Urban Sprawl Revisited

Got a two hour window this morning before heading to work so I made some progress working my way down "Urban Sprawl".

There is still much more quilting to do but it is going well now.

I have some other surprises to add before it is complete but it sure felt good to make some progress again. Once I have time to work on a piece I get re-invigorated and inspired.
Now I am sure I will move ahead this weekend.

Hope you all have a good weekend too. No snow here yet, but it is cold!

Slow Going

The weekend is coming up and they are talking about SNOW! We are just on the edge of the storm so I am crossing my fingers it will miss us. This is the hardest part of spring in Wisconsin. You can be having a 60 degree day and before you know it you are down to the 20's again. Next week it is supposed to stay in the 30's most of the week. Not what I was hoping for that is for sure.

In the meantime I am continuing to quilt "Urban Sprawl". It seems to be taking longer than usual because I have had to find time all week to get into my studio. So instead of being able to spend 4 or more hours on it, I have had to work in 20 minute, 15 minute, 10 minute spans when I can fit it in. You make progress but not like you can when you really sit down and work for an afternoon.

Hopefully I will have something to show early next week. We will see.

Spring has Sprung

Finally, it stopped raining! I went out and took a look at how the daffodils and crocus are doing.
We are up and looking good!

I have a "thing" for moss. I gather it from odd places and bring it home to grow over rocks in my garden and between the pathways of brick. It is so delicate looking, yet is one of the first things
up and green in spring. Here it is already going strong.

Telemadera Fusion

Yesterday I was talking to my sister, Vicki, who lives out in Kalama Washington. She is always looking for intriguing things out there that may interest me and my work.

She told me about the artist Alma Cox and how she is fusing fabric with wood. I had never heard of this before. This morning I had to go watch her video. It is fabulous! If you have the time and have not heard of this before I am sure you will enjoy what this woman is doing.

http://www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/videos/view/191-Alma-Cox

I just love the ideas other artists come up with by mistake almost. It is exciting and I find it
even more exciting if they are willing to share their discoveries with all of us.
She also has a website with amazing work.

http://almaart.com

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Rain Rain Go Away!

Saturday my son came with my grandson Max for an overnight. My poor daughter in law was sick with a bad cold so this gave her the opportunity to get some rest and Jon the chance to catch up seeing some old High School friends. We had a great time with Max. He loves his Elmo as you can see.

After they left on Sunday, Bob and I went out and started raking the dead leaves in the backyard garden. That is an awful job that seems to get harder each year. It would sprinkle here and there too. However, the results are
well worth it. The daffodils, crocus, grape hyacinths and tulips were all up! We did not get it finished until Monday morning. Bob also put up a post to hang our bird feeders on and poured concrete around the base to hold it in the ground. Once it sets up we will transfer all our bird feeders to it. Then we jumped in the car and went to the local Menards and got two chairs for on the deck along with new hardware for our kitchen.

This is our second project.

Here is my kitchen viewed from the eat-in side. We have white cabinets and a grey Laminate counter top. We are planning on replacing the counter with black speckly quartz. I am painting the cabinets over (still white) and putting on new hardware. I am putting on brushed nickel cup type pulls and plain knobs. In the photo if you look to the left of the stove you can see one of the new pulls on the top drawer. I plan on doing this job a little at a time, one section at a time. We will not have the counters, sink and new faucet and garbage disposal done for a while yet. Have to save up some money first. So I have time to paint slowly rather than all at once.

Needless to say....that was all that got done over the weekend (Sunday and Monday for us).
I did go up and work on "Urban Sprawl" yesterday late in the afternoon, but found out pretty quickly that I was just too tired to quilt. So, I made dinner and then became a couch potato watching Dancing With the Stars.

I had planned on some photos this morning of my flower beds but it is pouring rain and supposed to thunderstorm this afternoon. So that will have to wait.

