A possiblitity for Patt Blair's retreat

I really didn't find anything that just jumped out and said "Paint me!" in searching through photos for Patt Blair's quilting retreat. One photo that would work the best is one of my grandpa's shed. I played with it in a photo program on my tablet and thought about it. If I don't do this one this year, I may paint it at another time. My grandfather always sat in the larger doorway, no matter the weather. He just loved being outdoors and seeing his land and fields. He would usually sit with his gun, so he could shoot groundhogs, but you couldn't let Grandma know!! As if she missed anything! I miss both Grandma and Grandpa. They were such neat people!

Grandpa's Shed

Preparation for Patt Blair Retreat

Argh!! I'm panicking!! What am I going to do for my whole-cloth, painted quilt for Patt Blair's retreat that is coming up in just a few weeks? I've been sorting through photos, but just am not finding anything that really says "Yes!! This is it!!"

Here is what I'm finding so far. Let me know what you think!

Cacti flowers taken while hiking at Picacho Peak.
Cropped to capture a few of the flowers.

Cacti flowers from photo taken at the Desert Botanical Garden.
Cropped to emphasize the blooms.

Chihuly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Gardens. Photo taken at dusk, so
lights were highlighting some of the glass balls.

Hummingbird sitting quietly. Photo taken in Long Beach
outside the Queen Mary, when attending the
Long Beach International Quilt Show.

Burrowing Owls. Photo taken at the Phoenix Zoo. I've always enjoyed
watching the burrowing owls, since moving to AZ in the late 1980's.
Several pairs had nests in the field near our home.

Bee collecting pollen in yellow daisies grown by my mother
in her flower garden in front of her house in Ohio.

Drawing for Prickly Piecer's Opportunity Quilt

After several outings with the our opportunity quilt, Prickly Piecer's finally held our drawing. We raised almost $1500 with this quilt! The board members met for dinner at Macayo's. After an enjoyable meal, we settled down to business and drew the name for the winner of our opportunity quilt. Andrew Garva won the quilt. He had bought his winning ticket at the Mesa Arts Festival in Dec. He was thrilled to win the quilt, as his sister is a quilter and he understands what goes into making a quilt.

Roberta, Cathy, and I met him in the lobby at Cathy's workplace. He was excited to pick up the quilt. He plans to use it himself. He hadn't decided whether to put the queen size quilt on his bed or to hang it on the wall. He is a proud owner!!

Andrew Garva, the proud owner of his new quilt,
held here with Lynnita Knoch.

Queen-size (94" x 94") Opportunity Quilt

Walking around neighborhood

The carpenter bee's wings seems so
 small compared to its fat little body.

Yellow Trumpet Flowers

As I was out walking today, a couple huge, black carpenter bees caught my attention. How can something with a fat little body like theirs actually fly? The wings are going so fast, they can hardly be seen while in flight. I was able to catch a closeup of this on in flight as it took off from the bright yellow trumpet flowers.

Carpenter bee was covered in pollen when done.

ZenDoodles sent to North Light Publishers

Tweeting on the Magic Carpet

I sent off 4 ZenDoodles today that were picked for publication with North Light Publishers for a book on Zen Doodles that they are publishing in the fall of 2013.  They sent out a call for Zentangle or Zen Doodle designs a couple months ago. I submitted 6 drawings. I was so shocked to hear from them and then to find out they picked 4 of my drawings for publication!! I was speechless!!  Then, found I had to draw 3 step outs and clean up the drawings and have everything returned to them in 2 weeks time!!

Sixteen perfect drawings, with no erasure marks (since they are in ink!!). Whew! The pressure was on!! I was burning the midnight oil. I drew the first step out 4 times before I was happy with it. Just when I thought I was done, I'd make a mistake and have to start over! Oh, it was nerve-wracking! To strive for such perfection - oh!! Finally... after making about 30 drawings, I got 16 good ones to send in!!

