Ranell, one of my Fibervision friends, won Best of Show for her series of Wild Women. This is the first time that our traditional guild awarded Best of Show to an art quilt. It's a definite milestone. Way to go Ranell. My good friend Kathy also won second place for her beautiful quilt. I'll ask her if I can show a photo.
Ellen Anne Eddy was the featured artist. If you've never seen her work before, you should definitely check her website. I spent a fair amount of time with her over the weekend and found her to be a very kind and sharing person. Whenever a child came into her booth to look at all the colorful thread and angelina, she would ask them if they quilted. They would chat about their projects, then Ellen would tell them to choose a half yard of hand-dyed fabric as a gift. She gave them a business card and asked them to send her a photo of whatever they made. How cool is that?
And no quilt show is complete without lots of vendors! It seems like I always manage to spend some money. My poor studio is going to burst soon!
oooooh . . . . look at this neon fabric. Do you think I was in a happy mood that day?
The Fabric Art Workshop book is full of techniques, my kind of fun! Ellen highly recommended the Quilt Halo for doing embroidery work and quilting. She said it saves a tremendous amount of time because she doesn't have to keep re-hooping the fabric. So I just had to have it. And Ellen's book shows how she finishes the edges of her quilts with satin stitching.
That's it for today . . . off to my Dreamweaver class.
The background is a hand-painted piece of fabric. The mountains, clouds and sun were formed using layers of tulle and the raw edged flames are made from organza and commercial cottons.
Spin Cycle is, by definition, a whole cloth quilt. The top is one piece of fabric that has been painted, then stitched, and embellished with hardware. Yes, you read that correctly. There are brass washers and silver lock nuts in two different sizes and of course, beads and embroidery. And, once again, the batting is exposed. Don't you just love the colors and textures in the close-up photo?
Do you name your pieces? If so, how do you chose a name? Does it pop into your head when you're in the shower? Do you dream about it? Do you find the process difficult or easy? I would love to hear from you.
For this piece, Andi pressed a 2" x 10" plastic packaging piece onto the red gelatin plate several times.
I think I used a combination of baby blue and grey on this piece. I pressed a face stamp all over the paint.
We used berry baskets and plastic netting from fruit boxes for the first print. Once dry, we inked the plate with yellow and pressed a potato masher into it.
First I ran a notched squeegee through the paint, then I stamped into it with a large grid. When it was dry, I used purple paint to stamp the large grid on top.
I had fun arranging the cross-sections into various compositions. Andi thought they looked like ladybugs. What do you see?
Crayons, Shiva oil sticks, pastels, dye sticks and charcoal are among some of the materials used to produce the rubbings on either paper or fabric. Some of the rubbings looked great with pastel but didn't show at all in crayon. Some looked great on fabric, but awful on paper.
These flowers were printed with a 
I had a bunch of "ugly" pieces of fabric that needed a little something, so I used Shiva oil sticks and dye sticks to add a little texture. I used a commercial rubbing plate for the 
Look at this beautiful piece, I think it's my favorite. It's royal blue and turquoise with a touch of 
We went to Susan's house in 
No . . . I think this one may be my favorite. Doesn't it look like a beautiful piece of agate?
We had a great time dyeing, eating and drinking and I came away with some gorgeous fabric.
I've been trying very hard to resist the temptation of buying yet another set of supplies (I really mean dye). 
But look at the results. How will I ever resist the temptation?
Each photo represents a very small section of the fabric. I didn't look for my favorite section, I randomly opened it and took a photo.
They are all to beautiful. I feel myself becoming very, very weak. HELP!
I'm a very good organizer, but I'm afraid there isn't any room for anything else. My studio is overflowing with wonderful stuff. I Love it all and couldn't possibly part with anything, so cleaning the studio again is not an option.
Here's my kids with their 3D glasses before the 
I set the stamp down to answer some emails. When I was finished, I realized that the stamp was hanging off the edge of the table and I broke the corner of it. Can you see the crack in top right corner? Wow, this stuff is kind of brittle, the erasers are a lot more pliable.
What a Bummer! I tried to glue it, but it didn't look good. There was only one thing I could do; cut it into three smaller stamps.