I have not had a moment in my studio. Seems each day this week has needed other things done leaving little time to quilt. It was not all bad though. Bob filled up our spa when the temperature got up to 70 last weekend, so now I can get up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee and go out and sit in the spa. I just love starting my day out like that. The neighborhood is still quiet with many people still in bed, the birds are just waking and coming to the feeders and it is perfect. Ozzie and Barley like it too as they sit on the deck in the sun. I have posted a picture of our backyard in the summer. Trust me, it does not look like this YET! No snow on the ground but the grass is still dormant. Won't be long now though and I can not wait. You can see the spa on the right hand side of the deck.

Butterflies Are Free

While Quilting "Urban Sprawl" I put together the third quilt in my tree series. I call this one "Butterflies Are Free" after a movie that probably not all of you are old enough to remember.
It is done in purples. For some reason unknown to me I seem to be in a purple phase. I went shopping for a few items to fill my summer wardrobe and ended up coming home with
several purple things. Then as I began this quilt using some butterflies I have had for at least 10 years, it evolved into a purple quilt. I better not get a paint brush in my hands!!!!

Red Barn

Red Barn is complete. This was a fun quilt to make and I enjoyed working on it. It measures approximately 16"X24" and I decided to bind it with the same fabric used on the trees.
Used different quilting designs in different areas, made the buildings more whimsical and
wanted just an uncomplicated setting of peacefulness.

Not Your Grandma's Quilt, Oshkosh, Wisconsin

I went to the Oshkosh Quilt Show "Not Your Grandma's Quilt" on Saturday. The Museum there is an old house built by a Lumber Baron and has the most beautiful Tiffany windows.
Here are the 3 panels on the main staircase landing.

A view of the staircase.

The doors going out on the terrace.

Then in each of the rooms in the mansion are the quilts hanging. Here are few of the ones I was able to photograph.

"Poppies Rule" by Kathleen Erbeck.

"Moth Fairy" by Julie Duschack

"Loco Log Cabins" by Wendy Butler Burns

"Ginko Frenzy" by Kathleen Erbeck

"El Paso Landscape" by Toni Bergeon

Claudia observing "Red Dance" by Lois Wolfe

"Abstract Doodle" by Tracey Noack

"The Artist Inside" by Connie Darkow

"Moonlight Feast" by Tracy Noack

It was a great time. We had a nice lunch afterwards, made a stop at my daughter's house to see her dogs, Bella and Bailey as well as her cats, Toddie and Jasmine.
Then it was back home again.

I finished "Red Barn". Put the binding, sleeve and label on last night while watching Dancing with the Stars. I will download pictures tomorrow.
I have Urban Sprawl layered and under the needle now.
Then it will be back to "The Girls" as I am ready to quilt with all my quilting designs in my head.

Run Run Run!

Oh, this morning was a Marathon Race! Got up and cleaned bathrooms, dusted, made beds and then ran to the grocery store and Kmart for things I needed for the weekend in case my son, daughter in law and grandson come for a visit. Then off to work. This is when I soooo look forward to selling our business and building and moving on.

However, tomorrow morning I am leaving at 9am with my friend, Claudia, for Oshkosh. We will pick up my daughter Molly there and then head over to the museum to see the Exhibit "This Is Not Your Grandmother's Quilt".

www.oshkoshmuseum.org/exhibits/This_is_Not_Your_Grandmother%E2%80%99s_Quilt.htm

Afterwards we will have a nice lunch and head back home so I can finish out the day here at the antique shop.

Perhaps they will allow photos and I will be able to share some with you early next week. Now I best get back to work.

Fitting in Quilting

I continue to make time for quilting on Red Barn. It has been difficult because there are a lot of other things going on in everyday life that has not given me the time I need.

I learned a long time ago not to be hindered by busy days and take those half hour moments that you can squeeze in because they add up and suddenly you realize you have gotten more
accomplished then you thought you would.

So now I am almost finished with Red Barn. Need to complete quilting the fencing and
some of the background and then clean up the little threads that you can
see all over on these closeups....decide on the binding and that will be that.
Then back to Urban Sprawl and Mulberry Bush! Whew!

Anyone who has time please visit my daughter's new blog:
http://sweetpotatomo.blogspot.com
She designs cards and they are great!

Winter is still here!

I had just a little time to work on Urban Sprawl and to do more quilting on Red Barn. I think I will consider this a series since I am using a similar style and trees for both of these. Maybe I will do another one just to make it officially a series.

