« September 2008 | Main | November 2008 »
I hope everyone's having a great Halloween evening! Already we've had quite a few little costumed ghouls and superheroes come ringing the doorbell. In between handing out candy I'm preparing a flimsy for quilting. Unfortunately I didn't have a large enough piece of batting left in the closet. It's still good so I tried out a trick that I read about piecing it with large zig-zags. Nothing like a little Franken-batting to make a Halloween complete.
Here's a closeup shot:
Happy Halloween!
I'm in the home stretch of my final swap commitment - Spring Fling Round Robin 2. Unfortunately my center block went AWOL after it had its first border sewn on. That was a hand appliqued block so it took a little while to make another one. Hopefully the final recipient will think that it's been worth the wait. Also I've just completed the second border and have sent that one on to its quilter. We're only allowed to share sneak peeks so here's some teasers.
This was the original center block. The second one is a pretty close match to this so I won't show you another picture of it. Lots of handwork on that! I can't wait to show you guys the full shot. :-)
The second border ... not such a great picture but it was taken very quickly. One thing I have to say is how much I like using Mary Ellen's Unscented Best Press when working on lightweight fabrics. It makes them just a tad more sturdy and better to piece with.
The Verity doll class taught by Deanna Hogan went very well. It was intense and I learned many new techniques. The majority of the second day was spent painting layers of Messy Mix*, gesso and then paint. We used a clothes drying rack to dry the body parts but as you'll see, I found an unusual container at home to prop up my torso as it dried.
Limbs drying in the warm sunshine:
The heels are made of paperclay and needed more than just a few hours to completely dry. Once they do I'll lightly sand them and then paint her boots.
The turkey was from a floral arrangement a few Thanksgivings ago. It makes a rather strange looking figure. Early Sunday morning before I got ready for class, I painted another layer of Messy Mix on the torso and then set it out on the front porch to dry. I wonder what the neighbors were thinking!
*For those of you who are wondering what exactly is Messy Mix. Here's a link to an article all about it. It's a hardening agent made of equal parts modeling paste and gel medium that's applied to a cloth doll prior to gesso or paint to make it more sturdy. Helen Pringle (a doll artist who specialized in gorgeous painted dolls) came up with this after a few of her doll customers told her about accidental falls. Their dolls had terrible dents that just couldn't be repaired. If you use very thin multiple coats and sand in between coats the result is a smooth texture that doesn't look like cloth. I didn't spend that much time sanding but the texture still turned out pretty decent.
Two weekends ago I went to PIQF (Pacific International Quilt Festival) at the Santa Clara convention center. It was great meeting two bloggers "live" - Julie from Floribunda and Cheri from Jovaliquilts and her niece Laurel of Laurel's Quilts. Sometimes quilt shows can be appreciated so much more when you're in the company of fellow quilters. We oohed and ahhed over many of the displays. Yes, I did a little bit of shopping for fabrics to make a cathedral windows quilt. Mostly I just loved seeing the diversity of talent and creativity that quilters from around the world shared with us.
I wish I had a pedometer on because it seemed that I walked miles. My feet were aching by the end of Friday as I finally cried uncle and decided to go home. Of course that's when I ran into not one or two but four of my fellow doll club members as I wove through the gauntlet to exit the convention center. :-)
There's many excellent slide shows and flickr sets from the show so I'll just share some of the faces that tickled my fancy.
This first quilt was made by a group of friends, a few of them are doll club members. It's called "Girlfriends Medallion Quilt" by the "Dolfins" Colleen Ehle Patell, Christine Widman, Carrie Lewis, Verna Graham, Valerie Monke, Susan Cole and Margaret Brown.
"The Snake Charmer" by Pamela Allen of Canada who said that she "want[s] to conjure up a magical Hoover that does [her] bidding like a snake does for a charmer."
"The Three Sisters" by Annette M. Hendricks, Helen Grodden & Gail Thomas of Grayslake, IL
I love that cute little grasshopper face ... strange yet adorable at the same time.
"Grape Harvest" by Gina Perkes, Lynn Drennen & Marilyn J. Smith of Payson, AZ
This quilt was simply amazing with all the textural applique work. The ladies say that they were inspired by an award-winning painting by Jessie Marinas.
"Sunday Morning" by Esterita Austin of Port Jefferson Station, NY
"Tallulah" by Christine Brock of San Diego, CA
I have a fondness for mermaids so I had to snap a few pictures of this quilt. It makes me happy.
