What Would You Do?

There are 4 sets of diamond patchwork here – 8 identical pieces in each set.

I started piecing these probably 15 or so years ago. I had to do the final assembly on one set and now they are ready to use.

I was teaching Lone Star classes at the time and probably intended to use them each in a Lone Star piece. I also had 4 different backgrounds cut – a different one for each set.

I am not going to use them in the way I originally planned to.

What would YOU do with them?

Stay tuned and follow my progress as they become a piece of ART!

I have an idea of what I will do with them and what I will combine them with.

Just because I have an idea doesn’t always mean I will follow through with it.

I let the piece tell me what it wants as I work.

Puzzle Time!

One of my friends told me how I had got her hooked on puzzles and I realized it was time to share one with all of you.

I think it might also be fun to share a gray scale version of the same puzzle with you!

This one has a different cut. I’d love to hear which one you like doing best.

Circle Challenge Part 2

Elaine Scully’s quilt won for Best Mixed Techniques.

This was Gladys Tice’s second quilt she made.

Mary Ann Young made this wonderful whimsical giraffe quilt. I thought she had painted the circles on the giraffe and the background.

No, each circle is a piece of fabric she attached and did a spiral quilting design on.

Judy Devaney’s quilt won the ribbon for best applique.

Beth Sherman’s quilt won the best embellishment award. All those tiny dots (circles) you see are beads she quilted onto the quilt.

Everyone who completes a quilt for a challenge is a winner.

Circle Challenge

I am going to share our Circle Challenge quilts with you in no particular order.
This quilt by Gladys Tice won the Viewers Choice Award.

Frieda Toback’s quilt won the award for best piecing.

Beth Shutty’s quilt won the award for best quilting.
Beth was the hostess for our tea. She also made the awesome ribbons.


Gloria Meachem is best friends with her sewing machine and can make it do just about anything with stitches and embroidery.
This quilt not only has a variety of machine embroidery stitches, but she also did part of the quilting on her long arm machine.
I will share the rest of the quilts in my next blog post.
This was a challenge that was a lot of fun and each piece was so different and showcased the makers skills.

It Has A Name!

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before one of the hardest things when I make a quilt is giving it a name.

A former student and good friend sent me the PERFECT name for this quilt.

This is what she posted on Facebook:

Cyndi Moody Wheeler Very nice :) I know you don't need a title, but when I saw it the phrase "and...then the centers fell out!" sprung into my head. The depth of the quilt made it seem like an ongoing story and you just turned the page and the next line was, "and....then the centers fell out!" Made me smile :)

So it will now be known as “and…..then the centers fell out!”

I also want to share with you the reason I think I outlined everything in black in school.

I started reading comic books when I was about 4 and our Aunt Alma always sent us an annual subscription to Walt Disney comics. I loved them.

In the comics everything was outlined in black and it added a sense of action and definition to the pictures.

If any of you have every seen a Jinny Beyer Border print or many of her other prints without the black lines printed on them, you will have to agree they are very weak. The black outlines make them come to life and pop.

Black is also a unifying color when you need something to pull things that don’t seem to be working to make a cohesive design.

If you go back and look at this quilt photo before I added the black stitching the effect of adding it will be very obvious.

By the way, I did hear from the friend who was also in Miss Smiths classroom.

The friend share another story of Miss Smith’s poor judgment. Miss Smith was let go at the end of the school year.

So There, Miss Smith!

When I was in 4th grade I outlined everything in black. My teacher Miss Smith said that was not good art and I couldn’t do that.

It is amazing how things like that stay with us over a lifetime. If she looked at some good designs, art and fabrics today she would see a LOT of black outlines.

Black can make colors pop, define an image and unify many different colors and styles.

I didn’t start out to prove her wrong when I did our Circle Challenge for our Art Quilt group.

I actually started with a different quilt than the one I am sharing with you today.

I finished the other one and put it in a box to send to myself here.

After I had the box sent I had a nagging feeling that it was possible it might not arrive in time and thought I could start another one if it didn’t show up in Saturday’s mail.

It didn’t take me long to realize that was not enough time to make something I could be satisfied with.

On Thursday I pulled out these pieces that were left from a previous quilt. I had added some silk screening to them a year or two ago.

I played with them and came up with a possible arrangement and idea.

The next step was to piece together some of the other leftovers from that project, many of which I had also silk screened on.

I shaded diagonally from dark to light with what I had available the best I could.

Once that was done I arranged the circles and negative circles on the background shading in the opposite direction.

When I was pleased with the arrangement I did a relatively heavy zigzag stitch around each of them.

In this photo you also see the quilting and the backing fabric that have not been trimmed.

