Beatrix Potter

Did you know that Beatrix Potter was not just a children's book illustrator? She also was an excellent botanical artist--these are two small samples of her work. I just ordered several books about her art and life: "Miss Potter," "A Victorian Naturalist," and "Beatrix Potter: A life in Nature". (The last two books are not available through Amazon--I found them at Abebooks.com.) The DVD of "Miss Potter" (movie) is coming out later this month--I did not see it in the theatre, so I will definitely be renting it.

Landscaping Completed

We recently relandscaped our front yard--added a stone patio, got rid of the lawn, planted lots of flowers. The red pots are for growing herbs.

A teaser cat

This is just one block from a quilt I'm working on--I am using a commercial pattern but changing it a bit. There are nine cats all on the same brown plaid background, which is a Japanese fabric. Originally, the idea was to use some of my vast stash of Japanese fabric, but of course I have barely made a dent. Next step is cutting sashing and sewing together the blocks. It's not a bed-size quilt, although I can add some borders to make it a bit larger.

Patchwork book

I've been on an email list for quilters for many years, it's called Quiltnet. One of the members, Becky Sunderman, contributed some "ways to hide your stash" to this book, available through Amazon. Becky says that 66 other people contributed stories, also. I haven't seen it yet but it sounds like a fun read.



This is my favorite book right now--it has some great advice about living in Paris. Although it is for writers, I just pretend it is for artists, the same advice applies. Very inspirational and extremely well-written.

Socks, socks, and more socks

Here's the real reason I haven't posted a lot of quilts and paintings--I have been busy knitting. These socks are patterns from the Six Sox Knitalong, a yahoo group. I had to make the pink socks because the pattern is called April in Paris and they have tiny Eiffel Towers on them when you turn them wrong side out. (They are actually knitted wrong side out.) The second pair is in progress, I just started them yesterday because they are called Horcrux socks and I know my Harry Potter geek daughter will want a pair. Also, this weekend I spent a couple of hours organizing my yarn stash and I really have to make a lot more socks...

Drawing the Landscape

At the garden show last weekend, I met a very nice artist, Chip Sullivan, who has published a book about drawing landscapes. I looked at every book vendor's stall at the show, but couldn't find it. (It's available at Amazon, though). Chip has a funny "cartoon" business card, and he drew a little sketch of his garden booth in my journal! His wife, Elizabeth Boults, is a landscape architect.

While I was standing there, another person attending the show came up and told Chip that his book had inspired him to draw several years ago, and he showed us his sketchbook. Of course, I had to show off my journal, too. Chip has a web site: http://www.gonzogardens.com/

The other person I talked to a lot, LeaAyne Wilmot, was knitting a very interesting sock, adapted from a design by Blackberry Ridge. She was selling ceramic covers for switchplates, so of course I had to buy one for my bedroom wall. She doesn't have a web site but her email address is juneberry@plix.com. (JuneBerry is the name of their company).

It's not art but...

I went to the San Francisco Flower Show last weekend and saw many lovely things--but this was the most memorable. They had converted a men's room into a ladies restroom, and this is how they did it.

I'm starting a new, BIG watercolor tomorrow, so I'll finally have something really new to post. I am also working on a totally different quilt that actually came from a purchased pattern! So things are in the works...

My birthday

Your Birthdate: August 1

You are a natural born leader, even if those leadership talents haven't been developed yet. You have the power and self confidence to succeed in life, and your power grows daily. Besides power, you also have a great deal of creativity that enables you to innovate instead of fail. You are a visionary, seeing the big picture instead of all of the trivial little details. Your strength: Your supreme genius Your weakness: Your inappropriate sensitivity Your power color: Gold Your power symbol: Star Your power month: January

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

I met Alex Anderson

At the recent San Francisco Quilters Guild show last month, Alex Anderson was the guest of honor. I was lucky enough to venture to her display of quilts early in the morning when there was nobody else there. We chatted for awhile, and her husband snapped this picture of us.

The other shot is of my winning quilt, which is printed on fabric--I took the photo at our last quilt show, two years ago, so it seemed appropriate to enter it in this years' show. Our guild has the most beautiful, hand embroidered crazy quilt ribbons--it is always a thrill to win one of them.

Watercolor post cards

I scanned in two watercolor post cards together--they are actually separate cards, one with a sketch of the green knitted bag I recently felted, and the other with a sketch of some green ferns that I saw at Yerba Buena nursery in December.

