13th Steet Studio

Moving Show

My exhibit at the Lawrence Community Theater comes down this Sunday, but most of the work will then move to the exhibit space at the Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence. Here are two more pieces in the group:

Blue Flower Sketch

Red Flower Sketch

Quilt Show Time

This weekend is my guild's annual quilt show. It is held at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Lawrence, KS. Hours are 10-5 on Saturday and 12-5 on Sunday. I'm helping with the "boutique" this year, where we sell handmade items, gently used sewing notions, and donated books and fabric. Several guild members were down-sizing this year so we have a LOT of stuff to sell. Please come buy something! There are also over a 100 miniquilts being silent auctioned to raise money for six local charities.

Here is a quick photo of the one new quilt I will have in the show. (I also entered a couple of older quilts.)

I call this quilt "Nickles and Dimes". It was made from the scraps leftover from factory pre-cuts of Barbara Brackman's Civil War fabrics. I added in a green hand-dyed fabric.

Featured

This month I am the featured artist at the local community theater for the duration of their production of "Steel Magnolias". As always, I had grand plans for an entire room full of new work. In reality, I got five new pieces finished, but they are each only six inches square. So a filled room would have to be a very small room. I added three old pieces into the exhibit and one larger new piece that was made for a different project...but it didn't get accepted into that show. More about that later. Since the show has magnolias in the title I made three new works with magnolias. (I know magnolias are spring flowers but the backgrounds indicate three different seasons to me):

Spring Magnolia

Summer Magnolia

Fall Magnolia

 

Is nothing sacred?

Now that there are toasters that burn faces on bread, I guess Jesus has to start appearing on other surfaces...

Although the first image I saw was a sphinx, and sometimes I see Jane Eyre. It all reminds me of one of my favorite cartoons:

Bagging It

I have been doing a little sewing lately, but I keep getting distracted with crochet. Like those spike balls for instance...but also bags crocheted out of plastic "plarn" that I make from the plastic bags the newspaper comes in. Originally, I thought I'd just make them until my crochet cotton ran out. (I like to combine the plarn and crochet cotton together to give the bag more color and strength.) But last week saw me sneaking into Michael's with a 40% off coupon to buy more crochet cotton. I did a brief tutorial about making these bags here. Several friends have started saving bags for me because other newspapers use different colored bags. Who knew? (I am beginning to have a hard time keeping up!) Here are some of the results:

You may be able to spot some Dollar Store and Westlakes plarn in these bags but the one below is pure Lawrence Journal World.

Temporarily Unloved Crochet

Last Fall I found a free pattern on-line for crocheted 12 pointed shapes here. I thought the project was beautiful and interesting... and the result wouldn't have to fit or be the right size. A win, win. So I worked up several and sold them all. The last one was bought by a fellow who was very enthusiastic and asked me to make five more for him. It took a while, but I got them done and sent him a picture. Not a great picture, but after all, I thought he already loved them. Well, no response. But that is ok, I will put them aside as inventory for the next craft fair.

p.s. I think the pattern needs a correction on the 11th point, which must be connected on four sides, not three. You'll see what I mean when you get there.

p.p.s. Tonight's basketball game did not have the ending I had hoped for (sigh) but I am pretty sure the sun will come up tomorrow anyway. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!