Inside Out: Hormones is on its way to Houston!

Yippee, Inside Out: Hormones was accepted into the IQF Festival in Houston! And I'll be going with two of my girlfriends too.
It'll be my first time at the Houston show and I'm totally prepared to be overwhelmed. I've attended PIQF in San Jose in the middle of October for many years, and two large quilt shows in one month is just too much for me. This year, I'll skip PIQF and will go to Houston show instead. I signed up for a quilting forum and an HQ quilting class and didn't get into either of them. So, now I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I might sign up for a raw edge applique class with Ann Johnston, but haven't decided. Will any of you be there? If so, let me know and we can set up a time to meet somewhere. It would be a lot of fun to meet some of you in person.
Fibervision will be having a special exhibit at PIQF again this year. I forgot the name of it, but you'll find it in the program. Here is a preview of my quilt that will be in the PIQF exhibit. "Ancient Artifacts" incorporates a photo of an old gas station that I shot in Los Alamos, CA. It was printed on cotton fabric on my Epson printer and is combined with other unique elements from this rural area.

Things that Make Me Smile

This little guy made me laugh out loud as soon as I saw it. It definitely had to come home with me. I love the bouncing head and jazz hands.

Here's an innovative cat toy that comes with its very own jingle bell in the center. I think it will work great for printing some background texture. Amazing what you can find in the grocery store!

A new shipment of thread arrived with lots of yummy colors.

Why is this guy hanging off a billboard? It looked so real, it made me do a double take. Glad I had my camera ready.

My hormone quilt is finally done. Here's the back showing some of the quilting. I'll show the whole thing when the Fibervision exhibit opens at PIQF in October. Such a tease!

We have another exhibit in October at Cabrillo Pavilion Art Center and need lots of NEW work. Yikes! Back to the sewing machine.

Hormones: Divide and Duplicate

My intention was to finish this quilt for the Faulkner Gallery exhibit, but I just wasn't happy with the design. It needed something, and I just couldn't quite put my finger on what the something was. It hung on my design wall for a while until I realized that the hormones should be divided. I was afraid it was a mistake, and didn't want to start from scratch. So, I decided to do the cutting in Photoshop, and see how it looked before I took scissors to fabric. Once I played with the pieces, and saw the many possibilities, the scissors came out.

The hormones were cut apart and rearranged. But it still needed something . . . More Hormones, of course.So, here I am back at the beginning, creating even more hormones. Here's a close up of the plain yellow hormone fabric before the embellishment began. If you want to see the whole process, click here. The green strip in the middle is dyed cheesecloth that will float around the hormones. There are some other surprises in store, but you're going to have to wait a while to see the final results. It will debut in a group exhibit at PIQF in Santa Clara, CA. The exhibit is called "On the Way" and it will feature 20 Journey pieces made by Fibervision members. This will be our first group exhibit at PIQF and we're all very excited about it. Hope you get a chance to see it in person.