"Eight Crazy Chicks" by Shirley G. Batherus, Stephanie Blaney, Ann Riveraes, Pat Glenanan, Nancy Foster, Joan Frantz, Sally Jo Smith and Mary Gorset of San Bruno, CA (Please forgive me if the names are misspelled .... the picture I snapped of the title information was extremely out of focus. I'll correct them as I get the proper spellings.)
"Pup Art" by Nancy S. Brown of Oakland, CA
Isn't this face the cutest? What's funny is that as soon as I saw this I said that it reminded me of a doggy version of Warhol and then I saw the title. :-)
So I hope you enjoyed my quick little peek into this year's PIQF. As always I had a lot of fun and am looking forward to seeing next year's show.
This weekend I'm taking my last doll class of the year. It's taught by Deanna Hogan from Oregon. We had a bit of homework to do since it's an intense class full of gesso, paint and a secret potion only known to us as "messy mix". Here's the doll's bloomers made out of those gorgeous metallic green polka dots from Lakehouse Dry Goods. Now I have to finish the dress and pack up all my supplies. It should be an exciting class!
If you can't wait to see what doll I'm making, here she is, Verity. These two are Deanna's dolls that she made for her pattern covers. The large one is 22" and the smaller one is 18". We'll be making the 22" size. I saw them in person last night at the Flying Phoebes doll club meeting and they're gorgeous!
Last week I had the pleasure of being a pattern tester for this colored pencil roll by Kathy of Pink Chalk Studio fame. This is now available as a wonderfully comprehensive full pattern found here.
They're very easy to sew. The instructions and illustrations are so straight forward that I whipped out three of them! The one you see here was made as a present for Julie of Floribunda when I met up with her at PIQF on Friday. (It was mostly as a 'sorry I was so late with your Miniature Booty Quilt' since I was a few weeks behind schedule getting it to her. PIQF pictures to come later as I weed through the bad photographs.) The other two pencil rolls will be presents for two special little girls that I know.
I thought that the Kaffe Fassett fabric worked great against all those lovely pencil colors. Who wouldn't want to unwrap one of these as a little gift? I can also see doing the smaller version of this in shades of gray to house drafting pencils. And if you don't want to put colored pencils in there you can always buy those new mechanical pencil style crayons that Crayola has on the market. I'm thinking that option would be good for a young nephew of mine.
Tuesday night at doll club, Donna showed us these fabulous Russian nesting dolls. They depict the Cinderella fairytale in a variety of beautiful colors.
Here's a closeup of the largest one:
I loved the rich jewel colors and knew that I had to snap a picture for my inspiration file.
Speaking of inspiration, is anyone else attending the PIQF (Pacific International Quilt Festival) in Santa Clara? I'll be there Friday and hope to meet up with Floribunda. If anyone else plans on going tomorrow send me a quick email and perhaps we can meet up as well.
Kate Jacobs has done it again. She's revisited the characters from the successful Friday Night Knitting Club in her new book Knit Two. I was so excited to see this arrive in the mail box and couldn't wait to begin reading it. I started it late evening and didn't put it down until I had finished it -- at 5 am in the morning! Even though my eyes were red and bleary it was so worth that missed night's sleep.
It's five years later and the ladies from Walker and Daughter have rallied around to support Dakota as she grows up in college. They have developed strong relationships that aren't always perfect but are full of love. Unlike the first book the story doesn't seem to revolve around the yarn store as much as before but centers more around the individual club members. Once again these are extremely strong female characters that you would want in your corner. They don't always have the answers but they are extremely loyal and supportive of each other's ups and downs.
Apparently Julia Roberts has optioned the rights to the first book. I do hope that her production company makes this into a movie so that they can then make the second book into the sequel. If you haven't read the first book run to the bookstore and get a copy so that you'll be ready to read Knit Two when it comes out on November 25.
It seems like this past year has mostly been filled with quilts but I still like to make dolls. Two Sundays ago I hosted a mini doll day at my house for a couple of my doll maker friends. Originally I intended on starting a brand new doll for the Gypsy contest. Fortunately for me my friend Laurie brought me back to earth when I realized that the deadline was only a week away. So I got out one of my doll WIPs. Remember the Lady Gossips doll workshop that I had taken from Leslie Molen at Doll U last year? The poor dear only had her arms, clothing and hair pinned on. It was all an illusion of being complete. So I removed all the pins and began to work on her again. First her ears needed to be removed and repositioned higher on her head. What a difference that made. It improved her IQ by at least 100 points!
I finally got her shoes on this morning. Wonder of wonders, she can stand all by herself. Yippee! Of course she's naked and bald. I'm getting to that next.
Please do not use my original photos or reprint my content without asking me for permission.
Thank you!
