International Quilt Association's Celebrity Mini Quilt Auction Quilt

 I will be teaching again at the International Quilt Festival this November in Houston-it is the mother of all quilt shows and so much fun to be part of! I was asked to participate in the International Quilt Association's Celebrity Quilt Auction. I was asked to donate a small quilt which will be auctioned off at the festival. The group of quilts will have an area on display at the quilt show. The money raised helps support the activities of IQA. I am lecturing this Saturday September 10, 2016 at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo on "Adult Coloring Books Inspiring Quilts" and am intrigued by how coloring book motifs and quilt design have common elements.
The design inspiration began with this design I drew in 2015 for a texture challenge for my Facebook art quilt group.
 This is the completed quilt-love the velvets and lames!!
 I took the original drawing, changed the hair and added lines to connect areas as in a coloring book motif. I thickened the lines for the raw edged fused applique. I used black batik (Hoffman batik in the color Raven) Love it!! I selected the swirly stripe fabric for the dress; orange and hot pink for the hair; two pinks for the mouth; yellow and teal for the eye makeup and three brown gradations of Cherrywood Hand-Dyed Fabrics for the brow bone, face and neck. A large polka dot with a black background is used for the binding. I embellished with yellow rhinestones as a row of eyeliner on the yellow lid area; a hologram-like rhinestone for a nose piercing; a white matte fabric paint dot for the eye reflection and a bit of pink glitter nail polish on the upper lip.

I used the original drawing and I made this quilt this winter and it became a donation quilt for Quilt Alliance which raises awareness and money for Alzheimer Association. The theme of this display is "Favorite Things" I love pink and embellishments! This quilt will also be on display at the IQF Houston show in November in the Quilt Alliance booth.
I don't feel like a celebrity but I am happy to be selected for this fundraised!!

Adult Coloring Book Inspired Quilts: Lecture at Wisconsin Quilt Expo Sept. 10, 2016

 I am a huge fan of adult coloring books and it is National Adult Coloring Book Day! I was a huge fan of coloring books/crayons/colored pencils as a child. Nothing has changed because I still love all these things and anything artsy craftsy! When adult coloring books came on the scene a few years ago I noticed a correlation to my Line Drawing Style quilts. I have put together a lecture about how adult coloring books inspired quilt designs. I will be lecturing on this subject at the WI Quilt Expo on Saturday Sept. 10, 2016 at 8:30am. www.wiquiltexpo.com Early bird special!! 
 The photos in this blog post show how I selected a simple page from the coloring book "Coloring Creative Characters" edited by Tonia Jenny and Barbara Delaney from Book World and processed through to a quilt design. This is a teaser for the lecture so I'm not sharing too much today-see you in Madison!
I enlarged the page and assigned colors to my liking. In the top photo I made a small wall hanging in the Line Drawing style I typically work in.
In this photo I decided to add a border and used a fun geometric print from my stash. I pulled 6 batiks to coordinate with the border print and cut them into various widths and strip pieced them and ran this vertically as the background of the quilt. I used the exact applique as in the first project. It's cool how with the same motif but different backgrounds the finished quilts are so different! While working on these quilts I found more and more ideas which I will share in my lecture. I chose to demo a face motif but I will have other motifs in this lecture as well for people who aren't into faces like me. This idea is very inspiring and my brain is exploding from all the potential!!

Art Quilts Around The World: Vision Board-Hair Color

 Today is reveal day for my Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around The World. This challenge is called Vision Board. I thought about the white and black hair color I tried to have late last summer and I damaged my hair. It is still on my vision board as a hair color I want! Did I mention I am have been a hairdresser for 29 years and am challenged by this?
I first saw the hair color on Pinterest. My hair has been colored dark brown for years. In  hair color theory to lighten hair that has previously been dark one must bleach the hair. In doing so it can damage the hair because there are so many layers of hair. And in my case, my fine hair couldn't handle the bleach and my hair quality was compromised. I gave up and have been repairing and deep conditioning my hair ever since. 
This hair color became the subject of this vision board challenge. I selected red as my background, dress and glasses color. On Pinterest I searched vintage clothing because I love this too and found a great dress neckline and duplicated it in this quilt. The real dress would have a tab and button in the center on the neckline. 
 This is the close up of the neckline. I have found that red and black combination prints are not easy to find. I used a lot of this hounds tooth print in another quilt and now have an excuse to buy more fabric to replace this piece!! The black and white fabric used in the dress is so 1960s and I love it too!!
For embellishment I used a hologram and a slate sparkly glitter nail polishes to add shimmer to the hair. I added a few tiny rhinestones to the glasses, white paint for the eye reflection and a small amount of nail polish to the eyelid. I didn't over on the embellishments because the variety of fabric prints seemed like enough activity and I wanted the hair to be the emphasis.
The next challenge which is about a postage stamp that represents the area where we live in due September 30, 2016. I am exploring lighthouses, Menominee Indians or Queen Marinette.

