Empty Bowls 2009

Above is a curious peek at the first of four bowls that I will be delivering this Saturday to the 2009 Empty Bowls event in Houston. This is the second year that my Beyond the Borders (BTB) Art Quilt group has contributed bowls to this annual fundraiser benefiting the Houston Food Bank.

If you are in or near Houston this Saturday, March 21, please drop by the Houston Contemporary Craft Center (HCCC) and the Lawndale Art Center to view the thousands of bowls donated by local artisans to this worthy cause. If you find one (or more) that call to you, a mere $25.00 allows you to take it home. To celebrate your purchase, you will be given a tasty bowl of soup (in a different bowl!) for your lunch. There will be live music and a variety of craft demonstrations taking place too.

Now to see how wonderfully creative my BTB friends are ...

Here is Connie Fahrion's bowl, the one I've been teasing you with. It is a delicately sweet bowl.

She named it "Earth, Wind and Fire"

A look at the bottom ...
and the colorful sides ....
changing with the different angles.

Janice McKeehan created two bowls for this worthy event. This one is made using felt as the stabilizer, assorted cotton greens, beading, light and petite stamped designs (one has to look close to see them) and lots of quilting to hold the layers together.

The sides overlap, held in place with a lovely beaded embellishment.

The base is signed and dated, naturally.

The back stands tall, taller still if you unfold the cuff.

This is a great bowl ... I wonder who will select it this Saturday?

Janice made this second bowl to donate as well. I am sure you will agree it is a fabulous and unique floral bowl.

I just love it!

Each of the petals and leaves are wired, giving them the natural wavy look. They can be re-shaped if needed or desired.

An underneath view ...

Looking into the heart of the flower to see its beaded center.

Now for my 2009 Empty Bowl donation....

(may I have a drum roll, please?)

First, a view of the inside -- a simple, spotted green ready to be filled with your favorite what-nots.

Next, a view of the outside -- layers of yarns, fibers, tulle and netting, possibly a stray candy wrapper or two as well.

It has a well-loved, shabby-chic look, or are my rose-colored glasses blinding me?

Can you believe the diversity of these four bowls? Think -- these are by just three artists. Imagine the thousands of other bowls that will be there on Saturday! With ceramic and clay bowls in the majority, without a doubt, there will be an extremely wide range of all kinds of bowls ... including bowls crafted with wood, paper, felted wool and other fiber creations (including these four -- Thank you Janice and Connie!)

Please come to HCCC and Lawndale (side by side on Main Street) this Saturday, March 21, 2009 between 11:00 a.m. & 4:00 p.m. I will be volunteering in the morning with my boys and my friend Tammy. Make a $25.00 minimum donation and enjoy a tasty lunch of soup, listen to entertaining live music, watch various craft demos taking place, shop for the bowl of your choice and support the Houston Food Bank!

Click here to view last year's BTB bowls.

Click here to find an Empty Bowls event near you.

Open Studio Day in La Grange

On Friday, February 27, 2009 at the Great Expectations Creativity Center in La Grange, Texas, Karey Bresenhan held an Open Studio Day inviting quilt and fiber artists to come view the work created by the two Artists-in-Residence, Virginia Spiegel and Carol Moore. It was a wonderful day spent hobknobbing with over 70 fellow artists .... and the lunch was tasty too!

Here is a sampling of the hand-dyed wool roving Carol brought with her to use during her month-long stay in La Grange.


This is a close up view of Virginia's painted fabric pieces.


Carol and Virgina pose during a lull in the conversation. They are standing in front of Carol's piece that was juried into the "Oh Canada" exhibit to be seen at International Quilt Festival shows this year.

Virginia is talking with Karen Stiehl Osborn about one of her pieces which is made of Lutrador. I love the transparency of this piece. Displaying this art in the window on this beautiful sunny day where the Texas greenery can be seen beyond is a perfect touch.

The room slowly filled as everyone arrived, coming in twos and threes. In the back corner you can glimpse more of Virginia's work.

Karey is a gracious hostess. She is welcoming everyone to her Texas ranch, and introducing the Artists-in-Residence, seen below.

Seated is Ruth Moore, Carol's mom (who traveled in from Toronto two days earlier), behind her is Virginia Spiegel (floral jacket) and Carol Moore. They are quite excited to be sharing their new pieces created during their month-long stay at the Creativity Center.

After lunch, many others shared their artwork. One of my favorites was seeing Jamie Fingal's three apron pieces (no photos -- sorry -- but check out Jamie's article in issue #23 of Cloth-Paper-Scissors magazine, March/April 2009 or watch for an upcoming Quilting Arts episode)

Frances Holliday Alford brought many stickers, decals, stamps and more -- which she shared with anyone who would still long enough to decorate a postcard -- it was wonderful fun. She sent me off with a few more postcards of hers that she wishes to get more cancellation stamps on!


Here is Frances, her smile and one of her heavily stickered postcards.


Ruthie Powers, also from Austin, is beginning a new adventure -- she's designed some amazing stamps, which include mirror images where the negative/positive spaces are reversed. Here is Kim DeCoste (Education Manager of Quilts, Inc.) demo-ing different ways to use Ruthie's stamps. Is that Iris of MistyFuse next to Ruthie and listening too?

Before heading home for the day, I popped into the Copper Shade Tree gallery in Round Top to see the "It's Not A Quilt ... Or Is It?" fiber art show that was currently going on. This wall features one art piece by each of the features 18 artists in the show. There are some amazing Quilters & Fiber Artists in Texas! Be sure to drop by if you are in the area soon, as the show will be up for a bit longer.

Guitar Festival

February means Fiber Art at the Copper Shade Tree (the 3rd annual quilt/fiber show in this cozy gallery) and Guitar Festival at Festival Hill (now in it's 5th annual year in this world reknown concert hall).

