New quilt

As was the original intent of this blog, here's good news about fiber art! I am halfway done with a new bed quilt. Quite an undertaking, I must say. I haven't worked on anything this big in YEARS!
I made up a "modern" quilt pattern and used some of my precious Japanese and  Asian print fabrics that I have been hanging onto for too long. Of course, I barely made a dent in the stash.....
  The fabric that makes it "modern" is a small grey and blue dotty print. The hard part is at hand...the quilting! It's only full size, but I'm not looking forward to handling all that fabric under my home machine. I did it before with good results and need to quit stalling and DO IT!!!!

In the same vein of artiness (?) I need to push myself to catch up on my Artist Trading Cards. Especially now that I have a little free time, which won't last forever. Here is a photo I'm altering for this month's theme in one of my swap groups. They need to be in the mail tomorrow morning, so I'd better get to getting on this project.

my mama

The Summer Solstice was Saturday morning, and of course, there was fire involved. Photo of that at a later date. It's on my phone....

Still here

Gosh, I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted here. There has been a lot going on, so I will use that as my excuse.
Yard work has occupied a good bit of my time, but I manage to squeeze in some sewing and artwork. My most recent ATCs for the Fiber Antics swap turned out better than expected, especially since I did them at the last minute. And they were fun to do. I asked a couple of the gal pals to take my picture, printed it out on cardstock, altered the photo, scanned and reprinted to the size of trading cards, then embellished with a rubber stamped caption. Whew!!

You can see the finished card on Fiber Antics blog. The theme was "On the Fence".
  The dress I am working on is nearly finished, and will make its debut at Sewing Guild next Thursday. The dress is kind of a birthday present to myself, since I hardly get to sew for me.
That's all for now. More later and I won't wait so long to post.

Photos (as promised)

It wasn't that hard to get the photo as it was sent as an attachment and I actually know what to do with them, duh. And while I'm at it, here's pictures of the ATC I received and the new postcards that are available at the Cotton Museum. Happy Valentines, anyone??
 Yes, of course, I am still in the dark as to arranging photos in any order other than how blogger wants them. Help!!

ATC update

The nicest thing happened. The artist trading card challenge at Quilting Arts involved getting a card in return for the one you sent in last September and I received a groovy card in the mail. On the back was the email of the artist who created the card, so I sent her a note saying how much I really love it.
  She replied with a nice note and all was good in the world. The other day I got another email from her with a photo of HER holding MY card. YAY!! and as soon as I figure out how to get it from the email, I will post it here along with a picture of the card I got. Cross your fingers.
  While I'm on the subject of posting photos, I'll update you on my new "job" as communications person for MACA. I got an afternoon tutorial from the very nice young woman who was doing the website. She had redone the group's website with wix.com and showed me how to rearrange information after we fiddled around changing colors on the template she had picked out. It looks pretty easy, so I am going to add some photos and artist contact info to the site soon, later today or in the morning. Cross your fingers for me on that too, please. To view that website--before I wreck it--go to www.memphiscrafts.org. Maybe someone will show me how to add a hot link someday.

Requested photo

After viewing the comments from yesterday's post, I am filling the request for a photo of my trading card which appears in Quilting Arts magazine.

Surprise!

The February/March issue of Quilting Arts magazine showed up in the mailbox yesterday which is always a good thing. Fortunately the mail runs late here because when a magazine arrives, I will stop whatever I am doing to sit and read it. At least there is half a chance for productivity before the postal carrier's appearance.
As I am thumbing through the articles, I see the results for a challenge I entered last fall, that I had totally forgotten about. And there on page 80 is my artist trading card, proudly displayed in the upper right hand corner!!! Right below is Veronica's card. YAY!
Thanks to her astute observation, she requested that everyone in the swap group she is facilitating, send a card into the magazine for the challenge when it was announced.
This month will mark the fifth year of the Fiber Antics ATC swap. We have 10 participants now. We trade once a month and the themes are posted on Veronica's website and blog (there's a link on my blog). She also posts photos of the cards every month.
 The themes are fun and sometimes thought provoking, always open to interpretation by the members of the group. Some months, I jump right in knowing exactly what my offering will be, even though my time is occupied by the petty details of life and I just make the deadline getting my cards in the mail. Other times, I just can't get inspired and have turned in cards that I am not so proud of, especially when I receive my package of glorious art works from the other traders. But it is always fun and I have bulging binders to prove it.
  I keep my cards in those clear pages made for sports trading cards in 3 ring binders. Any technique is allowed to create the cards as long as the size is 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. Paint, fabric, photography, markers, crayons, rubber stamps, glue, tape, staples are all used to interpret the theme. It's a wonderful way to try out a new technique and an even better way to make friends.