A Tribute to Yvonne Porcella Quilt

 This quilt was made for a tribute to Yvonne Porcella call "Live Your Brightest Life" and a group of selected quilts (including mine!) will hang in an exhibit called Quilting in the Garden at Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore California Sept. 23-26, 2016.
I found out about this quilt challenge through Pokey Bolton's blog. Pokey was a great friend of Yvonne's and after Yvonne's passing this winter, of Stage 4 cancer, Pokey blogged about this challenge opportunity and I decided to create a 18" x 26" size quilt inspired by Yvonne's body of work. We were asked to write something for Yvonne's family-whether we knew her, met her through a class or quilt show or was inspired by her work. 
I never met Yvonne but knew of her because she was one of the pioneers in the art quilt world. She started Studio Arts Quilters Associates which I have been a member of. She taught and wrote many publications through the years. She was ill but made an appearance at the IQF Houston 2014 but I didn't see her there.
My inspiration from Yvonne is her use of bright bold colors; her integration of black and white prints with the bright colors and her whimsical style. She created a few portrait quilts and I used these four elements to create my design.
I was curious anyway to make a face fantasy-like and have a rainbow of colors swirled across the face while keeping the hair a "normal" color. I chose Afro puffs as the hairstyle because it is playful and I just love it!! The dress fabric is a scrap of a large scale floral print that shouts happiness. Is the woman black or white-is it a woman?
The background was inspired by the pop art images of 1960s artist Peter Maxx. He used the two tone radiating striped backgrounds in his art and I went with that using Yvonne's white and black influence. 
I knew the dress's neckline needed something white and black to tie it all together and I "auditioned" a variety of trims, fabrics, beads etc, and nothing looked right. I had to purchase the trim I used and it is the correct width of trim and the dots are to scale of the rest of the dress.
 I embellished the eyes with chunky glitter nail polish on the lids. I hand sewed white beads to the dress and the nose got a rhinestone "piercing," but the best part was finally finding my plastic fruit beads from some 1980s jewelry that I had misplaced. I save lots of stuff from the past-you never know!! I was intending to use it on my "Kitschy" quilt from May and tore up my house to find it. So it seemed right to have the fruit become earrings on this fun bright quilt!
Not an embellishment but I used black velvet for the upper lip and black lame' for the lower lid just to break up the continuity of commercial cottons/batiks.
 Here is another view of the quilt. As I was working on this quilt the national news story about the Orlando nightclub shooting had transpired. I was and still am shook up about that so I named this quilt "Pulse" after the nightclub in Orlando to commemorate.
Pokey Bolton confirmed my quilt would be part of the exhibit and she said Yvonne would like it too! Awww!
I can't wait to see what other art quilts designed as their tributes to Yvonne!!

Poison Bottle Quilt Along

I was asked by Misty Cole of Pick Your Brain Designs to be a guest artist for her Poison Bottles Quilt Along. I met Misty through Facebook and met her in person at the International Quilt Show in Houston in 2015. She had twelve of her quilting friends interpret her designs each month. She chose July for me to share my version of her quilt along. Anyone is invited to go to Misty's website www.mistycole.com to download the FREE poison bottle patterns to make a full quilt.
 I knew nothing about poison bottles so Misty gave me some insight which I will share with you. Glass poison bottles came on the scene between the 1870s-1930s. They were used to store cleaning products, insect killers and other liquids that are needed in the home but harmful to people if ingested. The biggest reason people accidentally drank poison was because many people were illiterate and couldn't read the labels and, oddly enough, dimly lit rooms (no electricity just candle light?) 
The poisons were stored in glass bottles because at the time glass was cheap enough to produce. The poison manufacturers began making their bottles in distinguishing colors such as cobalt blue, emerald green, honey amber (beer bottle color?) and black to help people separate the safe and non-safe products. The bottles had textured finishes on them such as dots, ridges and diamond. Words were added to state POISON, DEATH and NOT TO BE TAKEN INTERNALLY. 
I assume as these glass bottles were replaced by other cheaper materials they became collector items because of their beauty. This may be Misty's fascination with poison bottles!
This is my first bottle which looks like an old fashioned perfume bottle. I ran with my portrait quilt theme and added lips to the bottle. I chose a color theme or red/silver/black with a multi-colored stripe. I added red glitter nail polish to the lips for more bling.