My friend, Connie Fahrion, made this quilt (poster size) in support of Festival Hill and their fundraising efforts. Look closely to see the larger guitar embroidered in the background.

this and that

I love this cabochon face -- which is the focal point on my Arch from Lynn (one of the ones I couldn't locate when I took my group shot last week). Here is the full view of Lynn's arch, made especially for me in our 2008 yearlong Textile Challenges arch swap.

My twelfth (and final) arch was made by our TC leader Carol T Taylor. Now I do have a new "To Do" on my list -- create a finished piece featuring all of my arches. Shall it be a book? or a free-standing display? or something else? (hmmm, I haven't a clue just yet .... do you?)



I don't think I've shown my Halloween ATC from Carol T as well. My spider, on my Boo! ATC is actually tethered to the ATC, and can swing!


Look closely -- I have overlaid the original (and smallest) spider and Boo! on top of the swinging spider. The swinging spider gains momentum and swings up and over head, above the Boo!

It really is a cool idea to have the spider be a free-flying agent, don't you agree? Thank you Carol -- as always, your creativity delights me!

Last of today's assorted "this and that" pieces is my most recent work, my ATC for Marie's week #2 of our monthlong challenge. Marie is leading our Textile Challenges group in a creative challenge that is evolving slowly, one week at a time. In this week's challenge, we were directed to go to a room in our home where we do not "create our art" and select a random item to use as the focal point in our ATC. Then head to our sewing area, grab four items to use with it and make our ATC in 20 minutes.
So once again, we had to make speedy quick fast decisions and choices as we worked and stitched and created, remembering that a major goal of the challenge is to finish the ATC within the short time limit.

With those guidelines in mind, I grabbed a Q-tip from the bathroom cabinet, and went upstairs to meet this challenge head on.

The Q-tip was snapped in half, caught under a piece of layered tulle and fibers scrap from an earlier project, and tulle was scrunched and stitched over the top, with a piece of fake vinyl stuff finishing one edge. Too fast, not enough thought directing this challenge. I don't care for it very much. Oh, and I managed to finish this ATC just past past our 20 minute mark.

Happy Hearts

Lsat week, I received a wonderful gift from a new friend, Elizabeth.

She made this just for me ... well, we were swap partners.
A huge "Thank you" to Carol T for pairing us together!

I absolutely love everything about this piece: the lush fabrics, the delicate beading, the shabby-chic-ness, and the purple velvet back!

This is my Puffy Heart!

Puffy Hearts were swapped recently in honor of Valentine's Day with my Textile Challenges group.


Here is the heart I made for Elizabeth.
This is one side -


And this is the other -

Happy Valentine's Day!

Missing my BTB friends ... sigh

Today is the monthly meeting of my local art quilt bee, Beyond the Borders. Sadly I will not be there as I have one child home from school with a fever (that has lasted 2 days so far ... yuk). Fortunately, it is a low one that responds well to medicine (yea!) and my other child has been resistant to it (a second yea!).

Unfortunately, I've missed many consecutive meetings and am feeling very woe-be-gone without my usual BTB "fix." Do you know what I mean? The energy and excitement of seeing what my friends are working on in person not only recharges my batteries, it also fires up my fiber art dreams often enhancing both my creativity and productivity.


On a positive note ... if I had gone today, this is what I might have taken to share:

First a thank-you to Elaine and Nancy for their lovely birthday postcards that I received in November (I mentioned it has been awhile since I have made it to our meeting, right?).


Nancy's is the birthday crow and Elaine's is the camoflaged zebra. Thank you to both of you -- I love the surprise of getting fiber art postcards in the mail and these two are especially delightful! Thank you.


Next are the arches from my yearlong Textile Challenges arch swap. I have posted about this swap before, featuring ones I made for my TC friends. The photo below shows the wonderful arches I have received. As I gathered them to take the photo today, I realized I could only locate 10 of the 12 -- and at the moment I do not recall if I am missing the last 2 or if I have misplaced them in my home (the latter is more likely correct -- a true comment on my housekeeping abilities - in fact I am now thinking I have other birthday postcards to show too. Note to self: Must clean sewing room soon).

Aren't these arches amazing? Such a wonderful collection showcasing a variety of fiber art techniques ranging from hand embroidery to machine embellishment. The original idea for this swap was inspired by a Gothic arched book made by Beryl Taylor, although I am thinking I may assemble mine into a standing-hinged-display (Do you have any other suggestions? all ideas are welcome!)

Next, I would probably have taken this assortment of screen prints.

They are the samples made during a "Screen Printing Basics" class with Marit Kucera during the 2008 International Quilt Festival last October. It was a great class, especially remarkable in that two or three women came with younger daughters & nieces! Everyone made their own design to screen, then printed multiple versions so that we each left with a sample of everyone's design. Now I need to assemble these into a small quilt, or rather, I may prefer to make more new prints first ... hmmm, I do like that second idea.

Speaking of Quilt Festival, for years I have purchased tie-dyed t-shirts from Joy's Fabrics for my boys, getting new ones as they grew into the next size. This year I treated myself to these fabric packs of a 12-step Color Wheel and a 10-step gradation from black-to-gray.

I plan to make at least one fabric color wheel .... eventually.

Last of all, I would have shared what is hidden in this box.
Wouldn't you love to get a box in the mail with this teaser poking through the small hole? It is another wonderful trade with my Textile Challenges group. I will reveal it in a day or two. For a hint, check out this blog, by one of my newest TC friends, Elizabeth. Be sure to go and look as she is offering a fun give-away in honor of her upcoming 250th blog posting (click here and leave a comment before February 14th to earn a chance to win the gift featured).