Hello,

The week has been a full one with lots of activates.  This work is by a high school student and a part of the Scholastic Art show now going on at Onondaga Community Collage.  I was a judge a few weeks ago and I judged animation and film.  I  went to see the other works that made it into the show.  There is lots of  wonderful work, and it is well worth the effort to go and see it.      The FAB group also meant this week

.  Nancy  has added two more boarders on her quilt.  I love how she mixes so many different patterns in her work.  She is also so very good at making all her points.  A characteristic that I admire as I find that process so very frustrating.      I like a challenge so much more than a repeat activity.   So I decided to be a part of the Cancer Project.  This is the cancer mask that I will be altering in the next weeks.     I have not decided how or where I will go with this one yet,  but I really think it is fascinating.   Another thing I did this week was take four quilts off to be a part of the Cabin Fever Quilt show that hangs in Betts Branch Library  for the month of February.    I also hung a show of  15 pieces of my work at the Briar Patch in Ithaca  New York yesterday.    I am sorry that I did not take my camera so there are no pictures of that.     Because of all of our snow and the wonderful stash of dye that I inherited from Ethel, I  attempted some snow dyeing this week.  I had to call on the knowledge of my friend Angela to get myself going on this project .  The photo is a shot of the first batch under plastic starting to melt.  I learned from this   first one to cut way down on the amount of dye one adds to the snow as the navy blue took over and there is no yellow at all on the final piece.   The process takes a long time- about 24 hours for all the snow to melt because I am doing it in the basement were the heat is low and I may be packing too much snow in the bucket.  Anyway  the second batch looks like the yellow and green will remain a part of the color.  And I did not add any navy to it.   Everything is washing out now with a third bucket starting to melt.  Look for images next week.   Another thing I started this week was my 6X6 entries.  That is for the Rochester Art fundraiser.   I decided to use this paper as the base for a paper quilts for this project.

Progress Report:   Coastal Color I

I really enjoyed working on these felted base works.  I ended up  adding  a fabric back and sleeve to this one to finish it.  Thanks again to the gals in QuIGs for there suggestions on this project.Mixing the machine work  and adding yarns and fabrics to the surface sure made the process a joy for me.    I have one more in the grouping to complete; I am excited  and I have not even started adding anything to the felted surface yet.

Coastal Color II    This felted work is stretched over stretcher bars with a batting in  between.   Again the QuIGs  were the source for this solution to the finishing problem. This solution creates quite a different feel for the finished work.     But again I got to do the thing I love the most with  the machine drawing and the fiber additions.   I just love to build up the surface.

Moon Fall   I have enjoyed working on this project as the world  out side has become one of grays, white and black.     No thread  build up here but lots of fun free motion work.  I used some of the same thick thread techniques that I developed with the leaf and Autumn quilts I  did earlier this fall.   I mostly followed an edge when I could to make the quilting patterns.   I appliqued the moon on top without any quilting of its own so it would float above the surface a bit.  It seems to do that to me.

Coping   Quilting away on this work was a nice contrast to all the free motion work I was doing this week.  All the quilting here is strait lines with stops and turns it it.    I   first made a series of rectangles in silver and  purples threads.  Then I used black to make more quilting that filled in the open ares and added a little interest to the surface. It does the job I think although I do not find it overly exciting in the end.     I do like the colors and that is a good thing as I have the second half of the original  to deal with next.   This one  does have quite a different feel I think.  I need to look and think for a while on this one too.

New Work   I am tying to mix some of my altered fabrics with commercial ones here.  The  some of commercial ones are Ethel’s and the flowers are from my friend Tanya.

Parts is Parts   I continue to stitch down the camera parts onto the surface  here.   What with the finishing of the first three quilts this week, I have not done a lot of hand work on this project.

Label Block # 37  The labels got their share of hand work though.    I am looking forward to my February closet clean out as I think I will be able to add some more labels to my collection when I do that project.

Keep Creating,

Carol

I could not resist adding one more Scholastic entry to this blog.