Eye Spy with My Little Eye

Eye Spy with My Little Eye
6" x 6"

Yes, I am playing with words in the title.  This little piece captures a sweet moment in time when I used to play I Spy with my son.  He was about 4 years old when I took this photograph of his eyes.  I was in a creative zone when I realized that I wanted to put his hand print directly on the piece and it was late at night.  Sorry!  I carefully carried him sleeping into my studio, dipped his hand in paint and made several copies of this block.  Some were used on this group quilt (here and here).  I then washed his hand, and carried him back to bed.  Shameless!! all in the pursuit of art!  He didn't even remember the next day.  I'm not entirely sure he even woke up at all!

Meanwhile, I was looking for something else in my studio when I found this extra piece.  I decided to add some fabric to the borders and wrap it around a 6" x 6" canvas.  It looks good to me!  And while it is a such sentimental keepsake for me, our house already abounds with too many of those.  So, I took a picture, and added it to my Etsy Shop (Store has been closed). Maybe it will appeal to another mother who also played I spy with her child?

Inspirations from Ikea

Inspirations from Ikea

I bought this great moose upholstery fabric from Ikea.  Just fell in love with the colors and the moose!  (Hey, did you know that the plural of moose is moose?) Very cute. Then I went to a quilt store to supplement the fabrics to go with it.  I already had a number of great fabrics at home, but I also wanted to infuse it with some additional modern fabrics.
Here's the quilt top,  as you can see, I had a bit of fun with the different colors of vertical sashing!

Sometimes, I just need a break from art quilts to do some quick and easy piecing.  I put this together in less than a day, which is extremely satisfying.  And fun! And, I look forward to quilting it as well!
Here's a closeup of a few fabric favorites!

And, because this quilt was made from 6" blocks, with no two repeating....I still have lots of fabric to play with and make something else! Yeah!

Too Precious to Cut....

Too Precious to Cut....

Last summer I had a fabulous time in my garage, making one after another new batiks.  I am not currently working as a fabric designer, mainly because I spend so much of my time making art quilts, instead of working on fabric collections.  However,  like I said, last summer I was on a roll.  The new ideas popping into my head were fast and furious, and hard to keep up the frantic pace of the joy of expression!

So, what's wrong with that?  Nothing, except that my ideas were a few steps beyond simple.  And each piece took quite a few steps (translate:  LOTS of time) to make.  Then after the rather small piece (fat quarter sized) was finally finished, I didn't want to cut into it.  I got stuck in that place where the fabric was just TOO precious, and I knew if I actually used it, it HAD to be in the best possible light.  Now, there's an expectation that is simple impossible to fulfill.  And, it left me unable to decide HOW to use it.  And as a fabric affectionado, I know that I am not the only person to go through this dilemma.

The crazy part was that even if I cut something wrong, or some project didn't turn out, I could still make more!  And, the making of the fabric is the fun part, even though it is tremendously time consuming, I LOVE it.  I thought of uploading the new designs to Spoonflower (which I have seen some pretty cool stuff!!).  So I did.  My work did not translate well to the printed products.  Sad.  :(

And so they positioned themselves in multiple layouts on my design wall, for many months.  Looking pretty just by being there.  Then a project came due and I pinned it on the board (on top of my fabrics).  A match made in heaven.!  You can see the finished quilt here.  But, even better, I have a lot of the fabric samples left to play with, and I will, soon I hope!  I am still busy trying to finish up another consuming project for SAQA's exhibit, Earth Stories.

More fabrics....

This last one exists only on my computer.  I put a photo of this fabric, and then changed the colors to the blues and greens.

I just love it in the new colors.  And so....I have stamped out the grey circles.  The piece is pinned to a frame and is waiting for to be bleached.  Then paint in the lime circles with dye.  Then cover that with wax, and then dye the rest with aqua.  Then boil out the wax.  It is fun to take a break some times from current projects to just play.  

Balance

Balance
24" x 60"

Opening tomorrow at the International Quilt Show in Long Beach, my quilt, Balance, which was juried into the Dinner@8 exhibit, An Exquisite Moment.  I wish I was there!  Thank you so much Jamie Fingal and Leslie Jenison for curating this exhibit.  AND special thanks to Moore's Sewing Centers for their sponsorship!

It seems like balance is much easier to maintain when things are going right in my life!  However, I find that I appreciate it so much more during the other times, when life is chaotic and full of stress.  That ephemeral moment of balance gives me hope and grounds me.

This quilt is made from some new batik designs I have been playing with this spring.  It was such a joy to put them to use in this quilt.  The pieces were individually cut and fused into place with Mistyfuse.  Then I used black thread to go around the entire figure; this mostly shows only on the white side of the quilt. Then I quilted in simple arching lines with grey thread.  Sweet simplicity!

And as is usual for our Dinner@8 exhibits, a Blurb Book by Lois Bogue is available of the exhibit if you are interested!  I LOVE the cover by Cheryl Sleboda!!