Studio Tour 2014

It has been a whirlwind four days for me as a participant in the Great Falls Studios annual Studio Tour. The idea is to welcome visitors in to the places where we create our art, give them the opportunity to chat directly with the artists and maybe achieve some sales. 

Not all of us have a home studio that is suitable for visitors to come to so I was delighted to once more set up in the living room of the home of my water-color artist friend Linda Jones. This year we were joined by silversmith Richard Masaniello; the combination of art techniques was a good variety and made spending time at our studio stop worthwhile.

 My timing for this post is not terrific because the tour is over now. But we were just so busy that I kept forgetting to take a few photographs. Fortunately the weather was kind enough not to rain and the sunny skies combined with the lots of opportunity for leaf peeping made for a gorgeous Fall day to be out and about exploring the back roads and stopping off at the open art studios. The wind was fierce though and by day three, when the temperature had dropped, we had to move the greeter and welcome materials that had been on the table with the wedding ring quilt inside the front door. But my "Purple Passion" quilt let people know they were at the right place.

 Inside the front door my quilt "The Luscious Lilies" complimented the colors in many of Linda's artworks hanging on the right stair wall while my much smaller "There's One in Every Crowd" did the same for other pieces on the left. Down a short flight of stairs was my area.

 The theme for my display this year was history and I was showcasing both completed and current pieces that draw their inspiration from history. The big piece in the center is a commission item I made earlier this year I titled "Work Clothes" - it is made from fabrics cut from the suits, sport coats, shirts, ties, suspenders and pants belonging to a retired friend. I'm now working on pillows that go with the lapquilt and you can see three of them just to the left of Work Clothes. Visitors loved to hear the story of those pieces.

In the back left I had pinned up my two current block of the month projects; Threads of Memory and Where Poppies Grow. Folded up and laying underneath "Strawberries and Cream" (the red and white one) is "St Patrick's Day", the Remarkable Round Robin quilt I am finishing that belonged to my sister. I am thinking about her constantly right now as it is coming up on the first anniversary of her passing away.

The low coffee table held my binder with information and my copy of "Inspired by the Beatles - An Art Quilt Challenge" open to "my" page (I was one of the 150 fiber artists who made a piece based on the title of a Beatles song - the complete collection debuts at the imminent Houston Quilt Show). Each day I gave away a small thanks-for-visiting bag containing a cookie made from an old family recipe, to go with the history theme, and I had them displayed in one of the cake tins that I remember my Mum always had full of a wide variety of delicious cakes/cookies/slices. On Friday visitors received an Anzac Biscuit which also fit nicely with my World War I project on the wall. Saturday's treat was Hokey Pokey Biscuits and Sunday it was Yo-Yoes.

Moving around the room I had five of my challenge pieces from the June Bride and There is a Season collections displayed on the screens with more quilts draped over the sofa.

Each day when I got home I was really tired from being on my feet all day and talking so much. Saturday it was 4.30pm before I was able to grab a few minutes and eat my lunch. Each evening my own kitchen became the scene of the production of the cookies for the next day; my son did most of the baking and I quickly packaged them up invariably forgetting to even taste one myself. So I was delighted to come home on Sunday to find he had made another batch of Yo-Yoes just for us to enjoy.

If you are reading this blog for the first time because I met you on Studio Tour I hope you had a great visit. Thanks to everyone who took the time to listen to - or read here - all my stories about making memories with fabric.

TOM 9 Lancaster Star for Deborah Simmons Coates

As promised, a fast post to catch up with my TOM blocks.

For September we had another block requiring that 4" center cut. I tried to make it a little more interesting.

I am all set up for a three day weekend Studio Tour with Great Falls Studios. My TOM blocks are pinned up on a temporary design wall behind my sewing table.

Day One of the Tour is tomorrow so I hope to have some photos to post of that event.

And just maybe, if you are in the area, you might stop in and see me!

TOM 8 Jackonsville Star for Emily Logan

I am fearfully behind in posting my photos for the Threads of Memory project. The blocks are getting made in a timely manner but getting them from the camera to the blog is not as timely.

Don't forget to tip your head somewhat because I am planning on setting my blocks on point.

Playing by my own rules for this project gets more challenging each month. I "have" to use the solid grey as background, the lime green for a shot of color and a bird fabric to represent the flight of the slaves. So that left only the one new fabric to put into this block to keep with the last rule of not re-using fabrics.

Sorry, no fun photo for this or next months block or I will never get caught up!

Where Poppies Grow in September

The September block in the "Remembering Almo" project required a little thought, followed by a little rule breaking for me.  As you know I have been making my blocks using the army uniform colors of my Grandpop who saw service at Gallipoli.  But this block is named Red Cross and really did, to my mind, need to feature red. Looking through my fabric collection under the red heading I was able to find a red that had somewhat of a brown base to it so it will hopefully blend in with my other blocks.

Servicemen in the trenches were often victim to illness because of their poor living conditions as well as the expected war wounds. Thus hospitalizations and organizations such as the Red Cross were of major importance.

For Grandpop the month of September had several important dates. September 1, 1914 was when he signed up for war service at Oamaru. Prior to that time he had been working as a labourer on his grandfather James McAuley's farm at Georgetown (near to Oamaru).