This is the second bottle which seems odd laying on it's side horizontal. Currently no bottles are made like this because of the practicality of shelf space. I used one of my portrait quilt patterns and added eyes and hair to the bottle. I used some green sparkly nail polish on the eyes. I envisioned my bottles perhaps being some weird skin lotion sold by a snake oil salesman in the 1920s-1930s from a traveling wagon for women to dip into the fountain of youth!
I again invite you to www.mistycole.com to download the free poison bottle patterns to make an entire quilt with bottles!! Thanks Misty for inviting me to be part of your party!!

New Bella Jordana Pattern Sample

I introduced my newest portrait quilt pattern Bella Jordana last week and I am sharing now another sample of this pattern using the Moda charm pack called "Flow." I used a grayish black batik for the raw edged applique-I wanted more of a charcoal gray but I want to use what's currently in my stash! The left over charm squares were cut in half and sewed end to end (I used 20 of them) to create the pieced binding. I used a variegated gray and black thread to quilt and attach the applique to the background. I used a combo of green/blue/yellow/pink variegated thread for quilting the background and a light gray variegated thread for the face and neck quilting. I embellished the quilt with two Hawaiian lei flowers and a flower button for the hair accessory. Glitter nail polish is applied on the lips and eyelid. A few matching color rhinestones in the background and one for a nose piercing adds more bling. White matte fabric paint for the eye reflection. This pattern is now available at Pine Street Quilts in Marinette, WI and on my website www.laurieceesay.com
 This is the original quilt which i gave to Jordana for a Christmas gift in 2015. I used dark olive green for the batik and a fabric yo yo for the hair accessory.
   
This is the quilt that is on the pattern cover again using a Moda charm pack. I added felt trim and beads to create a necklace and Hawaiian lei flowers for a hair accessory. I blogged about this quilt last week for more details. Check out this pattern at Pine Street Quilts in Marinette, WI or on my website www.laurieceesay.com 

Bella Jordana: New Pattern Available for Sale

I have designed a new portrait pattern in my Bella series. It is my salute to women with curly or textured hair like my daughter Jordana and named after her. It is different from the other Bella patterns in that the face shape in different, the mouth is simpler, I added an eyebrow and eyelid applique and, of course, the hair is curly instead of stright. The size remains the same it 22.5" square. It is available on my website www.laurieceesay.com payable through PayPal.

This is the quilt I made for Jordana as a Christmas gift and I used a charm pack. Not sure of the name of the charm pack but probably from Moda and a dark green contrasting batik for the applique. I created a yo-yo with two buttons as a hair accessory

This is the second sample of Bella Jordana using a charm pack from Moda by Deb Strain. I used a tobacco colored brown batik for the applique.I added glitter nail polish to the eyelid and the mouth. I hand tacked felt garland to the neck area for a necklace. I added pink beads on top of this. I used two silk flowers from a Hawaiian lei from Hobby Lobby with a button as a hair accessory.  
My next pattern will be a Christmas themed Bella pattern which will be released in late summer. Thanks for reading my blog!!

2016 Hoffman Challenge Quilt: Summer Rainbow

This is my 2016 Hoffman Challenge entry titled "Summer Rainbow." The deadline to enter this challenge was extended from June 30th to July 5th so it was safe to post my quilt which I make over the winter. The fabric is digitally printed and for the first time there were two background colors, black or white, with a variety of different colored butterflies scattered about. I bought the black background but I cut out all the butterflies so it didn't really matter!!
I fused some Wonder Under to a large piece of the challenge fabric and fussy cut the butterflies out and began arranging them in a formation of a hairstyle. But I remembered making another portrait quilt with 12 quilt blocks from a block exchange and liked that hairstyle etc. The photo is posted near the end of this blog post. The quilt seemed like it was put in an odd category for entering in a quilt show because other people helped make the blocks so I never entered the quilt in a quilt show. I wanted to use the center portrait pattern again and this became my hair inspiration for this challenge! I separated the butterflies by color and placed the warm colored butterflies on the right and the cool colored butterflies on the left (mostly!) The small white butterflies became the "highlights" of the hair. I selected purple for the dress, a hot pink vinyl for the lips, a white tone on tone background that resembled a butterfly motif and a subtle floral batik for the outside border that compliments the colors without taking away from the portrait.

I used Cherrywood Hand Dyed fabrics for the 5 skin tones. I purchased another butterfly/bird/bug fabric and added the cute fussy cut hummingbird to the background. There are a few bees and dragonflies fussy cut and sporadically placed in the quilt.