The quilting was simply circles that echoed from a central (off center) point.

 

All that was left to do was to finish the edge.

I chose to trim it evenly and stitch around it with a heavy thick zigzag stitch.

This is the finished quilt. I left a “horsetail” at each corner.

My quilt won two ribbons in our challenge so in case you are reading this Miss Smith, you were wrong!

I don’t think anyone from my 4th grade class reads my blog, but it was a combined 3rd and 4th grade classroom and maybe one of the 3rd graders is reading this!

And just in case you are wondering, the other quilt DID arrive in time and also won a ribbon!

I made the quilt in 3 days, but in reality it took 10 years. I started to paint the fabrics 10 years ago and came back to them several times to do my painting and silk screening on them, as well as to use part of them for my quilt “Secret Circles”.

Crushed Velvet On The Needles

These are the socks I am currently working on. I’m almost ready to shape the toes on both of them.

I prefer knitting socks on 4 double pointed needles. I have learned I am more successful if I knit two at the same time alternating between them.

WHY?

Because my gauge can vary and this way I get two very close to identical socks!

The yarn is the color Crushed Velvet from Emily Parson’s Sophie’s Toes Sock yarn.

I love the names she chooses – so creative and so spot on!

Maybe I could hire her to name my quilts?

All's Well That Ends Well!

 

This is my new shirt! Why aid I buy it?

Some of you have heard I was stranded overnight in MKE because of an airline snafu.

I will not explain what happened.

The airlines did their best and made it right even though it delayed my arrival by almost 24 hours.

They comped my hotel and dinner and gave me TWO round trip tickets anywhere in the US to use within a year.

AND the shirt? I bought it in the airport before I went to the hotel so I didn't have to sleep in my clothes!

Light Show

Honey, I'm Almost Home

Trick or Treat?

 

We had one trick or treater at the house for Halloween.

I’m sure you think this is the REAL Batman!

It’s really my grandson Cooper.

He is following in a family tradition as his Dad and Grandpa were both Batman for Halloween years ago.

We had to get out the family photo album so he could see them as Batman.

He seemed obsessed with age and we had to figure out how old those who have passed would be if they were still here, as well as those who are still here.

His Great-great grandpa would be 137 years old if he were still alive. That got a big WOW from him!

He also went home with a treasure from the Watermelon basket.

I just knew he’d pick the fish to hang on his wall and he did…….but when I showed him the little address book where he could keep track of friends and families phone numbers he changed his mind.

Now when he is talking on his Bat Phone he will know if he is talking to his Mom or Sally who raised his dogs Murphy and Marley!

Book Club Meeting In My Studio Today

 

Now that my studio is becoming neater and more organized again the girls decided they would have a book club meeting.

Interesting the books they chose to meet in!

What Was I Doing Staying Up Until 2:45 a.m Last Night?

I was doing this ombre dyeing on a shirt I purchased and had never worn.

It was a long process as I got distracted and had to complete something with a higher priority before I could finish it.

It has been a LONG time since I have done ombre dyeing and this was my first attempt on clothing.

I’m pleased with it, but I do have some ideas on how to refine the process for better results.

In the meantime I will have this fun shirt to wear.

This is an example of a quilt I did by doing ombre dyeing and cutting up the fabric and piecing a quilt.

It is one of a series of 7 or 8 I did from the ombre fabrics I dyed.

No More Cold Feet!

I just finished this pair of warm wool socks.

The hand dyed yarn is Sophie’s Toes by Emily Parson.

The color is Christmas Lights. It sure reminds me of the colors of the lights on our family tree when I was a child.

I have now knit quite a few pair of socks with this yarn and I absolutely love it - to knit and to wear.

I like a fine knit so I use Size 0 bamboo needles to knit socks. I think that is why it takes me so long to knit a pair.

Sometime today I will be casting on another sock.

And for those of you who are wondering…..I shipped my last eBay items to the happy buyers today. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work selling the clothes on eBay, but it is now time to move on. My closets are emptier, but not empty!

I work in my studio to photograph and sell. It is now starting to look like my art/quilting studio again. Yes, still a ways to go, but everything takes time.

420.000

I haven’t seen any palindromic numbers on the my blog site views recently. (Maybe because I’ve been too busy to even check!)

But when I opened the blog at 11:45 p.m. tonight there were exactly 420,000 total site views to date.

I think the thing that surprises me most is people are still visiting as much as usual even though I haven’t been posting every day.

There are certain posts that seem to get many viewers every day.

Hopefully I’ll be back posting more often.

I finished up the eBay selling tonight and am taking a long long break – I think I deserve it!