On September 4, 1915 Grandpop was evacuated from Gallipoli to Malta with a diagnosis of enteric fever (typhoid). There was a very long hospitalization and convalescence after which he was finally transferred to Sling camp for a short training period where, after two weeks, he was appointed Temporary Sergeant on September 25, 1916. The next day he left Sling for service on the Western Front in France.

As you can understand, including the Red Cross block in the project is particularly appropriate.

The photograph above was taken during the time Grandpop was with the No. 6 Officer Cadet Battalion in Oxford, England. His active service in the front lines had ended on June 18, 1918 and he was posted to Oxford on July 5.

Quilts as Art

Summer has been very long and packed full of activity for me and I have slipped behind with my blog posts. Each morning I have to figure out which hat I really must put on for the day: exhibit/challenge leader, quilter or blogger to say nothing of the usual and/or mundane ones that also must be worn like homeowner/domestic toiler, family organizer, friend...

This post will feature something I did wearing firstly my "exhibit chair" hat for Great Falls Studios (GFS) but also my personal quiltmaker personna so I could enter one of my own pieces for the exhibit.

Founded eleven years ago GFS is a group of local artists who all live and/or work at their art in Great Falls. We number just over 100 members who work in a variety of mediums; the majority work with paint or camera but we have a sprinkling of other mediums including fibre, wood, clay. In September we had our first major all-media juried show and it remains on display until the end of September at the USGS in Reston. The show was a huge amount of work for my co-chair Silvia and I but it was very well received.

Thanks to Silvia Gonzalez Roman for the photo above taken at the end of hanging day. Because the exhibit was to hang in the United States Geological Survey building we wanted to give it a theme loosely tied to the mission of that particular Federal agency thus the exhibit title "A Sea of Sticks and Stones".


One challenge that I have personally taken on in recent years is to take quiltmaking out of the craft closet and place it on the art stage where I feel it belongs. This exhibit provided just such an opportunity.

 We had 87 pieces juried into the show but I'm going to give you a quick tour featuring the fiber art while showing you how well the mixed media all hung happily together. For instance, above you can see, starting on the left, one of three pieces by quilter Cindy Grisdela, then an oil painting, two digital photographs, my own quilt piece, a collage with photograph below and finally four lovely pieces by potter Laura Nichols.

 On the left, "Water Lilies II" by Roberta Beasley, which was awarded second prize, "Shades of Autumn" by fiber artist (quilter) Cindy Grisdela which won one of the four honorable mentions and on the right, "In the Attic" a mixed media piece by Jennifer Duncan.

Again starting on the left with "Winter Trees" by acrylic artist MaryEllen Mogee, then "Autumn Forest" by Cindy Grisdela, "My Daughter in Monticello" in oil by Yihan Huff above and "Rosebud"   by photographer Don Fowler below.

And here is a view of my own entry "Sticks Adrift in a Stony Sea".  You'll need to wait until the exhibit is over and my piece is home again so I can take some detail shots to let you see the finer points of my wallquilt.

This is one of the five wall quilts I have stitched up since May so no wonder I have been feeling like I don't have a moment to spare! You should be able to click on the photos to see them at larger scale.

Where Poppies Grow in August

  The block for August is Winged Square and the story that went with it, on the Remembering Almo project, is about the US Field Hospital unit 3 crossing firstly the Moselle River and then the Rhine River. That unit was the first US unit of troops to ever cross the Rhine and it happened on December 11, 1918.

For this block there was a very big challenge with all those tiny squares. There was a fabric sitting patiently waiting to be used and when I measured that flower motif and it fit those tiny squares I decided to go for it and use it. The stripe fabric was also carefully cut and in some areas reminds me of shoulder epaulettes.

Since beginning this project I have been doing some reading about life in the trenches and it was very grim. Many lives were lost, not because of direct wounding by the enemy but by troops succumbing  to typhoid, complications from diarrhea and dysentry and poor diet and living conditions. 

Indeed, in the research done by my sister she comments that Grandpop spent 227 days out sick of the 260 days the ANZACs spent on Gallipoli and this likely saved his life. The last two weeks of August 1915 saw the 8th Company involved in the battle for Hill 60 but by the end of August Grandpop had contracted enteric fever (typhoid) and was evacuated to Malta on September 4, less than a month after his return to Gallipoli.

We now have eight out of the twelve blocks completed for the project. It is time to get serious about creating the setting blocks for I have decided to set my blocks in a style different than the one used by the designer of this Remembering Almo project.

TOM 7 Oberlin Star for The Oberlin Rescuers

The August block is expected out tomorrow so at the eleventh hour I better let you see what my July block looks like!

 This block was something different!  An Ohio Star in collaboration with a Drunkards Path block. I really like the way it looks.

The story for this block revolves around a group named The Oberlin Rescuers who were sympathetic to African Americans being free and being able to obtain an education such as was available at Oberlin College.

I must admit that what was mainly holding up getting this block posted was that I was drawing a blank on how to do my "fun" photo shoot. Thinking I had read that The Oberlin Rescuers rode horseback in their efforts I went on my own scouting mission to the toy archives to find some horses.

I had fun with a setup using the horses and a couple of potato vines to echo the lime green and got the photo I had been thinking about.

Alas, I have just reread the story for the block and I can't really find that riding horseback featured all that much. Oh well.  They did ride in carriages so horses were involved!

My calendar for the upcoming week is very busy so I'm not sure how soon the August block will get made. But it will be completed before the September one is published.