Alice On the Road

Hey, Mavens!  I'm now in Michigan, having traveled here by car from Texas with my youngest daughter and her two sons.  Tomorrow I fly from here to CA, where I'll be until 9/9.  I will try from there to access all of your email addresses so that I can send out a reminder about our "letters" project. 

I talked via cell phone today with Linda, Carolyn, and Andrea.  I am hoping that C or A will post sometime in the next few days about their meeting one another in Massachusetts.  So glad that Boston escaped the worst of Irene!

No, not in Greece, in Nashville!  We ate lunch across from
the park where this replica of the Parthenon stands.

Meanwhile, hope the letters project is coming along.  You can get my email address from this blog, if any of you need further instructions about this pre-BIG REVEAL project!  Hope you are managing to stay Harmonious in your busy lives!

Three Mavens Have Quilts in Katie PM's Latest Book!

Three of us were in a class taught by Katie Pasquini-Masopust in 2009--Sara, Judy, and I.  Over a year ago she emailed all of her students and asked us to send photos of our completed quilts that we had begun under her tutelage.  There was a possibility that these pictures might be used in various chapters of her latest book, to be published in 2011.

Today in the mail I got a signed copy of the book, sent by Katie, and lo and behold, Sara's, Judy's, and my quilt are all pictured.  Katie's book is called INSPIRATIONS IN DESIGN FOR THE CREATIVE QUILTER, and it is "hot off the press."  You can see our quilts on pp. 24 for mine, 29 for Sara's, and 58 for Judy's.  I know that Sara and Judy are as excited as I am!  This is the second time for one of Judy's quilts to be in a Katie PM's book!

Here's my quilt that made the book; perhaps Judy and Sara will share photos of their quilts which appear in it as well!

Aqua in Abstract (now hangs on our bedroom wall)

Printing on Sheer Fabrics

Hi Mavens,

We finally found the liquid that my husband used to print on sheer fabric. It is made by Golden and is called Digital Ground Clear (Gloss). It prepares surfaces for Ink-jet printing. It worked really well. Arnie bought it at an artist supply store in San Diego.

Barbara's husbands' quilt

Here's the photo that I took...LOVE the sheer shell overlay!

World Quilt

Here is a photo of my husband's first quilt which is now hanging at World Quilt Show in New Hampshire. These are photos that were taken on Maui at Thanksgiving 2010.

Following Fiber Art

Dear Material Mavens,

click to enlarge

    Our smart Andrea alerted me to the Mancuso Quilt Show in Manchester NH. She rounded up friends to attend the show and meet for lunch. What a thrill to enjoy art quilts from all over the world, to purchase important tools for making art quilts, and meet ultra- talented friends who know about our blog, people awaiting our "reveal." I was told I could take photos everywhere, but had to ask permission in the vendors' booths. Here are a few snapshops from the show. I regret I didn't get the artists' names.

From Alice: NOT an Art Quilt!

I worked all during July on this Civil War reproduction fabric quilt, a gift for my elder sister.  We had a surprise birthday party for her last Saturday, and here I am showing her and the group the quilt top.  It's not yet quilted, but will be by the time she returns from India this fall.  (She was awarded a Fulbright fellowship!  She teaches at SMU in Dallas.)  Katy, a great niece, (on of my sister's granddaughters) is assisting in the showing.  Sister Kathy loved the quilt!  The block is one of the many Texas star blocks.  The tan background fabric gives the quilt an antique look, I think.

Here are a few more views of this quilt, which I named Cocheco Texas Stars.  Cocheco for the mill which manufactured the lovely reproduction fabrics.

Harmony diversion

Hi...

I thought I would practice posting with a photo in preparation for the Harmony reveal on September 15th.
If I can't make this work, I might need more remedial help from Linda!
Norma, a friend of my mothers', will be 92 on August 22. Although my mother died in 2003, my sister & I have kept in touch
with her. I looked in a number of stores for an appropriate birthday card but had no luck, either too cute, or too serious.
Nothing was "just right", sooooo, last minute, decided to make a fabric card to enclose with my letter and MM blog print out.
I gave myself until 4:00 yesterday to complete ( about 1 hour ) so that I could bring the quite "hefty" package to the post office to be weighed & mailed. Had I given myself more time, would have probably made something more complicated. Here goes...lets see if the photo of the card shows up on the blog! ( I'm keeping my fingers crossed! )

Judy Back from Missouri

I have traveled to and from Missouri where I visited my Mom, sisters, brother and father-in-law. I packed in as much family, art, and food as possible in the short week. My sister, Susan and brother, Stephen live close to Mom so we were able to visit quite a bit. Susan, Mom and I went to my sister, Peggy's house in St. Peters and met up with our sister, Heidi. During my stay I was able to go to the St. Louis art museum, see beautiful artwork at the Martinsburg church where I had my wedding, see quilts and wedding dresses at their library, go to our favorite childhood bakery for cream horns (called cream puffs when we were young), take a tour of Susan's flowers and have a bar-b-que picnic at her house, visit my brothers place, enjoy the fantastic cool temperatures and all the nature around (hummingbirds and gold finches were plentiful!), and tuck in time to make a bag to see if it will be a good class to teach when I got back to Texas. Yesterday, was my day to readjust back to my life at home. I'm almost unpacked now. That's what I have been up to.

