Giving Thanks!

I posted some early Thanksgiving photos but I’d like to share a few more.

Kendall is such a lovely girl. She was helping with the clean up as her mom Tina cooked and she did it with a smile and a great attitude.

Sean is arranging his eggs for the deviled egg competition on this lovely silver tiered tray while Lauren looks on approvingly.

The deviled egg competition entries. The winner is on the right. Sally won and received the trophy that I forgot to photograph.  They all were delicious and I loved each one.

Laney was showing off her missing two front teeth. She is always so happy.

Her little brother Ryder also had to show me his teeth.. and he still has all of his!

Our host Andy as he did his pose for the statue activity before dinner.


Setting up the food for the serving buffet and two young men in the background that were very anxious to eat!
Once the eating commenced I forgot to take pictures.

The weather was so gorgeous that we all retired around the pool after dinner.

We enjoyed the view. The pool can be lighted in various colors.

One last picture…these two sure love each other like no others.
What a perfect Thanksgiving.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

We are having a family deviled egg competition today at our Thanksgiving feast. I am keeping mine under wraps!

My secret deviled egg recipe.

Each year I bring the host some hand made special potholders. This year I decided to change up the gift.

In case you don’t know Andy loves Sock Monkeys. These guys can listen to what you say and repeat if back to you. What better way for Andy and Drew to have a conversation. They are limited to 6 seconds each time they have something to say.
When I set them up Denise and Jamie were here. Denise was doubled over in laughter engaging in conversation with these guys.

One Of A Kind Silk Screened And Ice Dyed

I put these blocks on my design wall this weekend.
The silk screen motifs on each of them are something I did at least 25 years ago on perma-press muslin.
Recently I ice dyed them to take away the harsh contrast. Each block dyed with a slightly different coloration which was to be expected. I will probably still rearrange some of them to get a better allover balance,

The two center blocks were printed with a slightly darker color. I was lucky I had a total of 12 blocks to work with so I could make a reasonable size piece.

I intend to cut up this shibori overdyed fabric to use as sashing between the blocks after I trim them slightly to make them all the same size.
This is a project that might not be finished soon….but then again…maybe it will.
It is very low contrast compared to much of my work. I do think it will be a very peaceful relaxing quilt.

Enjoying Their Photoshoot!

I took this picture as soon as they arrived tonight. We had an enjoyable evening and an “interesting” dinner….and that’s all I’ll say about dinner.
Drew was here too but wasn’t having anything to do with photos this time. Didn’t even get a candid one of him. He did a great job of helping….he sets the table, cleared the table and served dessert. I am so proud of him.
Andy left with boxes of Christmas lights, cords and timers and Kendall left with a big bag of felt squares in a variety of colors. I only have to get rid of 130 more things to reach my goal for 2016…and it looks like I will exceed it once again.

Sharing Something Different !

To create this piece I tried some new manipulations. There are no rules, guidelines or lessons to create specific designs.
This one is really quite different than previous pieces.
It is a happy piece with a variety of glorious colors.

Long Island Ice Tea?

Well it is LONG and it was dyed with ICE and the color resembles TEA….but it has no connection to an ISLAND or the beverage of the same name.
This particular piece is approximately 22 inches wide and 2 yards long.
Some parts of it are more successful than other parts.

This is the upper portion and the part I feel is the most successful. I have to admit the overall piece did not turn out anything like I envisioned.
I continue to try new things and some are more successful than others. Some are passable and some are downright duds.
But in reality those ugly ducklings can usually be made into gorgeous swans with additional layers of dye or paint.

Ice Dyed Velvets

This is one of the pieces I just finished ice dyeing. This velvet took the dye well and is very beautiful. I did find that velvets are very difficult to photograph as I think the nap reflects the light in strange ways.

I rate this one a 10+ on a 1-10 scale. It was the most successful of all the pieces I dyed. I also had some real duds in these batches.

If you look at this closely you will see little bits of fuzzy things. They are the only parts of the nap left on this piece. The rest of the nap washed out. This one rates a –1.

This one actually tore in half when I was pulling strings off of it. The colors are varied, but not enough to make it interesting. I did rescue it by doing some embossing with rubber stamps and a hot iron.
I learn so much when I PLAY…and not everything is great, but it is the only way I can be creative and make discoveries or solve ideas.
These are all from the fabrics you saw ice dye batching in my last post.

Batching My Ice Dyes

My current ice dyes that are batching took a lot of ice. It’s always a surprise to see what I will get after I wash them out!

I used very different colors on this one than I did on the first one.
Now the hard part begins…waiting until they are finished.

Nice Florida Ice

I did some ice dyeing this week. This is one of what I call the secondary pieces. All of the pieces are like opening a present when I finish them as I never know what to expect.

This is also a secondary piece. They each have an ethereal bit of mystery.
The primary piece I dyed is too big to photograph.
There were also what I call base level pieces and often they need an additional layer/layers of dye.
I can’t stop creating these wonderful images even though I probably don’t need more for my January solo show in Wisconsin.
It’s possible I may offer a few for sale in November or December before the show.