Spring Excursion

Thank goodness for patient husbands and good friends!! My poor husband had to cook most meals and do the dishes, as I was too busy drawing!! My house didn't see any cleaning during this time (so I'm not the best housekeeper anyway-that's not the point!) 

Wings of Freedom

My girlfriend, Rita kindly took photos for me before I overnighted the originals to North Light. Just in case, something happened to them in the mail. She even took me to the post office to overnight the photos, as I was so tired and fuzzy-brained, I couldn't make heads or tails out of her directions to the post office by her house. (I'm not real sure how I made it back home!)

Ribbons and Rain

What a relieve to have this done! Didn't realize how stressful it would be!! But it feels good. Now it's a "hurry and wait" for the book to be published!! Will let you all know when it comes out, so you can run right out and buy your own copy!! 

Self-Portrait Challenge - Who Am I?

The quilt guild I belong to, the Prickly Piecers, which is a chapter of the Arizona Quilter's Guild, had a challenge this fall to do a self-portrait quilt.

Make a self portrait? Scrutinize myself in the mirror? Face all my flaws and re-create them in fabric? This is nuts!! Although this quilt is to describe who I am, it does NOT have to be a face or a person. My self portrait can be whimsical or unrealistic.

As children, our first drawings are usually of ourselves. That young child flourishes within us still. This challenge is supposed to help me find it and bring it out for all to see. Can I portray my inner self? What makes me who I am? Am I emotional? - I could make an abstract quilt with various colors and images that describe my emotions (happiness, joy, outgoing, introverted, anger, uncertainty, confidence, etc.).  Animal lover? - I could have images of all the animals I love on my quilt. Grandparent? - I could have images of my grand kids and things I do with the. Hmmmm..... Lots of things to thing about. But I need to keep a sense of humor while making this quilt and have fun with it!!!

The rules say the quilt must be at least 6" x 6" and no larger than 36" x 36". The quilt must be about me - who I am. I must use at least one new technique in creating this quilt. My label needs to explain how this quilt describes me and what new technique I used. Lastly, the quilt must be quilted, bound, and labeled by our holiday part on Dec 20.

After much thought and searching through photographs, I found a group of glamour portraits I had taken for my husband for our 15th wedding anniversary when I was in my mid-30s. I decided to create in fabric one of these.

Glamour Portrait for our 15th wedding anniversary

I decided to paint my portrait, using watercolor paints and watercolor pencils, on white muslin fabric. I had decided to draw "tangles" in my hair. Tangles are the individual patterns used in Zentangles, which I love to do. If I painted my hair black, then I would need to use white paint for the tangles to show up. This would make me look like I had "salt and pepper" hair. I'm not gray, yet, although my kids have sure put a few gray hairs on my head!! I decided to have fun and use several bright colors for my hair. This would allow the "tangles" to show.

Painted portrait with wild, bright-colored hair.

I used a 0.1 Micron Sakura pen to draw in the "tangles" for my hair. After dividing the hair into flowing sections, I chose several tangles. I used Celtic, Chainging, Echoism,  Featherfall, Finery, Knightsbridge, Linq, Mooka, Mumsy, Onamato, Opus, Organza, and Purk to name just a few.

Beginnings of "tangling".

I continued to add "tangles". I added quilting feathers, Btl Joos, Fescu, Gust, Mehndi designs, Nebel, Pebbles, Rain, and Rick's Paradox, plus a variety of others.

Tangling is finished. 

I quilted the top, outlining the details of the face with 100 wt. Invisafil poly-thread that matched the color of the facial features. I used black Bottom Line thread, a 70 wt. poly-thread, to quilt between each different "tangle" in the hair. I added "wind" to the blue background. Lastly, I added a dragon in the upper-left corner, as I love dragons. I collect dragon statuettes, as well as, read most any fantasy novel that includes dragons. So my self-portrait had to include a dragon.

Quilting is complete. 