It has been a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. I’ll be back on eBay some time in the future, just not the near future.

All Good Things Must Come To An End!

This is my last week selling on eBay for a long time.

It’s time for a break as I am ready for other activities and priorities.

This Camille Dress and 2 Level Top/Jacket are the most unique garments Blue Fish has ever designed. Even at their original price of over $800 for both pieces they are still a bargain when you look at the construction and the possibilities. They each have a bottom section than can be buttoned off and used as a scarf, shawl or what have you.

This hand knit Ralph Lauren Collectible Sweater is my most prized clothing possession. It‘s the original colors for the sweater and they are authentic serape colors.

If you want to know why I would consider selling it you can read it on my eBay listings.

This gorgeous Templeisen Gown also has a bottom that snaps off. I am showing it with a Carter Smith collage scarf.

The theme for my listings this week tends toward BLACK – and you all know “You can never be too rich , not have too much black in your wardrobe.

4 Square pants are one of everyone’s favorite Blue Fish pant designs. The painting on this NWT pair is awesome and features a frog on the front of the left leg. What’s not to like about these?

If you’d like to see the rest of the things I’m listing this week here is the link:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/bluefishquilter/m.html?_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

I have auctions closing both Sunday and Monday evenings and I’ll be shipping Monday through Wednesday and then I’m on break!

Can You Believe I Am Still Finding Such GREAT Stuff To Sell On eBay?

And they all are coming from my closets!!!!

Maybe it’s because I am finally deciding to release some of the very best things.

This is a tunic length silk jacket in a persimmon color I never found time to wear!

I am going to be sending these 4 pieces of Brum (brown) flannel and thermal clothing to new homes. I am sure they will warm the hearts and bodies of the lucky winners.

This gorgeous Eileen Fisher deep teal tunic sweater and this Carter Smith collage silk scarf are available in separate auctions.

Luscious colors and textures in both pieces.

This gorgeous orange Italian lace sweater is will be sure to brighten someone’s day.

I also have listed a lot of BLACK this week.

You know you can never be too rich, nor have too much black in your wardrobe.

So if you want to see what else is available just click on this link:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/bluefishquilter/m.html?_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

This week I am not only doing auctions that close Sunday evening between 7 and 9 p.m. PDT, but I am also listing things closing on Monday evening between 7 & 9 p.m. PDT, WITH FREE SHIPPING.

Here’s hoping this brightens your day!

Happy 54th Birthday Jeff!

Jeff and the three of his kids who are in town came over for a birthday dinner. I made pork chops with mushroom gravy, baked potatoes, corn and applesauce. Fall makes me think of this dinner.

Looks like Jeff had a little help blowing out the candles from Cooper. When you get to be 54 you might not be able to blow them all out.

I served an apple-raspberry birthday pie. I bought a tube of that writing gel and planned on writing “Happy Birthday Jeff, Sally and Grace.

It ran out before I even finished Happy Birthday.

Sally and Grace couldn’t make it for dinner as they now live over a thousand miles away. They were my BFF when we lived in Ohio. You remember them, don’t you? They appeared on my blog this past spring.

I save a piece for each of them and ate one for breakfast Thursday and the other on Friday.

I’m Making Progress!

If I showed you a current picture of what’s left in my closets you’d say “I don’t believe she got rid of anything”!

So I decided to show you empty hangers. All these hangers had one or more pieces of clothing on them when I started by eBay journey a few months ago.

I keep all my things on padded hangers to keep the shape – particularly the shoulder area.

There are still more empty hangers upstairs I haven’t brought down yet.

There are also pant hangers not in the picture.

Now do you believe me?

I’m still emptying hangers and will add more to this basket in the next few weeks!

Not only can I see what I have in my closets now, I can put outfits together.

I’m Still Working It On eBay!

I am at the part of this journey where I am selling some things I thought I’d never part with.

These 3 collectible pieces are some of them. I just don’t have enough time to wear them so they will become part of someone else’s collection and I hope they will show them off by wearing them.

This skirt and jacket are also from the same Fall 1997 Blue Fish Collection.

This Geisha Tee was something I special ordered. The Geisha Tee is the most desirable of all Blue fish tees. Since I have never worn it it’s going to a new owner too.

Lest you think I only have Blue fish in my closet, here is a FLAX jacket with a hand dyed shibori scarf.

They are each in separate auctions and I also have listed the pants that match the jacket.

An Eileen Fisher linen sweater with a Carter Smith collage scarf – each in separate auctions.

Yes, there are also a lot more listed this week and if you are so inclined you could see them at:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/bluefishquilter/m.html?_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

I still have a ways to go, but I AM getting there!!!