New Neighbor, New Friend

I just met Denise in person a few days ago. We were both surprised when we realized we talked for 3 hours! So enjoyable.

I Opened The Door And Whoosh….

There was a flock of flamingoes that must have heard about this sanctuary and my tree is full!

Here is a close up of some of them. I never realized how many varieties of flamingos there are.

Another close up. I wonder how long flamingo season is in Florida? I am sure they will stay to meet my friends and family!

They Are Flying In From All Over

This one flew in from Hilton Head Island. How do I know, the ribbon told me so!

Can’t you just hear that Hawaiian music while she does the hula?

What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas.

Another One Arrived!

It’s pretty obvious this one is a girl.
I think her name is Valerie!

They’re Coming

The first ones just arrived! Looks like a happy pair.
I wonder what their names are?

If You Build It They Will Come!

Some of you may look at this and think it is a Christmas tree.
It is not. It is a flamingo tree. I expect the flamingoes will start flocking to it very soon.
After all, this is Florida!

Quilt Turning On The Studio Bed

There has been a lot of interest recently about how people store their finished quilts.
I am sharing how mine are stored on the bed in the studio. This has been a perfect way to store them.

As I put the quilts back on the bed in the studio this past summer I photographed them on the bed as I added each quilt. I did this so it would make it easier to find any particular quilt.
This shows the bed before I started layering on the quilts. You can see the trolleys under the bed with the small quilts. On the left in my antique treadle sewing machine, another story, another time.

This is a sampler quilt I started in the late 1970's. At that time there was a very limited selection of quilt fabrics available to us. There are only 5 different (3 different print patterns) fabrics in this quilt. It was done quilt as you go. The borders are cut and ready to add but this in not high on my priority list to finish, even though it won't take a lot of time.

This is a 1920's quilt. I became the custodian of this quilt top that my great Aunt Alma had pieced. I had it quilted by an anonymous Amish quilter. All it needs is a binding. I just need to find the correct fabric to bind it.

I also became custodian of this quilt top pieced by my paternal grandmother Matilda Gruenwald Koeper. She was the sister to my great Aunt Alma.
If you have seen Julie Silber's lecture "The Grandmother Connection" you have seen this quilt top. If you haven't seen Julie's lecture, book it for your guild or conference. It is probably my favorite quilt lecture of all time, not just because I am one of the featured quilters. You will love it. I found a quilter who's work I felt was the quality I wanted to do the quilting on this. She started the quilting, but had to stop when her wrists gave out. I am still searching for someone who can complete the quilting with the same quality of work.
Please stay tuned as there will be several more posts to complete the layering of the quilts on the bed.
If you look at both of these quilts it looks like the sisters shopped together or traded some fabrics. The bed that holds the quilts is an odd size antique East Lake Bed. It's close to 3/4 size but I had to have a special mattress made for it.
Over 45 years ago when we lived in Ohio I passed up a chance to buy one of these along with 4 crazy quilts for 25 cents at a country auction. I still kick myself about that.
I paid a whole $10 for this 30 years ago! We had it stripped and we refinished it.

I made this quilt in a class I taught "Quick Kid's Quillts". It turned out to be so much more than a simple kid's quilt.

This Amish Shadows quilt is one of several I have made.

Another Amish Shadows with blocks made at the same time. I didvided them into two groups. This was made from the group that contain yellows and golds in the blocks. The blocks in the previous one contained blues and roses.

This quilt also originated in the "Quick Kids Quilt Class". I call it Amish Pathways.
It uses a very unique color palette, even more unique when I created it.
Some of the quilts I have made are too large for the trolleys under the bed and yet not nearly bed size. This is a replication of an Amish Trip Around The World quilt.

Five Forever is the quilt I made for the Quilters' Express Trip to Japan competition.
It won first prize and was exhibited at the Yokohama Quilt Festival.

This Origami Bow Tie Quilt was so much fun to make.

Cubic Jubilee was made from hand dyed fabric gradations. It was a challenge to make, but turned out to be very successful.
Amish bricks is a replication of an Amish quilt. If you look closely you will see there are many variations of each color. It also has the appearance of a scrap quilt with so many different solid colors. There is color progression and contrast in this quilt. It is hand quilted.

This quilt was designed for a Mystery quilt weekend I offered. It is my adaptation of an antique quilt I saw somewhere. It is long and narrow like a hired man's quilt.

This started as an antique quilt top I purchased. I fell in love with it when I saw it. A friend who did some of the best hand quilting I have ever seen quilted it for me.

This is one of my early bed quilts. I had someone quilt it with a long arm machine.

This is actually a very large wall quilt I made for my husband's office. Since he retired it is either on this bed or hanging over the stairwell. It is a combination of commercial fabrics combined with the shaded hand dyed gray fabric. I dyed the fabric myself. I had hoped to use these photos to keep track of what layer a particular quilt was on to make it easier to find it. This worked for a while, but as many of them have been acquired by quilt collectors this no longer works to find them.
I do often change the order of them and maybe next time I need a new series of quilt turning photos.