MAGnificent Inspiration Exhibit

"Fractured Fungus"

This is the quilt I made for the Memorial Art Gallery's exhibit, MAGnificent Inspiration. Thirty area quilters made 36 quilts for the Gallery's show and sale.

The exhibit was highlighted on tonight's 6 pm news and featured our guild's own Pat Pauly, Diane Tichelle, and Jeanne Simpson. While not specifically identified, "Fractured Fungus" was part of the report.

If you missed it, you can see it by going to www.13wham.com/content/brightspot/default.aspx
And clicking on “36 Quilters Share Inspiration….”

February Scenes

All seasons have beauty. This picture taken out of the studio door shows an ice-covered hedge row at the western end of the horse pasture. This 1/2-inch coating did not cause any undue problems.





The northern side of the new studio covered with 6 inches of snow, as seen from the road. Some around-the-corner neighbors asked if the addition housed an indoor pool or a "spa." They seemed disappointed it was "only" a quilting studio.
The front of the house as seen from the driveway. A good landscape planting shows well in all types of weather. We are pleased with our current display.







Suki, the inspector, is a warm weather cat. Even on a sunny day, she laments her lack of outside activity and spends time gazing longingly over her outdoor domain. She really wants Spring to arrive!

Visiting Priscilla

Beth (in the red) and I went to visit our friend Priscilla today. After tea and wonderful sugar cookies, we got to admire many of Priscilla's treasures collected from around the world. Of course, there was also a little time spent discussing the layout of Priscilla's newest quilt and plans for its machine quilting.







After lunch, Beth and I got to go through many of the things Priscilla brought back from her recent trips to Vietnam and Guatemala.

The pictures below show some of the things that came home with me.....




A few yards of Hmong Batik

A hand-embroidered and handwoven piece from Vietnam

Silk "yo-yo" scarf from Thailand








Silk scarves from Laos and Vietnam








And an embroidery from Vietnam.

Cleaning horse stalls

One of the "joys" of horse ownership is the periodic task of removal of residue from the horse stalls. Here Marcia celebrates a beautiful sunny day by moving "used" straw from the stall to large piles behind the barn.

Long-time helper, Bill Elmer, breaks up the frozen crust of ice and snow, and Joe uses the pitch fork to fill up the bucket. Tractor driver Bill heads for the controls.







The chain has come off the tractor tire, and the men are straining to put all back in place. The heavy front load causes the tractor to need extra traction as it heads for the garden.


The job is half done. We moved a dozen bucket-loads today and spread the wonderful fertilizer around the grape vines, upper and lower plantings of raspberries, and an apple tree -- recycling at its best and a very satisfying day outdoors.

Blocks3 and Blocks4

I decided it was time to get back to finishing some tops that have been awaiting quilting. Both of these tops were quilted on the LongArm machine using invisible thread on top and Bottom Line on the bottom.

Both of these need facing and labels and then can go in the "Done" pile.

This is Blocks #3 (50w X 43h)





Blocks #3 detail









This is Blocks #4 (75w X 50h)








Blocks #4 detail

Homework

It's time to finish a piece that I started in my last class with Nancy Crow in November. The assignment was to start with 4 bull's eyes that were each approximately 40-inches square, so that the piece would be 80-inches square. The parameters for the exercise included using lush colors and making a dynamic composition with figure/ground tension.




I've done a similar exercise and didn't want to stay in the 4-quadrant format, and also wanted to see what would happen if I started slashing through the "quadrant" pieces.

I decided I liked the icicle figures that were created.






The next step was to break up the quadrant pieces to see if an even more dynamic figure/ground composition could be generated. I'm still deciding if I want to replace any of the colors along the very bottom....


And here's a quick look at a quick composition done by friend Pat Pauly when she was at the studio to use the design walls. She created the fabrics using bleach and thiox discharge techniques and arranged them into a composition.

I was hoping she was going to leave it behind, but the pieces went home with her...

A Visit from Beth

My friend Beth (http://www.quilterb-bethsblog.blogspot.com/) spent the day with me and made good use of the design walls in the studio.

We looked at one of the first quilts she made in the 80's when she was learning to hand applique. She's decided it's time to get a border on it and call it done....







One of the motivations to revisit these projects from the past is for Beth to have projects to work on at the Club's Spring Fling sewing days coming up at the end of the week. These blocks are from a basket block exhange and need to be sewn together, and then a border will be added.







These are Dear Jane (4.5 inch) blocks all done with batik fabrics that came from an online exchange.






And these blocks are all made from vintage fabrics from the 1930's and 40's. These blocks are 4 inches square, and some of them are comprised of more than 100 pieces!

Jonathan Holstein at the MAG

As part of the MAGnificent Inspiration: The Art Quilt program at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, the Gallery Council held a lunch and lecture with Jonathan Holstein. He is well known as a quilt collector, historian, author and co-curator of the 1971 Whitney Museum exhibition, Abstract Design in American Quilts.

The time flew by as he entertained us by displaying and reviewing many quilts brought in by audience members, as well as several from his private collection.





We were at front-row table #3 -- great comraderie and great for taking pictures!
From the left: Barb Seils, Pat Berardi, Mona Jean Easter, Carol Spreter, and Pat Pauly.







The other side of the table-- from the right: Beth Brandkamp, Charmaine Babineau, Nancy Hicks, Jeanne Simpson, and Bev Kondolf (hidden behind Pat).













Sitting next to the raffle ticket table didn't help create any winners at our table, but we were pleased that Claire Welch from our GV guild won the Bernina sewing machine.













For pictures of most of the quilts we saw, go to www.picasaweb.google.com/mydecamp and also check out my friend Beth's blog www.quilterb-bethsblog.blogspot.com.

My favorites from Jonathan's collection were these improvisational tops made by Anna Mae Williams.