Well, I'm still debating whether or not to put in a sheer ribbon border around the outside, but at least it's quilted!  I'm pretty happy with it, when all's said and done, and have entered it into the Quilts of Whimsy challenge at the Page-Walker Museum.  

Now I get to start my entry for the Porsche Parade Art Show - well, after I pack for a gig in Southern California, and take a quilting class on Saturday, I should be able to start.

C'est la vie.

Here, I've added shading onder the rock arch, painted, heated lutradur to the tops of the foaming wae, and melted painted cellophane to the leading edge of the water.  

I'm off to paint the little girl now.  Usually, I do the hardest part (people, animals, etc.) first to be sure I can do it, but I did it backwards this time.  Oh, well......

Hi!  My Waves and Waterfalls class is opening on February 21st at www.academyofquilting.com, so just thought I'd put a waterfall up, even though that one is all done, already.  

So, putting them all together, here's the scene I'm working on.  The kite will be a bit smaller, the girl's eyes won't be so distinct, and I've changed the beach bag to a pail and shovel.

So far, I've painted the sky, Puff Painted and painted the arch, made and painted the sand, and am working on the ocean.

Hope to post pictures of them after work!

Happy New Year!  I'm starting a new adventure this year, since QuiltUniversity.com is no more; I'm now doing my online teaching at www.AcademyofQuilting.com, and have been busy editing classes and making some new short videos to put in the classes.  So, far, this is the schedule:

Elements in Fabric - 10 Jan and 16 May 
Winter Wonderland - 24 Jan 
Waves and Waterfalls - 21 Feb and 30 May 
Filament Fantasy - 7 Mar and 4 July 
People in Places -11 Apr 
Mermaid Lagoon Jacket - 2 May 

Below this blog is a picture of one of the projects in the Waves and Waterfalls class (the orange tree with dark background), and here is the project for the Winter Wonderland class.  Start your new year right by learning something fun and new!

Well, it turns out my brother, John, is the person I have for our family gift exchange.  He said he wanted a wallhanging made of an old picture of him on a rock, any size, for his present.  Sheesh!  these presents are supposed to be a maximum of $20!  What does he think I am, a photographer?  Maybe a photographer would charge $20,  a quilter would charge at least $200, right? Anyway, he is my brother, so I did check out the photo (see left).  The figure is fairly clear, and I think the background is woodsy, but since the whole thing is in sepia tones, I have no idea what season it is.  By the way, he looks pretty good there, eh?  Too bad he's put on some weight since then.  

So, the next step is to paint John's face, hands, and arms.  If they look like a recognizable human being, then I'll finish the quilt.  If not, not.  So, you still don't know if you're getting a sweatshirt or a quilt, eh, John?

How exciting!  Some of the now defunct QuiltUniversity.com classes have been taken over by www.AcademyOfQuilting.com, so my classes are going to appear there, starting January 1.  I have been fairly busy editing the classes, and learning how to take a video on my movie camera, get it off the movie camera into my computer, then load it onto UTube (for some reason, my Mac won't accept the video off my video camera, even though it CLEARLY states on the camera box that it will), then opening it in MacTube on my Mac, converting the files to MP4, then e-mailing them to myself so I can drop them in the AcademyofQuilting.com dropbox, because no sane e-mail program will put up with the size of the files.  My head hurts.

The photo at the left is a project included in one of the classes. It's also the sample for my Creating With Cool Stuff class that is a very exciting way to get started with Art Quilts because it is actually an art quilt sampler.  In making it, you get familiar with using MistyFuse, metallic paint powders, Lutradur, fabric paints, Puff Paint, Tyvek, melted painted cellophane and distorted sheer fabrics to create the chaos that is rushing water.  Oh, I forgot Glitter Glue and sheer ribbon borders and iridescent cracked ice.  All in one day, and everybody goes home with the project all pinned (or fused) down, and you don't even have to bring a machine to class!

So, it just wouldn't be Christmas without making SOMETHING homemade, would it?  Here are two of the five scarves I dyed for presents; the other three are lavender, pink, and green, but by the time I thought about photographing them, the others were already wrapped up and hidden away (sort of, they're in with the four giant black garbage bags all wrapped up and hidden (?) in my sewing room, where nobody else goes on pain of stepping on pins, cutting themselves on rotary cutters, or getting bombarded with stuff sliding off the too-full shelves.)

I bought these white silk devore scarves, already hemmed and fringed, at Dharma Trading last year, for the outrageous price of $7.99 each.  I used my Jacquard silk dyes to dye them, and I think they turned out rather well, eh?

Speaking of Christmas, I spent all of yesterday (Friday the 20th) Christmas shopping.  All day.  Sheer torture for a Minnesotan because I HATE to spend money; fortunately, once I get the credit card out of my wallet, it's okay and I just keep it going until the credit card company wises up and cuts me off.  Luckily, I have more than one credit card.

THEN, I went home and wrapped it all up (having had the smarts to stop at the Dollar Store and get gift wrapping and tags and ribbons and stuff), so now it's DONE and nobody is talking me into going out into that madhouse again.  

By the way, I just posted a few Christmas poems I have written under the Essays tab, just for fun!

So, it's done; it's a wrap, and I only had to cut his head off once, instead of my usual 4 times or so.  It even looks like him!  The background is all printed, fussy cut fabric, so that was easy; John is painted and invisibly machine and hand appliqued.  The rocks are Puff Paint, heated up and painted.  The border is a batik, which shouldn't have gone with it, but somehow does.  

So, now that that's done, I have absolutely no excuse for not Christmas shopping, except for the rather lamentable fact that I have NO IDEA what I'm shopping for.  We (my DH and I) even went to the Mall today (and found parking, which was remarkable in and of itself), and only managed to spend the gift cards my husband had from his boss; by then, we were exhausted, went home, got a glass of wine and contemplated the lovely, 60 degree weather in California, while my relatives are slogging it out at minus 2 in Minnesota.  I think I'll go back and clean up the Studio, so if and when the spirit moves me, I'll be able to find my scissors again.