What kind of yarn am I?

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Shetland Wool. You are a traditional sort who can sometimes be a little on the harsh side. Though you look delicate you are tough as nails and prone to intricacies. Despite your acerbic ways you are widely respected and even revered.
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Out here in pumpkin land

Where I live, pumpkins rule. Every fall there is a huge Pumpkin Festival. It is fun to see the bright orange orbs appearing in fields all around town. Yesterday we went to Farmer John's, because he has the weirdest pumpkins and squash--his wife imports seeds from all over the world. Here's a picture I shot of his field (yes, there is a teepee in the background.)

Second Ft. Mason

Okay, the first picture is NOT Ft. Mason. It is an old appliqued baby quilt top that I bought at an antique store in Social Circle, near Atlanta. (Yes, there is really a town called Social Circle, it's very cute.) Many years ago, I bought one similar to this at a garage sale in Los Angeles. The applique was almost done, so I hand quilted the top. I was thinking I might do the same thing with this one, but it's too stained...so I will donate it to an auction. (It only cost $15.)

The second picture is a smaller version of the first photo quilt I made, which is shown way back in the beginning of this blog. This new one is smaller, and printed on smooth cotton fabric instead of textured polyester.

My pirate name

My pirate name is:

Captain Mary Vane

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
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Hawaiian scrap quilts

When we were in Hawaii earlier this summer, I bought a package of scraps at a fabric store. They came in handy when I needed a backing for the small Camperdown Elm quilts I posted a few days ago (bottom photo). And I also got the urge to stitch some of them into this small quilt top (top photo). Not sure what I will do with it--nobody I know is having babies. It may be donated to the SFQG auction in November.

Reflections on a quilt show

The photo for this unquilted top was taken at the San Francisco Quilters Guild show in 2005. I was sitting on the patio, turned around and saw the reflections in the window. The vertical red and blue design you can see repeated are some banners that were already in the building, but there is a quilt visible, it's darker so may not show up in this picture well. My daughter already did a watercolor painting from this photo, so it has been very useful!

Camperdown Elm

This is the unquilted top for the big Camperdown Elm quilt. The blended border fabric is something I picked up in Atlanta, the perfect greens for this quilt. I will not use basting spray anymore--it gets all over my sewing room (my new ruler needs to be cleaned already). But I'm liking iron-on fleece instead of batting.

Games People Play

A Quiltnet member asked me to print a piece of fabric for her to make a bag that her parents can keep their Scrabble pieces in. I shot a photo of my scrabble board, and this reminded me that the San Francisco Quilters Guild is having a challenge for our next quilt show, and the theme is "Games People Play." So I quickly set up the Scrabble board, this time with more words on it (I got the words from a watercolor painting I saw at the recent Sausalito Art Festival). It's about 20 inches square.


The two smaller quilts are each 12 inches square: the quilt with color dots on the edges is mine, the other one will be donated to the SAQA auction at the annual meeting in 2007. These are made from the same picture of the Camperdown Elm, a cool tree at Filoli Gardens. I accidentally printed two sheets of fabric the wrong size for the Camperdown quilt I am making (photo coming soon!) so I was happy to find a way to use them in these small quilts. I just cut both pictures in half and reunited the halves (two bottoms and two tops). Interesting, huh?

One more photo quilt

Almost forgot to post this one--It's a plant that I saw at Huntington Gardens in Los Angeles when I visited there earlier this year. This place is wonderful, a gorgeous museum, library with really old books, and acres of gorgeous gardens. (www.huntington.org)

Lots o' fotos

I finished up several small photo quilts just before I went on vacation, but didn't have time to post them. So here goes: "Filoli Trellis" (white flowers, brick wall) has some machine stitching to emphasize the shapes of the vines as they didn't stand out enough when printed. I did this before it was quilted. "Frank's Garden" (pink, green, and white) is a photo my cousin sent to me of a vine in his back yard. "Eucalyptus" is a shot I took at the Inn at Squaw Creek when I was attending Art Quilt Tahoe there last year. And "Hawaiian Flowers" is the photo I posted earlier of a picture I took at the zoo in Waikiki. These are all small--each print is about 8 x 10 after it is sewn. "Hawaiian Flowers" has only four prints, the others have more.

Rob Holland's bathroom

Many years ago, I went to Atlanta and met some quilters there. One of them, Rob Holland, posted a story about me on his web site. It is still there (www.planetpatchwork.com/salume.htm). I met him for lunch on my recent trip to Atlanta, and before I left, took this shot of his bathroom. I have no idea why the tub is filled with beads--you'll have to ask him that!

