Something in Hot Pink Maybe.....

Uggh.  I really need some new stuff.  I want to buy some white shorts and a hot pink top.  Or a cute little denim skirt and a flirty Bohemian blouse.  Something.  Anything.  As long as it has COLOR --lots and lots of color. I'm sick of wearing jeans and dark sweaters, heavy black leather motorcycle jackets, black leather boots.  So today to celebrate Spring - I liberated myself and tucked all my winter stuff away.  As for the bikini - a girl can dream can't she!? 

Slice Quilt/Fractuired Quilt - Spring has also made an appearance in the downstairs studio by virtue of some "Spring-esque" projects.  I dug out the Van Gogh Iris slice quilt.  The panels have been sewn together and now I'm trying to decide what to do next.   I don't think I want to "box it in," with a traditional border.  I've been entertaining the idea of   making iris petals and leaves to carry over and "out" of the quilt along the edges.  Deconstructed.  I've also been free motion quilting some the panels by the other artists - by way of adding the "black" outline to more of the iris flowers and details to leaves.  I can see this is going to be a long work in progress - but I must finish it by June 1st as I want to bring it to the June Cyberbee meeting.  I'm the last one to finish.  Everyone esle finished their quilts and they came out just beautiful.

Here's a tiny peek at a little blackbird I threadpainted for a special friend. I don't want to spoil the surprise as she hasn't received it yet - so I'll show the entire thing at a later date.

How did YOU celebrate Spring this weekend?  Did you stay inside and Spring Clean??  Or did you run outside and embrace Mother Nature?   Me - after I cleaned out my closet - I got down and dirty.  Got all the vegetables in the ground, the sunflowers planted and the corgis bathed. 

After a full day spent in the dirt - EVERYBODY needed a bath!

THIS is the face I got when I said the word, "bath!"

Fractured Art Quilts.....

I have been neglecting my blog as I have been furiously working on my "section" of a fractured art quilt project that is due at the next meeting of Cyberbee (a spin off group of our local Capitol Quilter's Guild.) A group of five of us are participating in a year long "fractured art quilt" project. "What is a fractured art quilt you ask?" Let me explain. Each member of our group (5 in this case) has selected a picture, print or photograph that we would like to have made into a fractured art quilt. Here is JoAnn's picture -- we drew names to see whose quilt we would work on first and JoAnn won the draw.
Before our first meeting we took our picture to Kinko's had had it blown up to the size we would like our finished piece to be. After having it enlarged, we were to cut it up into pieces (in our case the picture has been cut into 5 pieces as there are 5 participants). Each participant selected one piece of the picture to replicate putting her own artistic spin on her interpretation of the piece in "fabric." Here is the piece I picked...

As this was the first project of this nature that I have ever worked on -- I had no idea what I was in for! It is absolutely critical that the pieces are placed on your rendition "exactly" where they are on the photocopy. Why?? Because if you do not make an identical replication (as far as placement goes) then, when the owner of the pieces goes to assemble the quilt -- things won't line up. Having said that -- I put together and took apart my little "slice" of the fractured quilt at least three times -- trying to get things to line up properly. After many attempts and revisions, here is my "slice" of JoAnn's quilt....

This was truly a learning experience. Here is a picture of my interpretation and actual photocopy - side by side...

JoAnn will receive my piece, as well as all the others at our next meeting this Thursday. Eventually she will assemble the pieces, quilt, bind and complete it to her liking. Here is a picture of all five participants' pieces (the quilt's ownder did two slices). I can't wait to see it all put together. This was a really great adventure.