Here are a few photos of the ice we got yesterday. We are supposed to get up into the 40's today and then this is all supposed to melt. The trees are heavy with ice and there were power outages in town but luckily not by our house. We stayed in all day and watched movies. We watched Australia, which was so different from what I expected. Some of the special effects were pretty poorly done for this day and age and in the beginning you could not quite figure out if you were supposed to take it seriously. It was somewhat disappointing but not totally bad.

After that movie we watched The Changling. An amazing true story and I enjoyed that movie immensely. Very tragic but well done.

Well, have to get going because our Microwave died for the second time. We took it back yesterday morning (just when the ice storm was beginning) to Sears for our money back this time. We did not want to chance getting caught in ice so went straight home. Today the roads do not look too bad, so we are off to find a new one.

It has been hard to find time this week to make much progress on any of the three quilts I am working on. I am about half way through quilting Red Barn and pretty much finished putting on the pieces of Urban Sprawl.

The Girls are ready to be quilted and quilting the other two will get me back in the free motion
quilting mode so I can move right into it without needing to practice first.

Hopefully I will have pictures in a few days.

Urban Sprawl

While continuing quilting on "Red Barn" I am appliquing "Urban Sprawl". I have discovered working on two projects at one time works really well for me. I quilt until my eyes or body can not focus anymore and switch to the quilt on the design wall and do some additional work there.
This quilt means a lot to me. I was born in Plymouth Wisconsin, moved away for 17 years and then came back. I will not go into all that I was doing during that time. Now I have been back for 23 years and I watch how the countryside that I used to hike and live in has changed due to "urban sprawl" . Farms are surrounded by new subdivisions all over the area. We are now almost blending into the next community to the east of us. To top it off we now have a "super Walmart" like all towns seemed destined for no matter how hard they fight it (I personally fought it very hard here.) So this is my quilt showing the Poor camper on the other side of the woods trying to enjoy some peace and quiet before it is all gone.

The quilt is not finished but only part way there.

"Quilt Gallery" now open!

Well here is the "Quilt Gallery" now open in our Antique Shop!
The totes you see here were made by my quilting sister, Bonnie.
We thought we would add a few articles for sale. I plan on bringing some pillows too.

Here is "Purple Mountains Majesty" as well as "Stars in the Garden" a quilt I made before I started blogging.

On the left is "Jamaican Stars" which is embellished with a few antique buttons. This quilt was also made a few years ago. Around the corner you will recognize "Beaded Poppies".
(Yes those are antique tin walls!)

"Whose There"

Another View of the Corner of the room.
I just noticed that "Evening Interlude" is not shown. It is to the left of "Whose There".
Just somehow did not get a shot of it.
It is a small room but it works. Could use some track lighting now.

Here is a bad picture of some of the quilting being done on the "Red Barn".
I promise my next photo will be better.
The quilting is coming along. Just have not had the time to spend on it this week. But I will find time later in the week hopefully.

This is another fracture. Not much happening on the surface but I have been sketching some ideas and just need to make some decisions.

I am also sketching quilting designs for "Mulberry Bush". Want to plan those out before
beginning and I still want to try out a technique for quilting the girls on a sample piece before attacking the actual quilt.

I have hung all my quilts that I intend to sell in my upstairs room at my antique store. I call it "The Quilt Gallery".
I hope to take some photos of it today and will post them too. It was a much bigger job than I thought since I had to do the Price labels etc. But I think it turned out pretty well and we will soon see the customer reaction to it. I put plenty of signage up asking everyone to please not touch the quilts in any way shape or form, but I know that may not be enough for them to refrain from that temptation and it makes me nervous. But I will keep an eye out and hope for the best.

Red Barn

"Red Barn" is my first attempt at doing a simple fractured background with all elements placed on top of it.

I wanted to do a more abstract, simple-lined scene, depicting a small farm near a river.
I added the cattails this morning and think I am finished. I will decide on quilting and then
totally finish this quilt. I do not think it needs a border but would like opinions on that if you care to give me suggestions. It measures approximately 16" by 26".