Too much traveling

Sorry it's been so long--I have been doing a lot of traveling. First to Atlanta, then to Napa. But I am home now, at least for awhile. This is a professional photo of my Ft Mason quilt which was taken by Luke Mulks, who did a fine job. He works for C&T Publishing, which prints a lot of quilt books, so he has lots of experience and very reasonable rates. You can contact him by email at luke@lm-digital.com. I'll post more pictures after I get them off my digital camera.

Mom and daughter watercolors

Two new art works for your viewing pleasure today--the shark picture is by my daughter, Jemma (you can see more of her work on our joint web site, www.salume.org). This piece is now hanging in the Foster City Community Center show. It's not a very new painting, but it sure looks cute in the show.

The leaf picture is the one I showed you recently "in progress"--I finished it this weekend. It's a large one, about 30 inches by 40 inches. After I painted the entire thing, I had to paint over the background areas with a light purple glaze to give it more depth. That took awhile!

Painting in progress

I went to a painting workshop in Sonoma last weekend, and decided to start a new, smaller painting as the huge leaf painting is just too large to lug around. Here is a picture of it "in progress"--you can see that it's like filling in the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I do small areas at a time, and try to at least get enough painted so I can concentrate on the shapes, not just the outlines.

Two Roses

Before I got into my "dried leaves" painting series, I did a lot of flowers and shells, on white and spattered backgrounds. This is one of the spattered backgrounds. I drew the roses from life, instead of taking a photo first like I do now. This meant I had to paint it in one session before the roses wilted.

New work

Now you can see a large watercolor "in progress"--I took a photo of these leaves on the ground at the Honolulu Zoo. Enlarged them on my computer and then transferred the design using Saral paper (it's like carbon paper--you put it on top of the blank paper, put the photocopy on top, and trace the shapes.)

The little photo quilt is boxes of flowers I saw on a tour of Oku nursery in Pescadero a couple of years ago. I was amazed at the bright colors all lined up so neatly, ready to be shipped. (www.hmbreview.com/articles/2005/07/13/community/community_news/story2.txt). This year's tour is July 15, you can choose which nurseries and farms you want to see. Info at (www.wliinc2.com/cgi/foxweb.dll/wlx/cal/wlxprofile?caleid=1473&cc=HMBCVB.)

Hawaii rocks!

This flower picture (taken at the Waikiki Zoo) will definitely end up in a photo quilt, as soon as my order arrives from Color Textiles. I have used up my first 30 sheets of their cotton sheeting fabric already.

Our trip to Hawaii was fun, although sadly, I lost my precious journal. Maybe it will be returned, as my address was in it. I got some great photos and nearly finished a new watercolor painting. Also tried ocean snorkeling for the first time, I could get good at it if I lived somewhere that has warm water (the ocean near my house is freezing cold, the surfers wear wet suits).

Newspaper publicity

I was just reading the paper and suddenly realized the quilt in this article (also online at www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_3939680) looked very familiar--it is one of the pieces in the Half Moon Bay show! I sent the photo and some info about the show to the columnist about a month ago. She did not call me, but it looks like she either saw the article in the Half Moon Bay Review this week, or read my web site. Maybe both. Anyway, the quilt is not mine but I am mentioned in the article.

Just finished another painting

You are seeing this painting just minutes after I finished it. My son took the photo of the camellia at Huntington Gardens in Pasadena after my camera battery died. This is the second painting I've done from pictures he shot that day. This is painted on 20 x 24 inch paper, just to give you an idea of the size.

I also got the Ft. Mason top back from the quilter, so I just need to trim it out and add the binding. The woman who machine quilted it was worried the unusual fabric (a nubby polyester) might be difficult to work on, but she had no problems. I think it will be worth paying for a professional photo of that one, since it is quite large (60 inches square).

The quilt show is up

I spent a couple of hours today, helping install a show of work by the California Fiber Artists, a group I have mentioned before in this blog. The local paper has already done an article about this show, the link is:

http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2006/06/07/community/community_news/story4.txt

The picture is my quilt, "Adam and Eve," which I made just for this show. The theme is "Naked Truth: Fiber Transformations," so I printed two Rubens drawings from the web onto fabric and designed the quilt around them.

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

Farmer John's flowers

This is my latest quilt, I photographed the flower at Farmer John's field in Half Moon Bay on a tour last year. The flower was cut and standing in a vase on a table--I thought it was more interesting to see just one huge flower, instead of a whole field of them.

This past weekend, I demonstrated watercolor painting at the Foster City Art and Wine Festival. The Peninsula Quilters Guild also had a show at the community center there. It was lots of fun, painting and chatting--I could do that every weekend.

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.