I quilted the dress design as a continuation of the dress in the body of the quilt a la "coloring outside the lines!" The majority of the quilt is vertically echo quilted with a purple/hot pink/yellow/blue thread.

Embellishments include hologram sparkly nail polish on the brow bone and purple glitter polish on the eyelid, a mini pink rhinestone for the nose piercing, a purple Christmas ornament bead as an earring, some silver rhinestones in the white background and a variety of tiny beads in flower and butterfly shapes.

This is the original quilt.

Center of original quilt called Scarlet. I love the turquoise and red orange complementary color scheme!! I have to wait until July 18th to find out if this quilt is included in the 2016 Hoffman Challenge Traveling Exhibit. Time to go outside and play in my garden!

Black & White Plus One (Color) Challenge: Wisconsin Quilt Expo 2016

 The Wisconsin Quilt Expo in Madison WI is held every September for the past 9-10 years. Last year the expo had a special challenge which premired at the expo and then traveled to various quilt venues and the theme was fall leaves. I did not enter because I had explored that subject before. In 2016 the theme is "Black & White Plus One (color.) I thought I could find inspiration and Pinterest has paved the way for my ideas. I discovered a female tattoo artist who designed Betty Boop-like tattoos. I loved the contrast of black and white and the finger wave hairstyle. I selected red as the "one color" and used it in the background circle flange, the mouth, the lettering and the binding. Hot pink was my second choice.

The circle has a bias cut flange of red batik which is machine stitched to a pieced background. The dress was inspired by the 1920s fashions from my favorite TV show Downton Abbey. I wanted black embellishments galore and got it with tulle, crocheted trim and beads and sequins! Long rope pearls were the fashion of the era and the look was called Flapper. I knew it was impractical to attach a long pearl necklace to the quilt because of traveling. I chose a small choker necklace (a literal necklace) and over secured it because I have had two experiences with mishaps undoing of the beads! The font used for the word FLAPPER is a font used for tattoos which I love-lots of details and a combination of staright and curved lines and a place to add more red.
The face is embellished with fabric paint, glitter nail polish and fabric markers. I love the 1920s thin eye brows and the shape of the lips. The bottom edge of the quilt is edged with a black and white beaded trim I received from being a teacher at the IQF Houston quilt show in 2015. The quilt size requirement is 30" x 40" and June 30th is the entry deadline. The notification of acceptance is in July. I hope Miss Flapper graces the wall at the expo in September!!

Cherrywood Hand-Dyed Fabric: Lion KIng Challenge - "Feline Fashionista"

Cherrywood Hand-Dyed Fabrics, the company that sponsored the Wicked Challenge in 2014, has a new challenge about the Broadway play Lion King. The challenge began with three of their hand dyed fabrics in a beautiful gradation of yellow oranges. The finished size is 20" square. Any of their other hand dyed fabrics could be used as long as the focus fabrics dominated. The challenge is due in August-I created mine over the winter because that's my main sewing time. I was purposely NOT sharing my quilt but Cherrywood used it on their Facebook page and this first photo is from American Quilt Society which Cherrywood shared with me from Facebook. The point is my quilt called "Feline Fashionista" has gone viral!!

This is the full view of my quilt of the female lead character Nala. This is a promotional pose I found on Pinterest. When I drew up the design I was having trouble drawing the hand so I laid my own hand on the paper and this worked! This quilt has tons of embellishment-fabric paint, fabric markers, bouche yarn/metallic yarn (hair), nail polish, beads, sequins, metallic trim (collar), rhinestones and, a new embellishment for me, Derwent Intense colored pencils. 

I was intrigued by the painted dots on Nala's face as the starting point of this quilt. I used a red Pigma Micron pen and white paint after the quilting was complete to create the dots. Her eyes are very intense and draw you into her world. I used the Derwent colored pencils on the brow bone area of the eyes and to shade the dress.

i love the contrast of Nala's dark yet shimmery lips! As a hairdresser and mother to a grown daughter with ethnic hair, I love texture in Nala's hair!! I braided several strands of a black/brown bouche yarn with a metallic yarn/thread and hand tacked it to the quilt making sure it was "bumpy and full of texture." I had a blast creating Nala for the challenge and felt I was creating her costume/hair and make up. This is why I named it "Feline Fashionista." I hope it makes the cut after two social media photos of my quilt. The exhibit will travel across the USA this fall and in 2017. It will be at the 2016 Houston IQF Show so I can see it for the first time. Like the Wicked Challenge, it is very impressive to see hundreds of 20" square quilts all the same color on display!

