Happy Thanksgiving

We're thankful for wonderful fall weather. It's been great to have so many good days ...

... to prune, clean up and mulch the garden beds, and plant pansies. It's wonderful to have flowers all winter and into spring. Our dog oversaw it all. The fun final touch was adding two new sculptures to greet all who come to see us.

The same artist of those, Allen Hampton of Chattanooga, created the metal flowers that line the walkway to our front entry ...

Wishing all of you a warm and welcoming Thanksgiving.

Wonky Log Cabin Blocks

I've been busy digging through bags of scraps to make blocks for the "Sandy Quilt Block Drive"...

The pattern is most fitting since the resulting quilts will be going to those who have suffered the destruction left behind by the storm resulting from Hurricane Sandy.

I like the way this project is set up. There's an opportunity to just make blocks (as many as you like) OR to make quilts from already made blocks. Quilts from this block drive event will be donated to the Bumble Beans Basics group that Victoria Findlay Wolfe organizes. These folks are in New York and able to get the quilts delivered immediately.

Fourteen was as many as I could muster the strength to make. That's an odd number so I played with a couple of arrangements on my design wall. Here's the other ...

The intent is for the quilts to be bed-size, so whomever gets my set of blocks will be adding more to achieve that. I'll be mailing them tomorrow to the quilter in Wisconsin that I was matched to by Michelle at the Quilting Gallery. Click on the link in the first sentence of this post if you, too, would like to contribute either blocks or to construct quilts.

SMQ Guild Challenge Quilts

Tuesday evening was the deadline for the monochromatic color challenge quilts of which "Lavender Haze" was one.

The array of 30 quilts submitted for this challenge to create a monochromatic quilt based on a spool of thread blindly pulled from a bag was amazing. Leah Marcum-Estes, the Director of the Oak Ridge Art Center, had the difficult job of selecting only 8 quilts to be our guild's entry in the AQS Guild Challenge category of the show that will be in Grand Rapids next August. I very much liked that Leah gave a mini critique concentrating on the strengths of each individual quilt before announcing her final selection. She explained the various ways of curating and that her selection for this guild entry was based on a flow of hues as they relate to the color wheel spectrum.

The eight that were selected follows. Sorry I don't have dimensions for each of them.

Pat Davis - blue green

Diane Rhea - Green

Jan Darnell - yellow

Tone Haugen-Cogburn - coral

(red orange)

Elizabeth Freeman - red

Nancy Kessler - purple

Pat Blankenship - Blue

 "Lavender Haze" (36"x36")

Nellie Durand - Red Violet

Two more were selected as alternates ... just in case something comes up  and one of the above eight can't make it to the show.

Christine Glazer - orange                                         Patty Ashworth - green

I couldn't resist playing with the line-up ...

I wonder how these will end up being displayed.

To see pictures of the other challenge quilts taken by Patty Ashworth at the guild meeting go her blog, Hand Quilter - the Wednesday, November 7, 2012 post.

Thanks to Patty for letting me use her photos. They were photo shopped in my Elements program.

Lavender Haze

The previous post showed only a portion of the lake piece. Here's the whole before the layer of tulle was added ...

The pink tulle lessened the contrast of the colors and contributed a "haze" over it all ...

"Lavender Haze" (31"x 32") #85

There's also a bit of iridescent paint, water color pencil and oil stick pastel work to highlight some areas, as well as to blend others into the background. I do that after much study of the piece hanging on my design wall. I go slow with these additions so the major element of fabric is not overwhelmed ... so it doesn't lose its identity as textile art.

... and a close-up of the beach grass in the foreground ...

It was free-motion machine quilted with this variegated thread...

Next up is a presentation of the final eight that will be the Smoky Mountain Quilt Guild's entry to the Guild Challenge in next summer's AQS show in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Red Violet Challenge

As a member of the Smoky Mountain Quilt Guild, I took on the challenge contest for 2013 ... blindly choosing a spool of thread, then using that thread color to create a monochromatic quilt. This is mine ...

I sorted through several huge bags of scraps for bits and pieces of fabric and thread and yarn that related to red-violet to create a lake scene ...

I suspect the intention is for us to use all the different values of one color ... the addition of black and white to make lighter and darker hues. I've also included the muted shades of red-violet ... those hues made by adding gray or the complementary color. It will be interesting to see if my piece qualifies.

The reveal is at the November guild meeting this next Tuesday evening. After that I'll post a photo of the finished quilt (the above picture is the first step of laying out a foundation layer in my collage process). Now I need to get back to finishing the construction of the back. Interestingly, the art part is all machine work while the backing and hanging parts are mostly handwork.