Family Visit

It was great to have a visit with Stephanie, Blake, Julie, Greg and Oliver this weekend. I knew Greg and Julie were coming but Stephanie and Blake surprised me.

I Just Connected With This Beautiful Model

This beautiful model enjoyed posing in my airport coat.
The rest of the story: I used to wear this coat when I travelled.
I was on the people mover at the Atlanta airport and a man started talking to me. I was beyond the age where men started conversations with me to get to know me. He was intrigued by my coat.
This happened repeatedly when I travelled and often they would tell me their wives would love it.
It is a version of my slashed jacket pattern.
The subtitle is: My If I Wanted To Meet A Man In An Airport Coat!
No I don't want to meet one!

Why Is She So Excited To Get This Bin Full Of ????

Maybe some of my former students will recognize what is in this bin???

This was something that was hard to find when my students needed it years ago. I still had quite a bit left. It is impossible to find in stores today.

A mutual friend mentioned her friend up north was looking for some in orange. I had just about every color it was ever made in and was happy to pass all of it along for her many projects she uses it for.

Yes, she was thrilled to have just about every color to use on her projects. 

Who knows what this is?

Some Of My Organizing After Purging

This is one wall of storage in our lower level. It is the area where I purged all those bins and boxes that a posted a few days ago from. It also was a chance to organize and put like things together. This is one of two shelf units in this room. The other shelf unit has also been finished. We also emptied two huge storage areas that will be knocked down and removed.

It's a good feeling to have lightened the load once more.

The Art Doesn't Have To Match The Sofa.........

but sometimes it is more effective with certain enhancements.
Glory Aura is one of my favorite pieces I have created.
It sits over a cabinet and is part of a vignette with  "other peoples art".
I feel the other art makes it even more effective.
I have to add that I did not purchase these other things to go with this work of mine.
I did what I always do... shopped my house and found things that work together. 

Colors Of My Life Continued

The Colors of My Life 7 was the first quilt I designed on the design wall when my studio was completed. It is a variation of an intersecting field of color quilt. I moved the colors across the quilt in various ways. The one obvious movement is the green which goes from dark at the outside to light at the center. This created luminescence. When you do a quilt with this many variations of a color you can't have too much fabric. You may only use a few squares of each fabric but you need certain values, shades and colors.

This is a close up so you can see the quilting. You can click it to enlarge it as you can all my photos on this blog. I used a curved line to emphasize the movement in this composition. The quilting was done without marking.


You have seen The Colors Of My Life 8 and 9 before. When I designed these quilts I was playing with the color theory that warm colors advance and cool colors recede.
I made the cool colors advance in the second quilt by putting them in front of the warm colors.

The Colors Of My Life - Rerun

Since it has been a while since I have been posting I think it is time to share some of my best quilts. Enjoy!

Yes, another tessellation. And each cross is a different fabric.

This is a true charm quilt. Each square is a different fabric.

Lot of things happening with color and design on this one.

This also uses the intersecting fields of color design technique.

This quilt has 3 views and as you walk around it this is what you will see from the left.

This is what you see when you stand directly in front of it.


This is what you see as you look from the right side.
This is the Grand Finale quilt in the series. It took me a L O N G time to figure out how to put this together so that it was rigid and showed each view. I succeeded with a little help from my favorite art gallery which helped with the structure.

I loved these so much I had a mug made from them.
I hope you have enjoyed all of the quilts in The Colors Of My Life Series.

Bins, Bags, Boxes and TREASURES

I have been actively purging again. So much stuff and some real treasures. It will all go to a friends garage sale to help with medical expenses.

This is just a small portion of what is included.
There are antiques, furniture, craft supplies, Christmas and holiday items including antique ornaments, household items, and many many new unused items.

I Shall Return

There are several reasons I am not currently blogging but I will be back when the time is right.

Happy Easter

The bunnies hopped in to help me wish you a Happy Easter!

Lunch And Show & Tell ART With Girlfriends

It is always so much fun to get together for lunch and show and tell with my talented friends.

Beth has challenged herself to do a project with 5 different ideas. I really wish you could see this in person as there are so many special ways she has used her materials and the way she has created the picture. She has experimented with so many different techniques and materials and this shows how she has mastered them.

The elephant used a batik method.

Robbie has been taking a color and design class on line from a lady in the UK. They work with paper. The class sounds excellent and a lot of fun. This is one of her pieces.

This was an exercise where they learn to use tints, tones, shades, etc.