New Portrait Quilt: Raspberry Swirl

This is my newest portrait quilt. I was inspired by a cool hair color I discovered on Pinterest. I saved the photo and for the first time I used Microsoft Photoshop and posterized the image to separate the colors and values. I was playing around with Photoshop and thought I would see if it would help me out and save time. It did and I would use this feature again. I was also inspired by the color purple after Prince's passing and wanted to use it in the quilt. I used all but one fabric from the same line from Keep Me In Stitches in Appleton WI in the background. It is a tiny white square with different colored backgrounds-it looks like polka dots from a distance. 

 
This is a detailed view of the face and some of the hair. I went crazy with detail for this project. I had 7-8 pinks, magentas and purple batiks for the hair and 5-6 skin tone colors as well. I used many different colors of thread in the hair area to connect the applique pieces and give the appearance of strands of hair. The mouth gave me a problem-she looked as if she had an under bite. To fix this I took a purple fabric marker on the bottom lip and "canceled" the excess out. Then when I was machine quilting the upper lip I added a bit extra and it is to my satisfaction and balanced!

To create the swirly circular background I cut a piece of muslin as the foundation piece and fused the different colors in place keeping the area where the portrait will be fused open.

This is the finished quilt top only. I added the purple border to pick up more of the purple. I thought about a floral batik with the coordinating colors but it was too busy and took away from the portrait. I used it for the binding!

This is the finish quilt blocked and sewn with a sleeve and label. Could I be done? Yes but embellishments are so fun-it's like wearing a garment and not adding jewelry or hair accessories. It is acceptable but the jewelry or embellishments add that extra zing!!

This is detail view of the hair and the ear. Ears are hard to do because they always have lots of parts to get the realistic appearance. The finished quilt has a few large flower shaped sequins sewn to the outer border and one became an earring. I enhanced the eye with fabric paint. I used two hologram nail polishes in the swirly parts of the background to accentuate the movement of the background. I was influenced by Prince's song Raspberry Beret and used it in the title of this quilt called "Raspberry Swirl!" It sounds like a flavor of ice cream and that's okay too!! I will enter it in the Wisconsin Quilt Expo which has a June 30th deadline for a September show. Next on the list is my Prince quilt which will be interesting since I have never made a male portrait quilt!!

Art Quilts Around The World Facebook Group Challenge: Kitsch

 My Facebook art quilt group "Art Quilts Around The World" has it's current challenge reveal today. It was my turn to select the topic and I chose "Kitsch!" This group has a Facebook group page and a few of the members seemed to have trouble with this one!! I LOVE kitsch and discovered the actual word in 2005 when I bought a book called Kitschy Christmas. I have been doing kitschy dress and decorating for years but had no idea there was a name for it. Kitsch is a description of styling things with excess, tacky on purpose, a busyness of prints/objects or over cutesie. Examples of kitschy are cute kittens, troll dolls, garden gnomes or pink flamingos and over sequined/rhinestoned garments/jewelry/quilts. I love to push the limit in the way I dress and wear things a bit "off" the norm to test people. I put a small amount of kitsch in many of my projects so this was a fun and easy project for me!! On Facebook I found a page called Kitschy Living which provides lots of ideas and plenty of laughs!
 I love cat eye glasses and have a board of such on Pinterest. I found a pin of a pair of glasses with an excessive amount of flowers and rhinestones and knew this was my topic for this challenge. I also love large amounts of plastic fruit and have some beads in bright colors but could not finds them when I was making this project. I did find them recently and will use them in another project a la Carmen Miranda! I then selected a rainbow color scheme with a wavy stripe and a large polka dot for the dress. I have a rainbow trim that has a pull thread to rusch it which I added to the dress neckline. I chose red hair because it was the most garish-I combined curly and straight hair for more kitschyness and  added glitter nail polish for highlights. I found the fantastic flower beads at Joann Fabrics to complete the crazy glasses plus a rainbow of rhinestones in a variety of sizes. I quit adding embellishments and kept the emphasis on the glasses and the mix of prints.
This is a close up view of the background and dress fabrics and the rusched trim. I also used variegated thread.
The next theme is "Vision Board" due July 31, 2016. I have an idea based on a hair color I wish I had. Being a hairdresser I see lots of images of new and innovative hair color!

