Larger yellow leaves

Over the long weekend, I machine quilted the larger version of the Yellow Leaf quilt. The border has leaf quilting, the interior squares are quilted along the edges of the images with clear thread. This one was also basted with the spray, and it had the same problems. Maybe it's because my basting spray is several years old?

Foster City Quilt

I've been busy--this is the photo and the quilt that emerged after a brief visit to a park in Foster City two weeks ago. I took a nice angled shot of a piece of the pier, printed it a few times on fabric, and made this little quilt (about 25 inches by 30 inches). I also tried using fusible fleece instead of batting, and even spray basted the backing, so no pins or thread basting were required. It's machine quilted with invisible thread. Today my needle and the base of my machine have some grey sticky stuff on them, so I'm wondering if it was the basting spray migrating out through the needle holes--must do further research. The sticky stuff cleaned off with water and Windex, at least.

Yellow leaf photo quilt

Here's another photo and the resulting quilt (it's about 20 inches by 15 inches). These leaf prints were the ones that didn't come out too great because the toner cartridge was running out of ink--I am making a larger quilt using the same photos and better prints. I had to color in the black areas in this quilt to cover up the light grey lines made by the printer. But it came out just fine and I didn't have to waste even one piece of precious fabric from Color Textiles (www.colortextiles.com). I am using their white cotton sheeting, it is about the same weight as most quilting cottons.

Snails in the fish pond

This is the little quilt I sold this past weekend, it has some fabric I stamped with a snail shape on either side of the batik fish panel in the middle. I embroidered the fish panel, also. Usually I transfer photos from my camera to my computer by putting the camera's memory card into my printer. But it stopped working, so I just pulled out the cable that came with my camera and used it for the first time to transfer photos directly from the camera to my computer. There is always another way to do something...

Cute little things

These two shots are also inside my sewing room. The kitties are all made in Japan of the same kind of Japanese crape fabric that is used in my photo quilt. The wooden woman was made by my dad many years ago, and the wooden chain is a depression-era piece that has these words incised on it: "spit and argue club." I can just image a bunch of unemployed guys sitting around whittling and talking and chewing tobacco, spitting into a cuspidor in the corner...

The sewing bear is made of composite (plastic). If you lift him up, the top of the book he is sitting on comes off and inside is a little box where I can hide things. The round doll is also from Japan, she is made of paper and has a little bell inside.

Ft. Mason Piers

Here's the top, all sewn together although it still needs borders. I printed many copies of the photo on the polyester crape fabric. As you can see, the image is softer on fabric, it seems to grey down the colors, but I like the effect. The waves under the pier (next to black vertical shapes) almost look like sashiko stitching.

Starting a new quilt...

When I was at Ft. Mason, I took this photo of an old pier. Today I decided to try printing it on some Japanese crape ("chirimen") that I received for an invitational quilt show that will tour in Japan next year. By flipping the picture, the lines of the wooden piers line up and create an image that looks like "shibori" fabric (another Japanese textile technique). The pieces are pinned on my design wall now, when they are sewed together I'll post another picture.

I sold a quilt

I had a few visitors yesterday at Open Studios--and one of them bought this quilt! It is called Oak Leaves and I painted the fabric at Art Quilt Tahoe (www.artquilttahoe.com) last November in Gerry Chase's (www.artquilttahoe.com/gerrychase/index.htm) class. Then I tore it into squares, and designed this little quilt. This sale paid for my Open Studios fees plus a bit more, so I am very happy.

Kitty sisters!

I went to Ft. Mason in San Francisco yesterday to check out the SFMOMA artists sale (www.sfmoma.org/museumstore/artists_exhibitions.html). You can see how overcast and grey it was--that's the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.

These are our two orange cats--they are so similar, I call them "the kitty sisters." (I think they are actually cousins.) Their names are Honey and Ginger, but only my kids can tell which is which. We put this basket out on our front step when it was raining so much, and now they don't want to leave it even on a nice day. Aren't they sweet?

Japanese blossom quilt

My newest quilt, "Japanese Blossom," started with a block that I made using scraps leftover from other projects (it's in the middle of the quilt). It hung around my studio for several months until I finally finished it. This piece is about 20 inches by 30 inches, and has intensive machine quilting in a leafy pattern.

Open Studios this weekend!

I'm participating in Silicon Valley Open Studios for the next three weekends (may 6-7, 13-14, and 20-21) from 11 am to 5 pm each Saturday and Sunday. I'm #31 on the official map, you can find the maps and a picture of one of my quilts at www.svos.org. This quilt is a fairly new one--it is promised to a CFA exhibition in Huntsville, Alabama later this year, but it will be on display during Open Studios anyway. My studio is in my home, I hope you can come by and check it out. I am baking fresh cookies as an incentive :-)

Free e-mail newsletter about art

For awhile, I have been getting weekly emails about art from Robert Genn. These are free, you can sign up at http://www.painterskeys.com/.

He is an interesting writer and also includes comments from other artists. If you let me sign you up, I can get a free book--but you can go ahead and sign yourself up, too. I find it inspiring to get emails about art, not just about quilting. I used to enjoy the quiltart mailing list, but there were so many off-topic posts that I am unsubscribed at the moment. Seems like I spend enough time at the computer as it is, since I work at home there are many other things I could be doing than reading email.

The photos are from a garden tour I recently took in Palo Alto. The rocks and tree roots will become another watercolor painting. The metal statue was in a garden, I have seen work by this same artist (don't know his name) at Ft. Mason craft shows, but this is the first time I have seen his work in an actual garden.