Nancy and Suki

Nancy Hicks is a frequent and prolific visitor. One of her leaf compositions takes shape on the design wall while she explains her self-portrait project to Bill. She always is working on several ideas concurrently and has many more lined up in her creative mind.









Inspector Suki can't resist any bag or open container. She always hopes the next one she investigates will have a wonderful treasure!









Here she circles Nancy's work area and wonders if the assembled pile of fabric is soft enough to stop and rest. It looks not, as she heads for Nancy's Feather-weight for perusal.










Suki loves the sound and feel of plastic covering of any size and shape. Here she happily builds a nest in the wrapping that covered the Florida bed on its trip North. The picture of contentment!

At the studio....

Nancy Hicks came for some sewing time. She was working on and photographing two of her current pieces.






Nancy let Suki have a small ball of yarn for a bit of kitty exercise. Suki is in much need of diversions on these snowy days when she can't get outside to play.








I couldn't resist a few of the treasures that Priscilla brought back from her last trip to Guatemala that might have to go into a jacket or two.....

The weaving on the left has fringe ends and would make a good jacket back. The one on the right is a very soft hand-woven piece with rayon embroidery.










This is a hand-woven fabric which has been embroidered with whimsical horses and other creatures. It was woven in two parts and then sewn together.

Doormat Stripes

This is a quilt top that I made quite awhile ago. It was inspired by some wonderful doormats that were being sold in Schweinfurth Museum's gift shop.








I brought it out of the closet and decided to do a little restructuring on it. I changed out the lighter-colored center block, added more of the skinny strips, and changed the skinny strips so that they didn't run to the edges.









Because of the size of some of the blocks, the quilt had to be pinned on the long-arm machine vertically and then re-pinned on the frame horizontally.
















It's quilted with wool batting and cotton thread. I think this vertical orientation "works", but I also like it in its original horizontal orientation.

A visit from Priscilla

Priscilla came for a sewing day and worked on the quilt club's next raffle quilt. Her contribution to the quilt is adding her signature seminole -pieced border around the quilt.








Inspector Suki is always happy to see her friend, Priscilla, and especially to have the chance to check out the suitcase Priscilla uses for her featherweight sewing machine.










Suki also had to check out the possibilities of napping inside Priscilla's tote bag.








She finally decided on using her own tunnel. She spent a bit of time kneading her pillowcase that's filled with wool batting scraps -- and then settled for her nap at the end of the tunnel beyond her pillow.

Winter Scenes

The first snow of the winter arrived late in December and is composed of a few inches of lake-effect snow drifting our way from Lake Erie. The stone patio outside the studio door creates a very interesting design matrix. Looks like a future quilt feature.





The cottoneaster and their berries are covered in fluffy snow. The small red globes will soon be consumed by all kinds of critters who come looking for food!










Our fall gourds age gracefully. We had a small crop this year, but they will add color even as they slowly decay.











One of our orchids begins to sprout. Last year we had only one stem, and this year there are at least a dozen. Each stem will produce a wonderful long-lasting white bloom. We don't remember the name, but the plant was purchased many years ago at Fairchild Gardens in Miami.

The Florida "stuff"

The items in Miami that we boxed and set aside in November for shipment home were picked up by the movers two weeks ago.

Within the estimated delivery time, the items made it to our garage, all in pretty good shape for the most part. One salad plate and one soup bowl were in pieces, but all the rest of the dishes and even the glass lamp arrived safe and sound.

It was like a mini-Christmas, going through all the boxes --- and we were so intent on going through all the items, that we forgot to take more pictures.





The king-sized mattress and box springs, just wrapped in their plastic shipping bags, also survived the trip.





Bill's Yukon holds the tables, the bike and a couple of boxes of things for the trip to Geneseo to Jim and Doreen's house.














Winter has arrived with some much colder temperatures, and it was time to put the heater in the fish pond. Even in the coldest weather, the heater keeps the pond from freezing over. The fish like to spend their time pretty close to the heating element.

Pat Pauly's Trunk Show

Our very talented friend, Pat Pauly, was the featured speaker for this Sunday's Trunk Show at the Schweinfurth Museum and Art Center in Auburn, NY. The trunk shows are part of the Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibit which runs through the beginning of January and includes two of Pat's quilts.


Pat gave us a wonderful PowerPoint presentation on the many phases of her work and then showed us some of her quilts that she brought with her.

Here are a few of those quilts:












Her "Pink Leaf" quilt is from the recent mola challenge that she organized.














"Beijng" was based on a photo taken during the Olympics.













"Plank and Feather" is based on two photographs.






This is one of Pat's quilts done in the early '80's.










Pat has been creating hand-dyed and shiboried fabrics (which she has available for sale) and made this quilt from 3 pieces of her fabrics.













Pat designed and organized the creation of the recent raffle quilt for Genesee Valley Quilt Club. This sample quilt features the center medallion that is the focus of the raffle quilts.














This quilt is based on a photograph of an outcropping of rocks in Jordan.

Compositional Conversation - Stage 15

Terry Jarrard-Dimond's project, Composition Conversation, is now back in her studio, after being worked on by 14 fellow artists.

Here is the project as she received it.

And the picture below shows the project in its final form. Be sure to see Terry's blog to read about her thoughts as she added her revisions.

http://www.studio24-7.blogspot.com/


She plans to add a final wrap-up about the project on her blog in the near future.

Trunk Show at Schweinfurth

As part of the Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibit at the Schweinfurth Museum, trunk shows are presented on Sundays.

Today Aafke Steenhuis shared her quilts with us. Aafke is from the Netherlands and has lived in the US for 30+ years. She resides in the Ithaca area and is a member of the Thompkins Cortland Quilt Guild.

We noticed her lovely orange jacket and her use of many orange fabrics in her quilts, and she pointed out that orange just happens to be a favorite color of hers. (I think we need to invite her to join the orange jacket challenge!)





She's made many quilts since she started quilting in 1998 -- some based on traditional patterns, along with several art quilts.

This red and white beauty has fabrics that Aafke brought from the Netherlands. Some of the fabric patterns are based on bed linens used on farms in her homeland.





This is a very recent quilt that grew from building out from small blocks.







This quilt is based on the design of a napkin from the Netherlands.

These are a couple of her more traditional quilts.

Aafke has had treatments and surgery for a giant cell tumor on her right wrist, and she showed us some of the many "giant cell" quilts she has created.