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

Welcome Sara!

Mavens, we now have our 13th member, Sara, from Houston.  Several of us in our MM group have been fellow students with Sara at Quilting Adventures in New Braunfels, TX, for the past several springs.  Carolyn was in the same class with Sara (and with Patti!) last March, and recently Carolyn suggested her name to me as a potential member.  I emailed her, and today I've received a reply from her, saying that she would love to join us.

She is now in the process of going through the red tape of becoming an author on this blog, but I wanted to pass on the good news to you now.  Soon, hopefully, she will be composing her first post, to tell all of us a bit about her.

Meanwhile, I toyed with the idea of re-naming our group, and in a way I have--see the box at the right!  But I hesitated to change our "official" name, since I feared that doing so might mean that several of us might have trouble finding us again!

But I have added Sara to the official list of group members at the right, and I changed the description of our blog to the top box, where you see our sub-title displayed.

And now here is out revised schedule, with Sara added:




(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 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 for on Sept. 15, 2012,  Nov. 2012's quilt.

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

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

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

(12) Kathy chooses theme #12 on May 15, 2013, for July, 2013's quilt

(13)  Sara chooses theme #13 on July 15, for September, 2013's quilt

SAQA: a good membership

Hi MMs,
    I just joined SAQA Studio Art Quilt Associates. Recently a member, Susan McCraw loaned me several issues of SAQA to peruse and I was sold on the group. SAQA's website and offerings are terrific.

Excitement from Carolyn

Guess what? I am going to Boston in late August for a nursing class reunion in nearby Rockport, and Andrea, Linda and I have planned a meeting. It will be so exciting to meet two East coast members of the Material Mavens! We will be sure to make a photo of the three of us and post it on our blog. I'm sure we will discuss how we are coming along on our HARMONY quilts - without giving away our designs, of course. This will be so much fun! I hope more of us will have the opportunity to meet as time goes by!

Alice's News and Doings

Lake Michigan Beach Boys (this is my quilt; I made
a duplicate for my daughter).  You may click to enlarge.

I was so delighted to check my administrator's page to discover that Petra is now an "author"!  That means that all of us except for our newest member, Kathy, are officially authors of our group blog.  I really goofed with Petra!  I kept inviting her to be an author, and I kept wondering where she was and why she had not accepted the invitation.  Well, guess what, I had typed her email address in wrong.  So she never got all my invitations!  But all is well now, after I discovered my goof.  So good to see Petra's name listed as an author!

I'm still busy with my various birthday projects and am anticipating a visit from all the children and grandchildren, a mini reunion and surprise birthday party for my oldest sister, a small dinner party here at our home, and of course much commotion and fun with the four grandchildren.  (And much cooking and cleaning up, etc. etc.)  After two weeks of that, I will then be driving with my youngest daughter and her two boys to Michigan, flying from there to California.  My reason for that trip is to help my other daughter's mother in law take care of our shared grandchildren,  while daughter and her husband go on an extended trip.

So!  I really need to get my Harmony quilt done before Aug. 11, when all the hordes descend.  I finished the portrait quilt for our youngest daughter's birthday, and am coming along well on the traditional quilt for my sister's.  I am so eager to finish that one so that I can get to work on Harmony! I'll "decorate" this post with the quilt top of my own quilt, a duplicate of our daughter's quilt; hers is now being quilted by our fellow Maven, Judy!  The portrait portrays youngest daughter's two boys on the left oldest daughter's son on the right.  It was based on a photo taken five years ago this summer, at Lake Michigan.  And, yes, soon Ill need to do a portrait quilt for the other daughter, of her son and daughter!

Hope that all of you are well and are as excited about our group as I am!  I am so curious:  has anyone finished Harmony yet?

From Alice: Our Updated Schedule

Material Mavens: I should have added this to my post that I just published.  Now that Kathy has joined us, here is our updated schedule for themes:

(1) Carolyn chooses theme #1 on July 15, for the quilt due on Sept. 15, 2011.

(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 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 for on Sept. 15, 2012,  Nov. 2012's quilt.

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

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

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

(12) Kathy chooses theme #12 on May 15, 2013, for July, 2013's quilt

Can you believe that now we have ourselves a schedule through two years from this coming July! I find that both amazing and exciting.  Are any or all of you now working on your Harmony quilts?  I've got some ideas that I think are good, but so far, they just reside in my brain, though I did find some fabric yesterday that would be perfect for one of these.  I am suspecting about myself that I might actually make 2 or 3 Harmony quilts and then choose my favorite one for September 15's BIG REVEAL.


Grace and peace to all!