Asilomar projects finished

I'll be gone for a little while on vacation--so I'll leave you with this lovely sunset shot taken at Asilomar when I attended the Stitches Camp there in April. The other pictures are zippered purses that I made there using my class samples. I brought feltable wool (noro) and made my samples from that, so later on I could felt them and make these purses. Talk about planning ahead! Sometimes I amaze myself. There are two purses, not four. But since each side is different, I photographed both sides. These are very handy for carrying knitting accessories like scissors, etc.

Margie's Basket

My friend Margie (click on her blog link in my "Friends who Blog" list, lower right) made this lovely felted basket for me last year. It is knitted in some ingenious slip-stitch pattern so it looks like it is woven, but it's not. Then she threw it in the washing machine and felted it. Isn't it cute?

Afghans for Afghans

This weekend, I made a baby hat and socks to donate to Afghans for Afghans (www.afghansforafghans.org). This organization is based in San Francisco and sends wool hand knitted items to Afghanistan, mostly for children. I found the two patterns via links on their site. The hat pattern is on a site called Fiona's Friends (http://www.needlebeetle.com/fionasfriends/free/lphat.html). It calls for Lambs Pride worsted weight yarn, but I used some Jo Sharp wool from my stash. The sock pattern is from http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/free_patterns/sock-pattern,php. It calls for North Country Cotton, but I used the same wool yarn as the cap.

What is an art quilt?

If you take a look at the art quilts that I post in this blog and on my web site (www.salume.org), then you are familiar with at least a couple types of art quilts. And you already know more about art quilts than most other people.

But if you'd like to know more, then you can also read up on the history of art quilting. This article was written by Robert Shaw, who has also written one of the most complete books about this topic:

http://www.saqa.com/news/history_Shaw.aspx

The Studio Arts Quilt Association is dedicated to expanding awareness about art quilts around the world. You can learn about the organization's origins here:

SAQA history:
http://www.saqa.com/aboutus//history.aspx

Butterfly Bricks and Mystery Stole

Okay, the Butterfly Bricks quilt is a shot I took in Houston, Texas last November when I went to the big quilt show there. I took a bus tour to a grand estate that was owned by Ima Hogg. The gardens are probably lovely in the summer but they don't have many flowers in November. There is a small flower bed in the shape of a butterfly, with the sections outlined in brick--this is a small portion of it. I quickly made the quilt, but then realized the gray tones were a bit boring. So recently, I overpainted the bricks with irridescent watercolor paint in an orange tint. I think it helps...it is just very slightly shiny.

The other picture is my Mystery Stole, I just finished Clue 3 today! I am using an overdyed perle cotton thread. The stole starts with a point, so I can assume it will end with a point--but until all the clues are published, who knows???

Myself, a few years ago

This photo was taken many years ago by my first husband, who was an excellent photographer. He had a way of printing the pictures that made all the shadow areas go completely black--I was not actually posing in a dark room. Yes, that's me! This piece is being framed right now, it is quite small--the entire quilt is only about 16 inches by 20 inches. I did something new--I covered the pieced photos with a layer of hand dyed silk mesh fabric that I bought at the SFQG quilt show in Feb. just for this quilt. The silk has some variations of color (mostly red) that you can see in this picture--the photos underneath are more evenly black.

Flowers in the urinals, oh my!

At the San Francisco Flower Show earlier this year, I walked into the bathroom and found bright pots of chrysanthemums in the urinals! Yes, they had turned the bathroom from a Men's room into a Ladies because there were so many women at the show. I had never seen such a lovely sight.

Fabric Books

These are a few fabric books I made. The largest was also the first--I cut a failed watercolor painting into strips, then wove those together with fabric and sewed it all on the machine. For the inside pages, I fused various bits and pieces of fabric together, and fastened it with a fimo clay button that I purchased a couple of years ago.

The two smallest books are made with spin art. I saved a few of the pieces my kids made when they were younger.