One of my favorite quilts

I love the challenge of making quilts as a collaborative effort, especially when the quilt is meant as a gift to someone special. This is one of my favorite quilts, because it was a gift from the hearts of many to one recipient, to honor her for her years in teaching. It uses artwork made by non-quilters (in this case - children) which is a fun collaboration (try it sometime!). But this quilt is not the first group quilt nor the first quilt featuring children's art that I have made. The first such quilt was one created especially for Grandma Shirley Burkom in honor of her retirement as the Director of the Becker Early Childhood Center, where my children attended preschool. It just so happens that she retired the very year that my boys were graduating from PreK. (Grandma Shirley, I need to get a new photo of your quilt to add here!). I went on to make a quilt for one of my sons' Kindergarten teachers, a wedding gift from the class (Kari, I'm way over due for a visit to you & would love a photo of your quilt to put here!). I even made a quilt for the WUE school auction one year. It featured many many blocks of kid-art in bright colors (third photo, this time needed from Melinda Mogas. Please Melinda?).

But enough of other quilts that I don't have photos of ... The quilt that I am featuring now was initially blogged about it nearly a year ago, shortly after its completion. I removed the blog post almost immediately after posting it, as the quilt was meant to be a surprise and there was a great fear that the surprise would be discovered too early! So I am happy to feature my original post about this lovely quilt that has been given to Reverend Jan Imig, from the many school children at First Methodist Church.

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What do you give someone to honor her for the years of caring and dedication she has given to your religious school program? My friend Sandy Faison had a great idea: make a quilt filled with art by the children. Jan Imig -- I hope you know how loved you are! Here is your quilt, made by the school children at First Methodist Church, and with Sandy's inspiration and organization:



Sandy chose a biblical theme -- very appropriate considering the reason behind the quilt. Each age/grade level worked on a different block. Here is the beginning, the First day of Creation by the Two-year-old class:



The second day, representing Sky and Water, is by the Three-year-old class:



The third block is the Third day of Creation, art by the Preschool class:



The fourth block, the 4th day of Creation, is by the Kindergarten class:



The fifth day of Creation has art by the First Graders at First Methodist.



The sixth day of Creation features art by the Second grade class:



The seventh block, the 7th day of Creation, has the honor of representing all the children that do not have their own block on this quilt: families with children who have already passed through the classes at First Methodist and families with young children who have yet to start their journey here.



Once the seven days of creation were used, Sandy selected three more biblical stories for the 3 additional classes. The eighth block represents the story of Noah with artwork by the Third grade class:



The ninth block, the Nativity, is by the Fourth grade class:



The tenth and last block is Jesus and the Disciples by the Fifth grade class:



All the artwork above was transfered to fabric by Original Works, the original art-based fundraiser celebrating children's creativity since 1989. For more information, here is a link to their website: www.originalworks.com/

The biggest struggle with making this quilt was deciding on a lay-out for the 10 blocks. Ten blocks seperates easily into 2 rows of 5 blocks each, but would you want a wide and squatty quilt to hang on the wall? Or how about a tall and skinny quilt? After much pondering and playing with ideas on paper and in my head, I came up with the above layout. I like how this keeps the seven Days of Creation together. Next, choosing fabrics and border-widths. After assembling the blocks and borders into a quilt top, quilting is added, unique patterns to complement the individual blocks. The finishing steps are to add binding and a label .... The quilt was completed and delivered to Sandy on Saturday evening, Aug 24th. In fact it is being presented to Reverend Jan Imig during the "Welcome Back" program at First Methodist Church-Downtown Houston on Sunday, August 25, 2008. [Note: I believe the actual presentation happened on a different day, a tad later than the original plan.]

By the way, this was my 3rd completed UFO Olympic piece during last summer's UFO Olympic games that I participated in (just couldn't blog about it until AFTER the quilt had been given to Jan!

Bloggers Quilt Festival

In honor of the Quilt Festival happening in Chicago, April 17 to 24, Amy of Park City Girl blog came up with a fun new idea ... She is hosting the First Annual Bloggers Quilt Festival!

Click here to read details about this event .



Fiber Art Auction

The 2009 Invitational Reverse Auction featuring fabulous Fiber Art is open.

This is Rusty Grove by Linda Teddlie Minton.

It has sold for $1,800.00 -- every penny of which goes to the American Cancer Society. Yea!!!

Click here to learn more about this piece.

Better still, click here to see all the art, and to learn how to bid. Build your fiber art collection and support cancer research too!

This is Sir Winter McDormant by Roxanne Stoner.

It is still available (as of the moment that I write this). Click here to learn more about this piece.

Click here to learn more about Fiberart For A Cause (FFAC), founded by Virginia Spiegel. Many fiber artists have joined FFAC and working together they have raised over $165,000.00 for the American Cancer Society.

Simply Incredible!

NEWS FLASH: This will be the last year for the Invitational Reverse Auction! Be sure to look at the amazing artwork donated by ten outstanding fiber artists and bid on your favorite. Remember, all proceeds benefit the American Cancer Society. This event ends at 5:00 p.m. Central Standard Time on Thursday, March 26, 2009.

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.