Postcards

This is what I've been working on the last two days. I really love those trees.

Back to Art for a Bit

Since the sewing has been very slow these days, I have had the opportunity to work on some of my more artistic endeavors, such as art quilts, artist trading cards, and postcards. This is a good thing.
 On Mondays, I meet up with the girlz to sew and chat. This is a wonderful activity and many of the women there are also part of other more structured groups I belong to. This is the primary place where I work on my art quilts. The community center has great lighting and big tables. Sometimes I bring my machine and other times I just bring hand work, depends on the weather.
  I haven't spent much time lately dyeing or screen printing any fabrics and really need to get my head back into that. What I've been doing lately that I enjoy is quilting with block letters and writing all sorts of words and phrases on the quilts, in addition to using other quilting designs. The look of the writing makes for an interesting texture, especially when the letters are jumbled around and you can't actually read what it says.  
  Here are the long promised photos of the quilts I made and have been a little uneasy letting the whole world see them. This is a big step for me. These were not quilted with writing. The fabric used in these was screen printed about a year ago.  I feel that I am still in that emotional place and would like to be in a different place now. I still have two more pieces that are not finished. I'll show those later on this year when they are done. They use the same printed images and have writing as the quilting design.
  Also, I will show you the recent ATC with the stamps I carved for the design on the cards. The carving is done on some stuff that is similar to eraser material. It was purchased at The Art Center, one of my favorite places. The theme this month is "What's in Your Heart?" The smaller heart is separate and is supposed to look as if it is inside the broken heart, trying to come out. The stamp for that is an eraser.

I really like the yellow/green/beige band

This one has beads on it

the red of the big heart was enhanced with colored pencil

Inside with the AC and ATCs

original photo

Saturday was a pretty good day, considering how hot it got by afternoon. The artist trading card group deadline is Friday, so I decided to get my cards done in order to mail them Monday morning. The theme for July is "In the Style of..." and I chose Frida Kahlo to emulate. I particularly admire her self portrait with a monkey. Lacking a monkey for my endeavor, I held Lewis the cat and my husband was gracious enough to take the photo.

altered photo, scanned and cropped

  The pose that was chosen was the one where both Lewis and I had reasonable expressions, in keeping with the theme. Frida never smiled in any of her self portraits and Lewis looked less desperate than he usually does when he has to sit still for picture taking. I printed out two 5x7s--always good to have a backup in case of oopsies while painting. The background of the photo was obliterated with neutral gray gesso, then painted back in with the foliage design. Braided hair, unibrow, moustachio,and yellow shawl were added, as well as green eyes for the cat. Once all was painted, details added with pencils and markers, and allowed to dry, the altered photo was scanned and printed. For each trading card I added a flower in "her" hair as embellishment. The final result will be featured on Fiber Antics blog, this weekend or the first of next week.
  Sometimes I crack myself up. No wonder my kids worry about me.

Unbusy

Today was a most unusual day for me. The ozone levels have been pretty high lately and I've noticed how much it has affected me in the last few years. I worked in the yard a little bit yesterday, before it got too hot. This morning, I decided to stay in bed and get some rest. I have had a long winter and spring working long hours on getting this house repaired, in addition to getting all my sewing deadlines done, and then several weeks of yard work after that.
 I stayed in bed til 10 am, which is something I haven't done since forever. I spent the rest of the day watching tv and catching up on Artist Trading Cards. I don't think I went outside today--omg--that is unbelievable for me.
  Anyway, I have had a pretty good week again and am looking forward to having yet another. No blueberry picking, but life is good.
 Until six months ago I wasn't dreaming at night and my days were filled with drudgery. I have always had an active dream "life" and the lack of them was disturbing for me. I am so glad to have the dreams back, even though some of them are kind of crazy. But I'd rather have them than none. That is another reason for my late rising this morning.
  My ATCs are fun and I love to come up with new ideas to interpret the themes. I belong to two trading groups, one has a firm deadline, the other is looser (whew) and the tiny artworks I receive from the other members is so much fun to look at. I keep my cards in binders and need to get a couple more to house the growing collection.

going to Graceland

JerJer is interested in what's going on

visiting the library

  The inspiration for the latest swap came from a recent purchase from an online shopping spree at European Papers. They have an excellent selection of supplies for book arts and trading cards. They also have unique items. I got one of those items, a small terra cotta gnome. He is adorable and took a little staycation with me around my yard for a half hour. Of course, I am easily amused. All this fun and I didn't have to leave my yard.