"Summer Flowers" Modern Quilt



I bought the book "Sister Sampler Quilts" by AnneMarie Chany with Christmas money. I had done one of AnneMarie's BOMs in 2015 using 9" blocks and I liked her designs and her instructions. This book has three BOMs and I chose to do the newest one called "Bonfire" in a 9" block. Her version had beige where I have the large floral and I thought that was way too boring so I selected the large floral and added the five recommented number of colors to make the quilt-red, peach/orange, yellow, grass green and turquiose. It now reminds me of summer flowers! It is a BOM which then displayed completed blocks on Instagram (which I'm not on) and on the Gen X Quilters Facebook page. I got to April's block and decided to just make the quilt!
The outside half square triangles, both piecing and quilting them, were rather boring but the blocks were a lot of fun. I hadn't sewed much with curved piecing or string piecing in a long time and both styles add to the quilt. It is machine quilted on my regular sewing machine with white, red and variegated thread.
 
 These are a few of my favorite blocks in which we made two of the same block but in different colorways.
 Some of the curved piecing.
String piecing using a rainbow color layout and it was a great idea using random strips!
I am now going to devote the next several quilt projects to ONLY portrait quilts. I have a few ideas drawn up and I am inspired to do a Prince portrait quilt. I have purchased the "unofficial" Purple Rain fabric from Cherrywood Hand Dyed Fabrics, from Minnesota, for that project. I am playing around with photo manipulation to posterize and pixel pictures for a different technique. I'm never bored.....!

May 1994: A Blast From The Past

I was pulling quilts for an upcoming quilt guild lecture next week for a Portrait Quilt Trunk Show. I like to show a few of my first portrait quilts to explain to people that if the desire is there and the willingness to learn the technical and artistic aspects of portrait quilts anyone can do it. My first few attempts were not show stoppers!
In the early 1990s I wanted to make portrait quilts. I knew how to draw and I figured out with tissue paper to make the applique pieces. But there were a few setbacks. I needed to learn how to piece, cut with a rotary cutter, sandwich the quilt and quilt it, add a binding and then I only had hand applique. I wanted to put pictures/motifs on a background but I only knew about hand applique. 
This quilt is an example of my hand applique experience. The quilt is from May 1994 and is a "selfie" of myself and my daughter Jordana just before she was 8 years old. I actually was smart enough to put a quilt label on the back and I called it "Mother and Daughter." This is bittersweet since we just celebrated Mother's Day! It also has my old rotary phone number which I had forgotten!!
I didn't enjoy hand applique at all! I quit making portrait quilts and made traditional pieced quilts which taught me the technical ropes. In 2005 I had nearly given up on quilting because of traditional quilt boredom and unaware of the Internet's potential. I was in a local bead shop in Appleton Wisconsin when I ran into a quilter friend who was now embracing art quilts. She told me about fusible web and how I iron motifs to a background to create a picture. I was elated and made my first raw edged fused portrait quilt in late 2005 and haven't stopped since. I buy Wonder Under by the bolt now!!
Back to the quilt in the photo. I see some similarities to how I proceed now. Portrait quilts, scrappy fabric choices, radiating quilting lines from the back of the portrait, the curves lines in the neck and shoulder area, the shape of the nose, the bright colors, a label on the back and a hanging sleeve.
What is new and improved in 26 years-I machine quilt and I quilt heavily, I do not embroider the facial features but raw edge fuse applique them. I block my quilts for a better shape. I square up everything at every step so the end result is square. My bindings are narrower, the corners sharper and there is no space in the binding that the judges dislike. Even though a judge's comments can hurt one's feelings it is for the best to technically improve! I use batiks as much as possible and, in general, the fabrics available to us currently are so much greater than 26 years ago!!
I would have placed the colorful blocks on the bottom of the quilt and added more of them for visual balance but it is still a nice sentimental quilt. I also would have had less background/negative space and more fussy cut butterflies. And I learned to add embellishments to my quilts if they are hanging on the wall.
This project was my first attempt at the Hoffman Challenge! It did not make the cut (I see why now!) and I didn't enter again until 2010 which did make the cut. I have had five quilts in the Hoffman Challenge since 2010 and 2016s is made and has been submitted for judging.
It's fun to look at old quilts to see where we were artistically and technically and how our supplies have changed and advanced to make better quilts.
I hope you have some oldie but goodie quilts or if you are a new quilter to save you projects and label them with at least a date!!

"Half Pint": Little House On The Prairie Quilt Along Project

I discovered Downton Abbey on PBS last fall then discovered Andover Fabrics Downton Abbey themed fabric and Ebony Love (a quilt pattern designer)had done several Quilt Alongs using their fabrics. Andover Fabrics, in late 2015, designed a line of fabric replicating the fabrics from the TV Show Little House on the Prairie and Ebony was ready with a new quilt along. It began in early January 2016 and each WEEK participants would receive a part of the quilt mystery. The fabric styles were divided into two families called "Dear Ma" (reds/browns) and "Dear Pa" (blues/light pink) or you could use your own fabrics. I purchased the "Dear Ma" collection from www.fabrics.com using my birthday $$. It was intense doing so much each week but it was winter and quilting and sewing is what I do! Ebony provided two outer border options-complicated with triangles or simple with basic three borders. Her finished size was 96" square which I knew was too big for my liking. I used 4" squares of all the fabrics but the cream (my least favorite of the bunch) and made a pieced border. I used the red print on the ends to balance the other end blocks. It was a happy accident the yellow squares in the outer border lined up with the yellow in the quilt! My finished quilt is 82" square. I really love the square layouts of Ebony's quilt along patterns and plan to start another one in June using my own fabrics in pinks. purples and whites. The purple was a choice before Prince died and now I'm a bit obsessed with purple.      
 This was the largest quilt I have ever quilted. I thought about sending it to a long arm quilter but I really don't like the all over stipple quilt look. I like to stitch in the ditch, cross hatch through squares and echo stitch. It took me two week to quilt it between my job and other responsibilities. I used only cream colored thread. The binding is red because it was my favorite color in the Dear Ma collection! It is a very heavy quilt.
Ebony gave everyone fabric requirements. I did not do the fancy triangle border and had lots of fabric left which I sewed together for the backing which I have never done before.
The quilt is so huge the only place to display the quilt is on my clothesline. It has been terribly windy so I couldn't take a photo until today.
I call it "Half Pint" because that was Pa's nickname for Laura Ingalls on the TV show and it is a favorite memory for me because my daughter and I used to watch the show all the time. 

Let's Color Bella!! Markers or Pencils??


I have always loved to color and now it is cool for adults to have their own coloring books. Someone decided grown ups coloring in pictures was relaxing and a distraction from the real world or a problem. Everywhere I go I can purchase adult coloring books. My iPhone has several apps to color pictures-even for free!! When I was returning home last November from the IQF Houston Quilt Show my flight was canceled and I spent more time than I would have wished in the airport. My coloring app saved my mental state of mind and I made some pretty pictures. 
I decided to adapt my Bella pattern to a coloring book page. The first photo is colored in with Sharpie pens. I had no beiges and browns for skin tones so Bella is very pale!
In the second photo I used colored pencils which gave me more variety but less coverage. I had fun!! I am asking your opinion about my coloring page. Should I do more of this and adapt some of my other patterns as well? If I sold these as single pages what would you pay per page-$.50 or $1.00 or other? Thanks for the input!    
   


Art Quilts Around The World Facebook Group: Folklore Challenge

My Facebook art quilt group "Art Quilts Around The World" has reveal day today. The theme is Folklore. I googled options and fairies and mermaids were common themes but I have done those in quilts before. I found the legend of Madre Monte (Mother Mountain) which is from Columbia to be interesting. The folklore story is about a woman who wears moss and leaves and a green hat that conceals her face. She lives in dense jungles and supposedly bathes in rivers causing flooding and heavy storms. She haunts those who steal other people's land and cast plagues on cattle owners who steal or misuse fields or ignore boundaries. She puts spells on people in the jungle when they walk and they eventually fall asleep with exhaustion and do not wake for hours.
 I saw this woman as a earth mother type with all green skin and hair. I used one of my other portrait patterns and made it smaller to the required size. I reduced the size of her Afro as well. I chose 4-5 green for her skin tones and a tie dyed ruffly heavily textured fabric for her Afro hair. I envisioned lots of hair texture and viney stuff by using lots of textured yarns which I machine and hand couched to the quilt.

From my embellishment stash I pulled anything with a green leaf-silk and felt leaves; leaf and flower buttons; sequins, beads and even foam leaves. I found a great metallic special occasion fabric for the dress and used two green glitter nail polishes on the eyes. I stitched the turquoise background with a leave themed specialty stitch with a variegated thread to repeat the nature theme.
 This photo shows a close up of the hair and all the funky fuzzy yarns I used to capture the jungle vines in her hair! I had a blast with this challenge once I found an idea and will use this quilt for Earth Day and other seasonal related quilt themes.
This was the original pattern that I adapted for the Folklore that I used for my 2014 Hoffman Challenge quilt. It looks different with green skin instead of brown.

The next challenge for this group I get to select and I chose "Kitschy!!!" Kitschy is defined as pleasingly distasteful, melodramatic, overdone, gaudy, tacky, sentimental, folksy, cutesy fun or hideously ugly. It is so bad it's cool! I discovered the word Kitschy in 2005 and I was thrilled there was a name for the style I embraced! I wear kitschy jewelry, have garden art and add something kitschy to many of my quilts.

I discovered some terrible gaudy cat eye glasses on Pinterest and will run with this idea for this challenge due May 31, 2016

New Open Studio Samples of Selfie Quilts for IQF Chicago in April

I decided to not teach at the IQF Chicago Quilt Show April 7-9, 2016 but chose to attend the show and when the Houston Educational Department asked me to participate in Open Studio I said "yes." I am doing two demos-the first one on Friday April 8th from 4-6pm and I titled the subject as Selfie Portrait Quilt which is my whimsical first pattern re-marketed. I created two new sample quilts with some clothes instead of shoulder straps and expanded on eyeglasses with my favorite frame shape of cat eye!! I also love the Rosie The Riveter style 40s head scarves so that is new. I love polka dots and red/pink together so it was a fun project!!
Then I've been wanting to do a Packer themed version of this pattern for a while so I pulled some green and gold fabric and designed a football jersey and a cheesehead. Should the cheesehead point up or down? I had it both ways and went with "up."

Both quilts have nail polish for eye make-up and on the hair. Rhinestones are added to the cat eye glasses and the Packer girl got a necklace and background bling!

I plan to make a few more accessories before the quilt show such as a steampunk hat!

The other demo is called Fun and Funky Fabric Postcards on Saturday April 9th from 10am-12noon. I did this demo at Houston last October and will blog about this if I have some new cards to display. 

I hope you will be attending the show in April because it is fantastic because of the classes, loads of quilt displayed and vendors galore!! Stop by at my demos and introduce yourself!!

My Quilt Is Featured In The April/May 2016 Quilters Newsletter Magazine!! Woo Hoo!

 I had seen a call for red themed quilts a while ago in 2015 from Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) because they were compiling quilts for a Go Red For Women Campaign. They put a lot of the quilts on their Pinterest board if you want to see many more red quilts. I found out my quilt "Beauty School Flashback" was selected to be in the April/May 2016 issue back last fall. It is difficult to wait and not tell anyone what is going on. I do not subscribe to this magazine and today I tried without success to purchase the magazine. I was bummed but then I check my mail today and I had a complimentary copy of Quilters Newsletter!! Sorry my photography isn't the greatest but the glossy paper tends to create a huge reflection.
 I have to say my quilt got an excellent position in the magazine layout and another photo of the detail of the lady's face. I made the quilt in 2010 for Joann Fabrics "Quilt Your Colors" Contest using only their fabrics (not easy when you want to use quilt shop fabrics!!) I came in 4th place nationally and was fortunate to win some prizes. Joann's never really promoted the end result of the contest and they never did the contest again. I blogged about this quilt back in the day so I'm not going to go into the construction of the quilt. It sure is a great felling to have my portrait quilt work in print!!
This is the cover in case you want to purchase it!

Art Quilts Around the World Facebook Group: Book Challenge

 My Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around The World has a challenge reveal today and the subject is a favorite book. I thought about the many great favorite novels I have read and nothing jumped into my head that I would want a quilt made out of and the time spent making the project. I was looking at my quilt books for something unrelated and I saw my favorite quilt book "Pattern Play" by Doreen Speckmann and decided to use it as my inspiration for this challenge. Doreen was a quilter from Madison WI and I was a new quilter in the 1990s when I first saw her speak at the Darting Needles Quilt Guild in Appleton WI. She inspired me like no other quilter at the time because she used a variety of prints in each quilt and that is what I wanted to do and she gave me permission! She had a great sense of humor and she created characters called Peaky and Spike out of two triangles in her quilts.
Doreen's book was a book I used exclusively in the 90s and early 2000s. I saw her lecture and took a few of her classes. I made over a dozen lap and wall hangings based on the patterns in this book. At the time Doreen used templates but I have switched it up and use foundation piecing to have more accuracy these days. Doreen used to do quilting cruises and dance the Electric Slide at these events. On a cruise in 1998 Doreen died of a heart attack on the dance floor and the quilt world lost a great creative woman.

I created a version of Doreen's Peaky and Spike style piecing for this project using some of my favorite colors. I used a rayon variegated thread I bought in Houston and my new sewing machine's decorative stitches in the borders. It is not an art quilt but more traditional but it represents the challenge theme. I added the cute little button to keep with MY theme of having a portrait quilt!



This is the inner cover of Doreen's book where she autographed it and I love it to this day. RIP Doreen Speckmann!! The next challenge due March 31st is "Folklore" which will be a challenge for sure. I get to choose the challenge after that and I have it selected so be prepared!!