Hello,

I will admit that the weather and the sight of spring flowers does effect me.    I have been on real “start new” push of late.  I have also been a little upset with one of my pieces- but more on that later.  This week was the Diva meeting and I was very excited as I have not been to one sense Oct.  The winter has been a bad one and it really kept me home.     But before the meeting  Cheri, Noel and I went to see Alice’s show of her  accordion fabric books in down town Ithaca.  They looked wonderful on the walls.  There were several I had never seen and so I am glad we made the effort to go and check the show out.          There was  lots and lots of new work at the Diva meeting too .Alice is getting ready for the Spring Art Trail and so she had this pillow among other things to share.    This one along with several others that will be for sale on the trail.

One of the things that Lorrie does, is deep layered hand work and this is the one she is currently working on.    She builds so many stitches on top of organza and other fabrics to create great depth.  A different sort of collage fabric effect.

Cheri is doing wonderful canvas work  were she starts with freezer paper masks and builds paint layers on top and then stitches by hand and machine on top.   The layering is amazing to me.   Like me, she always has many things going at the same time and this spider ( in progress) is and example of her  3-D work.   I had given her the fabric that she used for the legs and body and I think that is why she brought it along.  Liese did this soft “Island Garden “ as her entry for a garden completion.  The plants that she stitched are ones that could grow under the sea/ tide/ wet conditions of the area.   Quilting can expand your horizons in unusual ways. 

Anne had this specular work to share too.    I really enjoy how she cuts up her photo graphics  to use as strong jumping off points for her work.   I find this piece wonderful!

Noel showed us several works and among them were these two quilts for the Rainbow Challenge for the Tow Path Quilt Guild.  These two along with 22 others will be on display next week end at the guild show in  the Manilas  Library.    Ruth has finished her quilt about Kemo Treatment and it is wonderful.  I am sorry that my photo of the full work is not sharp enough to post- but this close up shows how powerful her stitching is.  She has such strong skills.

Then Wednesday, I went and spent the day playing at Batik  with my friend Ethel.   We had a grand time and I now have six new pieces that will be starting off places for more work.  She has  a wonderful piece on the pin wall and I took a shot of it too.  She uses her hand dyes so very well.   I have been watching this one develop over the course of this year.  She keeps moving the pieces about as she develops the idea.

Progress Report:  Whip Shock Hill II  This work has given me a mix of emotions this week.   I had worked so carefully on mimicking  the photo and I liked that portion of the work.   I am done with the stitch work and all the textures are down.    But- it does not work for me at all!    So I roll it up on Friday and  decided to take it to the Diva meeting and ask for help.   I am so very glad I did! One can easily get  trapped in there own head and not “see” how to get out ad solve a problem.  When I put this work on the wall next to Whip Shock Hill I    the group could see it was not working too.  But they helped with an easy suggestion.  Flip the  new piece and add it to the other side.     I love the results and I can now add the sleeve and complete the set.

New Start   All the frustration  I was feeling about Whip Shock Hill and the effects of spring pushed me to pull materials for a new work.  I think all of these fabrics play well together and will make a nice piece.   It will be my next project.

  New Start Running Red         I pulled these fabrics at the same time.     I created the red and white fabric in the Deconstructed  Screen Class last fall and I really wanted to use it so I started with that stack.   There is some silk kimono  and taffeta in this work too.   I think  the frustration I was feeling also effected me a bit so I wanted to do something that I felt sure about.   It is coming along nicely  now.

Name Game  III- Patti  This is how this work looks before I started to cut it up.    A little planning will help the next time I do this technique.     And that planning is in the size of the work.    I was so concerned with getting the letters to fit that I was not careful with the size of the base.     In the last two pieces I  stared with  22” squares  and made 5.5” squares when I cut up the two layers.    This time I  made the  base   24 “  and had to make 4.5” squares and I lost some of the image from each row because it did not cut down to even units.      One needs to make the mistakes to grow.    I then pinned the  blocks to the pin wall And stated arranging them.  That step took a while and I took many photos of the many  layouts as I went along.   This is the one I settled on. Now I will join them and quilt them together.

Ribbon Work    This work is growing slowly.  This is a case were not having a per plan may get me in lots of trouble as I go forward.  I have been just adding one hour’s worth of work on at a time.   But at this point I have no feeling for were I need to go next.  So I am just looking at the work.

Label Block 3
The hand work goes on with  my evening TV work.

Keep Creating

Carol