For Poppy and Periwinkle”. I’ve finished the embroidery on the flowers and leaves. Here’s where I’m at. Next up is couching on my hand-twisted cords for stems. Below is a photo of […]
Sunbonnet Sue As You’ve Never Seen Her!
Without a doubt, the most creative quilt at the Northwest Quilting Expo was made by Flora Joy of Johnson City, Tennessee. She wrote, “Twelve separate, freestanding curvy blocks have been sewn at their top borders to a separate base quilt. Viewers can lift each Dutch doll/Sunbonnet Sue to read the block’s unusual but true story […]
Quilt Show Extravaganza!
The last two weeks of September were filled with judging three quilt shows in succession with wonderful quilts in each. The first show I judged was in La Conner, Washington located on a channel of the Swinomish River. I was lucky enough to have a room at the Channel Lodge with a beautiful view of […]
Stitchin’ in Halloweentown
I am delighted to be the guest artist at the Columbia River Piecemakers Quilt Guild upcoming show. It is held in conjunction with Halloweentown, a celebration sponsored in St. Helens, which recognizes the filming of the movie of the same name. Hope to see you there. Can’t wait to see how the guild members dress […]