Carolyn's Classmates Quilts

Everyone's asking, so here are the little quilts

I made for each of the 6 classmates who have

been together for 50 years. I named it "Under

the Moon, Side by Side" since Side by Side was

our theme song. The photo was made at our

last reunion in Houston in 2009 at the water-

front, just as the moon was rising. Not perfect

pieces of art, but one I hope they treasure.

Okay Material Mavens,

Just one month to go! I have a name for my HARMONY quilt, and I hope that you will be naming yours as well. Just include the word, harmony, in your title. It will be so much fun to see how different all of the quilts are.

I am just getting started on mine, although the "design" was completed a while back. I have been busy making small wall quilts for classmates who will be attending my nursing class 51st reunion (am I that old?) in Boston in just a few days.

I'll post again on September 15th! See all of you then.

Alice Again--Rita's Work Spaces

I've not known Rita for long.  I first met her in a Dear Jane class that she taught.  (I must confess I became a "Dear Jane" dropout, but I blamed the fact that we were building a house at the time!)  She has since become involved in our local guild, and she started a new Bee and invited me to join it.  Despite our relatively short acquaintance, however, I have come to admire her both as a person and as a quilter.  Her works, whether traditional quilts or art quilts, are outstanding.

So are her work habits!  I've seen her quilting spaces several times, and always, they are pristine and neat.  So different from mine!  I do clean up between projects, but when I am in the midst of one--well, chaos appears to reign, though there really is order in the chaos.

Yesterday Rita hosted our Bee.  Not only did she serve us a lovely lunch, but once again we did a house tour, so that she could show new Bee members her quilts and all of us her brand new Gammil long arm machine.  I thought the rest of you Mavens might enjoy seeing Rita's work spaces and Rita with her new "toy"!

These top two photos show one of Rita's work spaces.  As you can see
this room has wonderful natural light, with windows on two walls

And these two show Rita and her new Gammill.  To get this machine up to the second floor, a fork lift and a window were involved--fortunately, a wide window!  It is to Rita's right.  Click on the bottom picture to
see what's embroidered on Rita's apron!

From Alice: My Three Boys Quilt #2 Finally Finished!

I think I posted about the first quilt I made based on a photo taken five years ago of our three grandsons.  With my youngest daughter having a major birthday this summer, I thought that a second quilt based on that photo would be a super present for her.  So all during July I have been working on this quilt.  It's official name is LAKE MICHIGAN BEACH BOYS.  Our entire family was celebrating our son's birthday five years ago at a wonderful old house on Lake Michigan.

I quilted the first version myself, but Judy of our MM group quilted this one for me. (She quilts for compensation in her "spare" time!!!)   I was running short of time myself, since I am also making a traditional quilt for my oldest sister, to be presented to her this Saturday at a family reunion!  Judy did her typical super good job!

So here's the photo on which the two quilts were based:

The birthday daughter's boys are at the left; they were 2 1/2 and nearly 5;
our oldest daughter's son is the little boy on the right, who turned
three while we were at Lake Michigan.

And here's the quilt.  It measures 38" x 36.5".

I painted the fabric for the sky, the water, and the beach
section closest to the lake.  The other two parts
of the beach were constructed of commercial fabrics.
The one at the bottom is named, appropriately,
'"sand."

Hi Everyone from Sara

I am delighted to be part of this group! I think it will be really good for me to grow by forcing myself to create rather than keeping busy while the creations stay in my head! I really enjoy those of you I met on this list and look forward to getting to know the rest of you.

Documentation is also going to be a good growth experience - it is something I've never done much of. I am tickled that I am actually writing a blog entry. I am computer literate but never anticipated blogging. I'm actually getting excited about it.

I must admit to a bit of fear creeping in - especially with this first challenge since discord and chaos are themes I seem to relate too! The ideas are percolating. My spouse just told me that Babe Ruth made strike out as well as home run records because he hit a lot. I am going to keep this in mind.

I will get my point and shoot upstairs to my studio space and try to get some posted. I have 2 rooms - one is a fabric library and the other is a work room - the workroom is tight but wonderful. I have a great design wall - there is a bank of tables under a window and then I walk around a long arm to get to a cutting table and pressing station. It is a bit chaotic lately because I have been blowing a going too much.

I joined a Lake Jackson, TX based fiber art group that has an exhibit in September - I just joined but decided I needed to get some of the challenges done. I am in a wearable art group and I am learning some techniques to get things to fit and I have been focusing on the garment construction rather than the fun parts (I started out wanting to do wearables but the fit part got me deeply into quilting). I've also been doing a lot of bead needle weaving to make jewelry.I have a "Lifekeepers" quilt on the machine right now and I hope to get it quilted today as it reminds me of sadness. It is a project of the American Society of Suicide Prevention to put a "face" on the issue of suicide and help raise awareness for prevention and help for those left behind. I think Harmony will be a happy change of pace once that is out of the house.

