Two Winners!

As usual LIFE has taken over and I am behind on postings! Husband has decided to retire at the end of June, so we're having the house painted so we can put it up for sale, so I am cleaning and "downsizing" my stuff. Besides that, I went to MQS-Machine Quilters Showcase for a week of classes, competition and Mohitos! Very glad I went because I won not one, but TWO ribbons!!! WhooHoo!

I won 1st place for Wall quilt for my Golden Dragon and 1st place for Bed quilt for Sharon Wants Crystals in the Just For Me category. For me, this is a great category because you have to be a machine quilter who only quilts for yourself, not professionally. Next year I'll put my Big Girl panties on and try and see how I do in one of the other categories...we'll see!

Golden Dragon is one piece of silk dupioni that was quilted with burgundy polyester thread. The elements of the quilt come from Dover copyright free books. Sharon Wants Crystals was made for my sister-in-law who wanted a cream quilt with "lots" of crystal. The center was done by placing Laura Murray Starbuilder rubber stamps under the cloth and rubbing with Shiva Oil sticks. I then designed the rest of the feather designs to fit, did faux trapunto work and quilted the thing to death.

Now, if I can just get my challenge quilts done!!!!

Peacock

One of my friends asked where my quilt Peacock's photo is. On my computer of course! Guess I really need to work on this blog more, but life has a way of getting in the way. So, here is a photo of my first big ribbon winner...Best of Show in the Just For Me category at MQS...whoohoo!

The pattern is Sherry Harrison's Inklique pattern. You spray your fabric with spray starch, then trace the pattern, stitch it out with a batting and backing and then you take it off the machine and color! My daughter said "you won for coloring???". Yes, I'm a very good colorer! I used Copic markers for the colored parts and the black is Sharpie markers. The bronze in the middle didn't turn out the way I wanted, so I used Rub N Buff to cover and it worked!

Very fun technique, but takes FOREVER!!! 52 hours to color. Yes, I'm doing it again, but different. Still haven't worked out all the details...stay tuned.

First Challenge...DONE!

Finally finished the "PUZZLE" challenge and found it hard!! Couldn't come up with anything that wasn't literal so I left it alone for a month..or two. Decided to go and do other stuff like clean up my photos on my new computer...old one crashed and burned and now has no memory of the accident or anything else for that matter...so while browsing I found old photos of my family. This one is of my grandfather and his brothers taken just before they moved from Quebec to Saskatchewan to homestead in the south of the province. The puzzle idea came when I wasn't sure which one is my grandfather and who are the other two???? I could do a whole series on this as I have tons of photos of people who I don't know from the past.
I have decided to make some "starter" quilts consisting of backing, batting and plain top that I quilt in various patterns that I can just use for my "art" quilts. They are small enough to work on and practise different techniques and also, they are quick to do. I printed the photo on Jaquard ExtravOrganza and temporarily attached it to a piece of "art" fabric. I turned under the edges of the piece and using a zipper foot, added "binding" which is a zipper and attached the whole thing to the starter quilt. I then quilted the trees and decided that it needed more, so I went to my bead stash and added the squares and beads.
I'm thinking the problem I'm going to have with this challenge thing is that I'll be wanting to make a series out of each one I do....and I so do not have the time for that!!!
Meanwhile, I'm lovin this one!

Puzzle

That is the first challenge from the Three Creative Studios group and I had every intention of getting to it the first week in January, but my computer crashed!!! How that happened was a "puzzle"!! So, here it is week 2 and I have NOTHING!!! Think I'll go down to the studio to pull some colors and go from there.

Now for my "Gabby Challenge"...drum roll as I pull a theme from the ziplock bag...and the theme is "White Rabbit"! Ok, that one I can deal with right away!!! She did say the theme of the whole challenge would be about Alice In Wonderland. Wonder where I can find some rabbit fur....just kidding...but I do have some white angora wool...hmmmmm.

OK, there is no going back now!! I joined the Three Creative Studio's Quilt Challenge Group. I also have a baggie of Inspiration from my Granddaughter, Gabby, that I will pull from each month. I really love deadlines...forces me to get with it and get things done. I also need to work on what I want to do as far as Art Quilts go and not just what I'm told to do, but for now these challenges are just the ticket.
Today I'm marking 2 wholecloth quilts that will go on my Gammill next week. Deadlines coming up for shows I like to enter so I'd better get off this machine.

One of my Art Quilts

Ok, so now I'm testing adding a photo. This quilt is called "Hello, My Name Is Kathy" I made it for a challenge that wanted you to show who you were in the world, who you were in a culture. I find that I'm not that deep and tend to be very literal, so I thought about who I am in different cultures.....I'm Kathy. I researched different languages and found that most are phoenetic so I just had to look up the sounds that make up Kathy. I learned to spell my name in Jordan, when I lived there. The dry cleaner got tired of coming down to tell his clerks what my name was and he wrote out my name on a piece of paper saying, here, this is who you are in Jordan! I used one of those sticky name tags on the back of the quilt for my label.

Testing, Testing.

Dear Diary...I'm not sure this is going to work, so I'm just posting a short note. If I can get past this part alone, I may be able to continue on my own.