They are doing layering of paints and dyes. They also are using finishes on them.
Another part of the class is learning to design, cut up and make your own compositions.
The class is a year long and from what I have seen of Robbie's work and what she has told us, I would consider it a master class.
Unfortunately this was our last get together as Robbie and her DH will not be returning to Florida next season. I treasure getting to know her and spend time together. We still will have email, Facebook and our blogs.

Five Forever Continued

This is the story of the quilt I shared yesterday on my blog. 

CREATING “FIVE FOREVER”

My inspiration for creating this quilt began with the “Fujiwara” group of fabrics created by Susan B. Faeder.

Upon reading “The Five Champions, A Japanese Tale” by Susan I realized I wanted to create a quilt beginning with the story.

I wanted each of the men to have equal importance so I created a medallion giving them all the same impact.

The star that was created in the center was serendipitous, and was significant since the roads formed a star at the crossroads.

Each man is looking at his mirror image created with the wrong sides of the fabric.

The mirror images symbolize the men remaining together forever in another dimension in time and space, as will the 5 siblings in my family.

The two hawks at the top of the quilt are “Life Mates”, intent on the activities of the five men.

The Five continue on their journey.

The End/The Beginning

I am currently finishing another quilt in this series and hope I will be able to show it to you soon.

Five Forever

Five Forever is the quilt I designed for the Quilters Express To Japan Hawks and Heroes Quilt Challenge.  It uses a specific group of fabrics designed by Susan Faeder. 
It won 1st Place and was exhibited at the prestigious Yokohama Quilt Festival. 
It was a challenging quilt to create. 
It is a piece of art that stands the test of time and is at home in any décor.
It is 54 inches wide and 67 inches long. It is available for purchase for $3900.

Oh, What A Beautiful Morning!

The sun in shining, it's 75 degrees and the clouds are gorgeous.
It should be in the mid 80's today.
Wish you were here!

Puzzles Are Back

If you are one of the people who have followed my blog for a long  time you may remember that I used to create puzzles from things I shared on my blog.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to make that work for a long time.
I think I have figured out a work around so you can enjoy the puzzles from past posts.

If you copy and paste this link posts will come up that shared puzzles.
https://quiltspluscolor.blogspot.com/search?q=puzzles

This is just one example of the puzzles you can chose from.

I hope you enjoy them.

Not only can you work the puzzles but you can change the cut to make them easier or harder.

I do one of the puzzles every day, changing the cut and usually choosing one of the harder ones.
I hope you will enjoy being able to do these again if you did them in the past.
If you never have done them before I think you will find this good for your brain power.

Big Bodacious Potholders

Who says potholders aren't fun, personal and so great to use?

I started making these potholders as hostess gifts. I try to select a novelty print that the recipients can relate to.

Usually I am making them at the last minute.  I had set aside these fabrics as ones that work. I decided to get ahead of myself and I have just finished these 9.

I make them to be USED, so there is no hanging loop to hang and display them. They also wash and dry beautifully and get better with time. I have 2 I have been using for at least 6 years and they are as good of better than when they were new.

Another Favorite Quilt

This is one of the quilts in my series The Colors Of My Life
It is almost a tessellation.
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Prom Time!

This is the dress I wore to my high school prom many years ago.

It is being modeled here by my oldest granddaughter and it fit her perfectly. I made it from this gorgeous printed cotton sateen and wore it over a crinoline that made the skirt stand out.

The picture in the background is my maternal grandmother.

I was fortunate to have attended The World's Best Prom. Our cities proms were the subject of a movie/video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=penrLf12m0w

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0772132/

What a fun video for anyone who is anticipating attending their first prom, or for anyone who has ever been to a prom, especially if their prom was in Racine, Wisconsin.

Our Post Prom was amazing with anything and everything one could have dreamed of.

At the time I didn't realize that everyone didn't get an experience like we did.

I hope you will take time to view the videos I've linked to in this post for a delightful experience.

Free Form Curve Piecing Quilts

I am currently finishing a free form curve piecing quilt. It will be a while before it is ready to share.
While I am waiting to share it I thought I'd like to share some of the quilts I created with this technique.
No descriptions, no titles, just enjoy the ART!

These are just a few of the quilts I have made using free form curved piecing.
There are so many ways you can use the technique.

An Enjoyable Visit

I had briefly met Muriel Lynch and knew she was someone I'd like to know better. It took time for us to find a date we could get together.
One thing we had in common was that we had both gone to University of Wisconsin - Stout, although not at the same  time. I also know someone else who was in her class at Stout. It was a surprise that both of them mentioned knowing the one same person without me even saying the persons name.
We both enjoy working with fabric. 
We didn't begin to run out of things to talk about and time passes too quickly. I hope I'll be seeing more of her in the near future.