The quilt looks finished. I added black, glass beads and a silver dragon pendant for a necklace.  Something is not quite right. The dragon doesn't stand out and the bodice area is drawing in a bit. Therefore, I painted the dragon with Derwent watercolor pencils. I used a green, with a bit of blue and indigo for shading. That helped him stand out! I found some transparent, lacy, light turquoise ribbon to add to the bodice to make it look like I'm wearing a jacket. I quilted the ribbon on with matching thread. Then I added more strands of loose hair at the shoulders to finish the top of the ribbon. Now it looks finished. I bound the quilt using a facing technique and added a label that I printed on fabric. It includes a copy of the photo I used for the self-portrait quilt.

" Me, Myself, and I"
completed self-portrait quilt

My completed quilt is 12" x 16".  I still see myself as being in my mid-30's, even though my body is definitely telling my I must be about 100 years old! The Zentangles on fabric are my new technique and represent the artist in me. The dragon, of course, is about my love of dragons, reading, and fantasy novels.

This was a fun challenge and not as overwhelming as it seemed at first, once I got started. The other members of the guild created wonderful self-portraits, too. A couple put their portraits in Photoshop, using the posterize filter to create 4-5 values. They use 4-5 fabrics in the values shown in Photoshop to create their portraits. They came out great! A couple people made whimsical portraits - one was a funny witch, another showed her eyes, nose and mouth in a triangular shape with floral appliques. How creative and fun! A few people used events in their lives to describe themselves. We had 3 winners for the most whimsical, for the one that described the person the best, and for a judge's choice (the chapter chair chose this one).

  . 

More Fall Colors

Today, Mom, Dad, and I went to Grandpa's woods to check out the fall colors. Although, it's not Grandpa's woods anymore. It was sold after he died. All that's left in the family is the farmhouse and a few acres that belong to my nephew. Mom got permission from the owners for us to go walk in the woods. But I'll always think of it as Grandpa's woods. We (all of us grandchildren) grew up there.  

Grandpa's garage sits just east of the
barn behind the farmhouse. Grandpa
always sat there, no matter the weather.
He loved watching the corn or beans
grow during the summer and just
 be outdoors the rest the year.  You
can see a bit of the woods in the
background. 

In the spring, we'd wander through the woods searching for all the different kinds of wildflowers - white and red trilliums, Dutchman's britches, Jack-in-the-pulpits, and sweet peas to name a few. It was always an adventure. We never knew what we'd find. One year, Mom and I found a wildflower we couldn't name. We hunted for hours in the library trying to find what it was. It was a small, round ball that opened on one end showing a purple, velvet-like interior with stamens.  It was like a magical world unto itself.

In the summers, all the cousins, aunts, uncles, and  grandparents would have picnics almost every weekend at the pond. We ate blackberries, raspberries, and goose berries 'til we were sick. When it was warm enough we'd swim and play on the rumpus raft. We'd also fish. Grandpa had the pond stocked with bluegill, perch, and catfish. We'd have a fish fry over the camp fire!

The edge of the woods on the way
back to the pond. The giant oak
was always one of my favorite trees,
although it wasn't quite
that mighty when I was younger. 

In the fall, the colors were just brilliant - so many  maples, oaks, hickory, black walnuts, hedge apples, and buckeyes. Buckeyes were fun to collect, while Grandma would make cake out the of hickory nuts.  Grandma and Grandpa, their siblings and parents use to have a sugar camp, making fresh maple syrup. Yummy!!

In the winter, we'd get a treat with the maple syrup. Grandma would make a candy by pouring the syrup over fresh snow! Delicious!!  Back at the pond, when the ice was thick enough, we'd ice skate. We'd have a bonfire to keep warm. One year, my cousin got to close to the fire and actually caught the toe of her skates on fire! They became my skates the next year! Hand-me-downs!

I have so many fun memories of these woods. It was nice to walk through them today!

This is the view of the pond we'd see when first coming upon it.
It is so beautiful today! The water was so still
that the reflections are almost perfect. 

A view of the pond looking north.  To the left of the tree in the
foreground, was a small walkway where the rumpus raft
was tied.  After getting on, we'd pole out to the middle
to play and swim.

Fungus and moss on a fallen log. 

Fallen leaves.