The other picture is pink tulips next to a vase, I finished this watercolor painting today. The knitted shawl they are sitting on is one that I made about two years ago.

Blue sky ahead

I took this photo of tree branches in Hawaii last summer. The little seed pods and flowers that cling to the bare branches add a bit of color and detail. This little photo quilt is about 24 inches by 30 inches. The photos have been printed on fabric for awhile, but then we went to San Diego and other things were happening--so I let them sit until I got a notice about the next Members Show at the Coastal Arts League. I didn't have any new photo quilts to enter, so I whipped this one up in about three hours from start to finish!

Work in progress--upside down

I finished this painting yesterday. It's a vase I bought at the Kings Mountain Art Festival last summer, the artist carved fish into the clay so it almost looks like wood. I put some dried leaves into it and photographed it on top of a black and white plaid kitchen towel. In this picture, I have turned it upside down so I can work on the leaves--the reference photo above it is also upside down. Working this way is an excellent drawing technique as it tricks your brain, so it doesn't think of the shapes as "leaf" or "vase" but instead, sees them merely as shapes and colors.

One last camellia

This was really the most dramatic of the camellia pictures that my son shot for me at the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena. A shaft of sunlight came through the bushes and hit this fallen flower like a spotlight. Gorgeous.

Another stupid web quiz

You Are A Cypress Tree

You are strong, adaptable, and striving to be content. You're good at taking what life has to give - even if you don't like it. A passionate lover who can't be satisfied, you are quick tempered at times. You hate loneliness, want love and affection, and need to be needed. A bit of a live wire, you love to gain knowledge any cost... and you can be careless at times.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

Christmas Wreath

This Christmas wreath is my latest finished painting. The actual wreath that inspired me has artificial apples and berries mixed in with real twigs and pine cones, but I think they look real in the painting. It took about six hours to paint.

A series of squash

It's been awhile since I posted, but I have been busy painting! These are three that I completed, all the photos were taken at Farmer John's Pumpkin Farm in Half Moon Bay, a really fun place to visit during the Halloween/Thanksgiving season. The largest one, six pumpkins, is painted on watercolor board--it is illustration board with watercolor paper bonded to the surface (made by Crescent, I order it from Cheap Joe's online).

Therese May's class at Houston

Here you can see the small quilt blocks I made in Therese May's class at the Quilt Festival in Houston. She gave us the background squares of fabric, which are nine inches square. Then I cut out fish from another fabric she provided, and fused them on along with some wiggly yellow pieces that look vaguely like seaweed.

Then the fun began--painting the heck out of it! I used squeeze bottles to paint edges around all the fused pieces, then a brush to dab spots of paint all over the squares. I think the paint really unifies them so it does not look like pieces of fabric stuck on top of a background. The closeup shows one fish square on a black background.

The link is to a fun knitting web site I just found! Check it out.



I also made four skull necklace blocks. These need outlining to bring out the necklace shapes--they are lost among all the paint dabs. This was tons of fun! Now, what do I do with seven fish and four skulls???

Here you go--two new photo quilts

Last night I printed and sewed together these two small quilts, one using the picture of the spiral bricks, the other using the blurry trees. I added thin borders of a graduated gray/black fabric. All ready for quilting! At the Houston show, I ordered a Handi Quilter "sit down" long arm machine--instead of long rails to hold the quilt, it is set into a table just like a regular sewing machine, except the machine is facing me instead of sideways. I hope to finish many more quilt tops using this new machine! But first, I have to move two bookshelves out of my sewing room to make space for it.

More Photo Quilts

I went to the big quilt show in Houston, took a lot more photos, and am now working on two more quilts. You can see the photos here. Look promising? The next blog will show you the finished quilts (I hope).

Living in Paris

Living in Paris

I have decided that my dream is to live in Paris someday. This book (click on the text link above to see it on Amazon) looks like a good one--I have already read several on this topic.

Also, my Yellow Leaves at Tahoe quilt will be published in a book next year by C&T Publishing! The title will be "Innovative Fabric Imagery." They held a contest and I sent three pictures, they chose the Yellow Leaves piece (an excellent choice.) I posted it earlier, but I'll save you the time of digging through my past blogs and show it here again.

A local gallery has agreed to take this quilt and a couple of others to see if this kind of work will sell. Since this one needs to go to C&T for photography, I am making another one to go in the gallery. The gallery owner wants me to "tone down" the borders, so I am remaking "Reflections" and "Ft. Mason," also--she liked my architectural images better than the flowers. Here's a link to the gallery web site: www.dayledunn.com.