13th Steet Studio

Missed it by That Much

Sad!

Welcome New Family Member

Inspired by a great pattern from Colorwerx called Mod Dog, I made a similar quilt using giraffes for a recently arrived great nephew. His room is decorated with a cute set of animal pictures, and I was told his mother likes the giraffe the best. I still hope to make a Mod Dog quilt someday. Here is my quilt held, as always, by the long-suffering husband.

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Goodness

Time flies!

 

 

Zipper Bag

The "Sew Together" bag by Sew Demented turned out to be a fun pattern to use for a guild challenge that we did this summer. Each participant put two fat quarters of fabric in a paper bag, and then we swapped the bags around and made something out of that fabric, adding in more fabric if needed. Here is what I made for my swap partner:

SAQA at the KCRQF

The second Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival was last week, and once again I am amazed at the professional level event produced by a bunch of volunteers. It was great. I was "in charge" of the Studio Art Quilt Associates booth where we talked up art quilts and membership. We displayed examples of small quilts that will be donated to the SAQA fundraiser auction September 15. Here is the one I donated...a rather lazy stitch-up of some fabric I screen printed a long time ago. Back then I did a series of Danger Fish quilts; Danger Fish Do Lunch, Danger Fish in Danger, etc. This is just Danger Fish:

And here I am in the booth, waiting for the first wave of quilters:

 

Seasons Challenge

Quilters like challenges, and I know I need some kind of deadline to get much of anything done. This last year I was part of a "Seasons" challenge where we were to make a 12 inch square mini-quilt for each season. I decided to use a theme of "Current Events" for my quilts. For Summer, I did "Olympic Fever", for Fall, I used fabric designed by Barbara Brackman featuring Hillary Clinton and Susan B. Anthony to make "Blue about the Election", Winter is represented by "Death of Compromise", and finally Spring in my house is always about basketball. KU men's team won a 13th straight Big 12 Championship! These small quilts are part of an exhibit at this year's Quilt Surface Design Symposium.

SAQA Exhibit at the Leedy-Voulkos

Check out the Studio Art Quilt Associates regional exhibit at the Leedy.

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35 Years

Yesterday my husband received his 35 year service pin from the University of Kansas. Here he is shaking hands with the chancellor:

Generally I introduce him as "the long-suffering husband". To quote an old episode of the TV show WKRP, he is a hard worker, loyal husband and all-round nice guy. We been together for about 40 years. He should probably get an award for that, too.

Sad Day Subject

Maybe this is a good project to show on a day when the skies are grey and all the Jayhawk faces here in Lawrence are sad. This is a quilt I made out of my brother-in-law's ties:

He died rather suddenly a little over a year ago. It was not easy to work on something that had so many memories included. I also made a little tablerunner out of the scraps:

Final Friday at the Makerspace

Final Friday, February 24, the Lawrence Creates Makerspace will host the Art+Technology+Action show, with music by the fabulous BRC Band. I will have two pieces on display, "Tumbled Stones" and "The Death of Compromise". The Makerspace is located on the northwest corner of 9th and New Jersey. Stop by and check it out tonight starting at 6:30.

Kaffe Fassett Quilt

Last year I was able to attend a lecture and workshop with celebrity designer Kaffe Fassett. He has a world-class color sense...and it is probably a little silly to think that one could learn much from a brief time together. But that didn't stop about 30 of us from trying. The quilt featured in this class was his "Zig Zag" quilt from his Kaffe in Italy book. Here is what I ended up with:

I call it "Hidden Zig Zags" since the 3D aspect of the quilt fades in and out. Here it is in a show with three other students' quilts:

Happy Holidays

Best Wishes from our nest to yours!

Great New Art Quilt Book

Martha Sielman has a new book out called Art Quilts International: Abstract and Geometric.

It contains pictures of 300 art quilts and interviews with 29 artists. I am not one of the featured artists, but one of my quilts is included in the gallery. Click here to see the book. Abstract and Geometric is the long awaited companion to Sielman's earlier book Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World, which can be seen here. I have a quilt in that book too.

The Other Tree

For the second Festival of Trees tree project I made this tree skirt out of wool:

This tree has a lot of tiny wood antique ornaments. Here it is in action behind Santa:

Very cute! Only two more days to go to Liberty Hall and see the trees. Do it!

Festival of Trees

I was happy to help with a couple of the trees at the Festival this year. The first one includes these ornaments that I made:

using the leftover fabric from this tree skirt:

Support this annual fundraiser for The Shelter! Go see the trees and buy something!

Always Classy

We have hosted the family Thanksgiving meal for 30 years. When we started it seemed fine to use a table with home-made particle board extensions and cardboard tubes to help hold it up. A tablecloth made from a length of wide knit fabric worked fine. At some point we probably should have upgraded the table and the table settings, but didn't. As the group grew we just added on card tables and got a longer piece of fabric. This year the 30 year old oven had to be operated with pliers...well, we found channel-locks first. The group has a good time, but Martha Stewart we are not.

More Bunnies

I did a second "Bunny Bunch" quilt for a client recently, and now I am thinking about doing one with even more, but smaller, bunnies. Gotta do some other stuff first, though.

Show Opening Tonight

The "Finding Our Voices" art exhibit at the Lenexa City Hall opens tonight 6-7:30! 12350 West 87th, Lenexa, KS. Stop by and help us toast the event.

Something Different

With the help of a local artist friend and the book Mini Mosaics by Aimee Harman, I made this small piece that I am calling "Garden Spot":

It was fun to piece together something with glue instead of thread!

Summer Challenge Quilt

Last June when I was at QSDS, I signed up for a quilt challenge. Four times a year we are supposed to make a 12 inch square quilt on a topic chosen by the group...or the leader...or someone. Anyway this year the topic is "The Seasons". Folks seem to be doing their quilts with a secondary theme, such as "trees", so I chose "Current Events". This is my Summer quilt: