Dyeing...

...as opposed to the alternative spelling.

I spent all day yesterday in the ER with my DH (nothing life threatening, thank goodness! Just a 4mm kidney stone...ugh). And after fighting two weeks worth of my allergies turning into cold turning into bronchitis I finally dragged my own self to the doctor today.

I hate being sick.

This is my way of fighting back...

I'll post the results in a day or two...once the antibiotic has kicked in... :)

SOLD!

I just found out that my piece "Jelly Ball" has sold! It was hanging at Associated Artists in Winston-Salem, NC ...a great place to shop, BTW :-)

Scroll down the page and have a look. It is in the right side bar.

What a fabulously good bit of news to start my day. I'm going to grab a cup of coffee and float on cloud nine for a few minutes...then it's back to work!

September Classes

I'm going to be teaching at Karen Gray Design in September! Her shop is located in Reynolda Village in Winston-Salem. I was one of her first customers (click on that link...isn't her shop GORGEOUS!?) and I'm excited that she is starting to offer classes there.

My classes will include Fun Fusing, Bowled Over (fabric bowl), and Fabric Journal. More information is available on her blog.

I hope you will join me for one - or all - of these fun classes. Remember, Christmas/Hanukkah/ Kwanzaa will all be here before you know it. It's never too soon to start thinking about creating special, one-of-a-kind gifts for everyone on your list!

Also, I am very thrilled to have been asked to teach at the fall meeting of North Carolina Quilters on September 18 and 19 at the Haw River State Park Conference Center in Brown Summit, NC. We will be rust dyeing on Friday, and I have designed "Falling Leaves", a fall table runner, for this event which I will teach on Saturday. Come join the fun!

Art Now 2009

This is the piece I have created for this year's Art Now for Autism fundraising event. It is 8 x 9.5" and incorporates paint stamped puzzle prints, teeny wonky strip piecing, commercial batik, printed text on fabric, FMQ, and a hand painted and gloss varnished puzzle piece using Lumiere paint, sewn on with hand dyed floss.

I knew I wanted to incorporate the puzzle pieces in some way, but otherwise I just set about creating. I love when a piece comes together without much preconceived notion of how it will finish.

This year seems to have been an especially trying one for my friend whose son has Aspergers. He will be starting 6th grade in a few weeks...middle school. The time in life where friends start to move in new directions, some going to this school, some going to that, some going to others. My friend worries about how her son will adjust...that's a big transition for any kid, where they leave the security and familiarity of elementary school, the place of friendships nurtured since preschool, and seek to find their way in a whole new realm. Where will he fit in?

I thought about that for a long time...it's like a puzzle. Where do all the pieces fit? Is there a place for all of them?

Think about the hardest puzzle you have ever done. It takes time to sort it all out and to begin to put the first pieces together. Some of the pieces look exactly the same...some look like they couldn't possibly belong. Yet, the picture cannot be completed without all of them. And usually the most unique ones are the ones everyone wants to find. At our house there's always a race to find them and to be the one who gets to put the last piece in place.

So this year's creation gives voice to my reflections. The size is a little off "standard"...the strip piecing goes this way and that...the puzzles pieces are scattered and there's no telling yet where they fit. But in the end it all comes together.

And I know him...he will find his place too.

:-)

Be sure to click on the Art Now link above, or scroll down the blog until you see the Art Now logo in the right hand column. There's still time to contribute if you want to help out, and it's not just for fiber art! Also, hop over to Colorful Art Girl's blog for a fantastic giveaway celebrating this event!

Unexpected Gifts

If you know me, or have been visiting here for a while, you know that I have a thing for butterflies, particularly Monarchs. Well, last year I also had Swallowtail caterpillars visit my parsley, so I decided we'd put one in the bug box and watch it do its thing. Within a couple of days it had gone into the chrysalis stage and we expected to see it come out a few weeks later, just as the Monarchs do. But we waited... and waited...and waited, and it didn't happen. I figured that something had gone wrong, and I really intended to clean out the box, but somewhere in the chaos of life the box got pushed into a corner and lost behind some other stuff.

A couple of weeks ago I came across the box and thought "Ugh! I never cleaned that out!" but again, something else got my attention and I didn't do it. Imagine my surprise a few hours later when I went back to the task and found THIS!

We took it outside, hoping to take some close up shots as we took it out of the box, but it was ready to go and off it went. Pretty amazing.

Isn't that how life works sometimes? You're sure something is going to happen and you wait... anticipation fueling your excitement, only to feel disappointment when what you thought would happen seems destined to never be. But then, WOW! The unexpected happens and you realize that some things are just out of your hands, they happen when the time is right for them to be. The simplest things can teach us so much.

The other cool thing came to me one morning recently when I came into the kitchen WAY earlier than I had planned. The dogs wanted out, and they wanted out NOW...didn't matter that I was sleeping. But again, what an unexpected gift:

Rainbows on my table! If I had been even 10 minutes later I would have missed it.


I love surprises...

Traditional

A couple of weekends ago my "traditional" quilting buddies gathered for another one of our in-town day retreats. It is always a lot of fun! The last few times we've done this I've worked on art quilts, trying to meet deadlines for shows. This time I opted to work on my batik BOM blocks (from last year!) and this quilt will be for me! YAY! This same group goes on a couple of out-of-town weekend retreats a year and everyone brings a quilt from home to put on their bed. Other than the queen size quilt I sleep under - and I can't take that one...hubs would be left at home uncovered -the only other ones I have are the construction tractor quilts I made my boys when they were younger. Now, granted, I do love construction and all (ties to my day job) but I have felt a little silly with that on retreat! So, if I can keep working on this new one I will have something that is "me" to travel with. It looks a little muted in these pictures, but it is really BRIGHT!

Here's where I started the day...auditioning setting fabrics and cutting sashing...

And by the end of the day I had an almost completed top. I still need to add borders, which I'm still contemplating. Hopefully I won't take forever to decide....

These are 12" blocks and yes, there are only 11 in the quilt. I did do all 12, but I thought one of them just didn't fit with the rest. It has a future as a Christmas pillow. :-) I have to give a shout out to my friend who helped me do the math on the setting triangles to keep the bias in the right place. Thanks Lisa!!

Honored

It was thrilling enough just to have been juried in...now this (scroll down the page on the link, you'll see what I mean). I'm speechless!

:-)