Now I am headed upstairs to quilt!

Judy's Studio

I met Judy last night at an art gallery, where an opening reception was being held for a new exhibit.  We met up there so that she could pass on my Three Boys quilt that she's just quilted for me.  Judy has rented some space above the gallery in a loft area for a studio.  She works at home still, a lot, but this is a space where she can spread out.  She keeps one sewing machine at the studio, and the one she uses to free motion quilts for herself and for compensation, she keeps at home.  I thought our Mavens might like to see Judy's space, so here are some photos:

Here's Judy in her space.  The quilt she's working on behind her, I think she said, she's off and on been working on it for a lot of years! Quilting friends from the Guild gave her hundreds of the little squares of fabric.

The "long view".  The empty table beside Judy's space represents some space yet
to be rented.  But when needed, for now, Judy can "spill over" onto this table.

I was fascinated by the exposed wall up here!  You know how we art quilters see pattern, texture, color
everywhere we look?  This wall is so beautiful!

A closer look at the wall.  It has this interesting mix of normal looking brick
and then those squares of, what perhaps concrete blocks?
 Judy speculated that perhaps this
building had been damaged in the famous tornado of 1953
 (before SHE was born!) and that the
mix of building materials was to repair damaged walls.

  This shows off the
quilt-in-process well!

News from Kathy

Thanks to Alice for a great quilting afternoon and for tutoring me in "Blog Basics!" This is my first Blog, and my quilting friends in Alaska who've been gently hounding me to start blogging will be thrilled :-)

I'm excited about the Material Mavens' first project - Harmony - and look forward to meeting all of you on-line. I think it'll be great working together on our quilting adventures.

Peace & blessings to all.... Kathy

Greetings from Alice and Kathy

Kathy and I are having a fun afternoon.  I'm tutoring her on the finer points of blogging, and Kathy has shared many of her fantastic art quilts with me.  We met at a nearby deli for lunch.  Here's a picture of Kathy and me after our lunch.

Kathy and Alice, after lunch

New Yahoo group & camera

HI,

I'm so pleased that Alice has set up a private Yahoo group for us to communicate. The past few mornings I have been reading the Twelve x 12 book and doing alot of highlighting! A number of their members have mentioned how valuable it has been both creatively and personally to be able to have a private forum ( their Yahoo group ) in conjunction with their blog. This is my first experience with actually being part of a blog, and even though I am thrilled to be a member, I am not as of yet completely comfortable with posting thoughts & ideas to share with "the world".
Another idea that I'm trying to adopt from the book is the importance of documenting the various "ideas" that I put up on my design wall. I have a small digital camera that I carry around with me in my pocketbook for those "just in case" Kodak moments,
but am now trying to make it a habit to bring the camera with me to my studio. Many times I have been "playing" and put things on the wall, think that that combination is "kind of interesting", and I will remember it. Well, I now have to admit, that I don't.
I do remember that I liked SOMETHING, but never seem to be able to replicate again ( and spend WAY TOO much time trying! ).
This might actually lead to having another "dedicated" studio camera!

Revised Schedule

(1) Carolyn chooses theme #1 in July, 2011, for September, 2011's quilt.
(2) Linda chooses theme #2 on Sept. 15, 2011, for November, 2011's quilt.

(3) Jane chooses theme #3 on Nov. 15, 2011, for January, 2012's quilt.

(4) Judy S. chooses theme #4 on Jan. 15, 2012,  for March, 2012's quilt.

(5) Rita chooses theme #5 on Mar. 15, 2012, for May, 2012's quilt.

(6) Patti chooses theme #6 on May 15, 2012, for July 2012's quilt.

(7) Andrea chooses theme #7 on July 15, 2012, for Sept. 2012's quilt.

(8) Alice chooses theme #8  on Sept. 15, 2012,  for Nov. 2012's quilt.

(9) Barbara chooses theme #9 on Nov. 15, 2012,  for Jan 2013's quilt.

(10)  Kathy chooses theme #10 on Jan. 15, 2013 for March 2013's quilt

(11) Sara  chooses theme #11 on Mar. 15, 2013, for May, 2013's quilt

(12) Nedra chooses theme #12 on May 15, 2013, for July, 2013's quilt
(13) Judy W. chooses theme #13 on July 15, 2013, for Sept. 2013's quilt

We've Lost Our First Member!

So sorry that Kym had to drop out.  I'm sure you've heard from her by now.  Her reasons are understandable, and I am so sorry she is facing such a traumatic situation.  I will revise our blog so that we are, once again, a dozen and not a Baker's Dozen.

Yahoo Group Membership from Alice

Mavens, you all should have received an invitation to join our private Yahoo group.  Please accept that invitation.  As I explained in my recent email, this is just another way for us to communicate, especially if any of us ever want to say something just to the other 12 and not something for the vast world of the Internet to read!  Let me know if you have any questions